I’ve never been a miles-at-all-costs guy even when I was full of energy. I’m ancient now so my relaxation, watching the mountains time, is even more valuable.
I think shorter days, though I have never ever been a miles-at-all-costs person. I have always stopped to take in views. I have always enjoyed getting to a campsite mid-afternoon.
My pack is lighter, but still too heavy. I eat a lot, and food is heavy. But still, I need to do better. I'm working on getting rid of 8-10 pounds. Also, we all need to acknowledge that 8-10 pounds on our bodies counts too.
Dude, you are my hero. I love the Sisters, and have been saying that an 8 mile day is perfect since sometime in my mid 40s. I hope to still be out there in my 80s!!!
For sure, even when I was young in ancient times, a 10 mile day with a pack was tops. We usually did 5 or 6 beyond the trailhead to good water. eventually a base camp and then day hikes. That plan worked well for a lot of years. At 77 it is all behind me now, but great memories. Keep on truck’n!
The longest day we ever had was when we got run out of the North Cascades too late in the year. We woke up to an ice and snow storm, and the sky was getting darker. We were above timberline. It sleeted, rained, and snowed all the way back to the car. That was 18 miles. That night it snowed over a foot.
I just spent 3 nights in the Three Sisters with a friend. In 4 days, we backpacked only 15 miles or so. Setting up a base camp and exploring/roaming is the way to go for us. I just turned 80 this past weekend.
That sounds like a rough scenario and sometimes you have no choice. We have had to do a couple of forced marches due to overly habituated bears and fires here in northern Cal. 80 is a good run, my back can’t take it anymore so I gave all my gear to my son to prevent a stupid decision, ha!
I can say, that after this trip, I had a cold and felt weak for several days. One reason for this hike was to leave some ashes from my lifelong best friend and outdoor partner at a place we both loved. I left some in the high Sierras last year and this winter I’ll snowshoe (I hope) to our favorite ridge to leave the rest.
Oh man I hear you. One of my best backpacking partners, who lived in Bend passed away this year. In fact the Sisters was our last trip together a few years back.
75 years is fantastic, very fortunate that you were able to have a last trip together. It is always sad loosing someone with that kind of history. None of the other guys that I backpacked with are physically able to go any more. But we had a great run. The Marbles and the Alps are in our backyard and we took many trips to the Winds before social media made them a destination.
You know what it’s like to lose a great trail partner.
Too many places have become destroyed by the selfie crowd. Three years ago, we spent a week in the Winds. But I found a tiny, little-used entry trail. When we got there, we had a huge lake all to ourselves. We saw no one at that lake all week. We did see people we went out day hiking, but even then we didn’t see very many. We were away from the top 10 hits places.
It’s the same story in Southeast Utah. It’s the same in much of the Washington Cascades. And Mount Hood is more crowded than the nearby city parks.
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u/mtntrail 2d ago
Been there, done that. Takes a true backcountry pro to recognize and appreciate the less strenuous aspects of the game!