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Ultralight Backpacking - Testing Skills
By Steve Gillman, Thu Dec 8th
On Lake Michigan, at the end of the Stonington Peninsula,there's a stretch of empty beach. Part of the Hiawatha NationalForest, it's framed on either side by private property, with noeasy access. To walk on the beach, however, is legal. Past thelast cabin, the public land starts, and goes for six or sevenmiles. This is where I would test my ultralight backpackingskills and gear. I hiked a few miles the first day and explored the woods, whereI ate wild blueberries for an hour. Then I set up camp behind asmall ridge on the beach. I collected dry grass along the edgeof the forest, which made a nice mattress. I pitched mybackpacking tarp fairly high, so the breeze would keep out themosquitos. When camp was set, I went for a swim. This area has many crayfish, which look and taste just likeminiature lobsters. After swimming I caught a dozen under therocks in shallow water, and carried them back to camp in awhipped-cream container I found. You never know what will washup on a beach. I boiled them with some cattail hearts and evening primroseroots, in my cheap three ounce pan. It made a good meal with thecrackers I brought. (You remove the meat from the tail of thecrayfish, after cooking.) It was summer, so I hadn't brought a sleeping bag. At seventeenounces, my bag wouldn't have added much to my packweight ofeight pounds. I just wanted to try using a nylon sleeping bagliner I had recently sewn (5 ounces). I wore
my clothes to bed,including a hat I made from the sleeve of an old thermal shirt(1 ounce). I slept well, and ate granola bars for breakfast.Water was all around, so I only had a 16-ounce plastic popbottle (1 ounce) and a few iodine tablets for purification. Itook a good drink before I packed up. I found fresh bear tracks on the beach. The bear had walkedwithin 60 yards of where I slept. I had a freon horn (2 ounces)that I'd bought after reading that people have used it'shigh-decible shriek to scare off bears. I pulled it out. Ifollowed the tracks for an hour, but only because I was going inthat direction. I had two old cabins to explore, another patch of berries I knewabout, and a beach full things to check out. The strangest itemthat regularly washes up is light bulbs. I take them home to usethem. After years of finding these, a sailor finally told methat they throw them off the ships to shoot at them in thewater. I was finding the ones they missed. The next day I headed back. The rain I expected never came, so Ididn't get to test my garbage bag rainsuit (2 ounces), but I hadused a similar one with success before. Overall, I was happywith my ultralight "test." Of course, you can get bywith fragile clothing and gear when you're hiking an open beach.Oh, and I never did see the bear.
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