Freight
The thing is, I am going to have about 70 liters of storage space for the roadless coast leg of the Olympic Grand Circle, a section of the journey that I expect will take about 5 days to complete, maybe 6. If you stop to think about all the backpackers that are on the trail for that same amount of time, many of them are carrying a comparable load, some even less.
For me, the revelations have come not in what equipment I will need to take, but the items I will be able to leave behind. It’s not that less is more; it’s not. It’s more that the reality of limited storage has enabled me to work on getting the essentials to be smaller, lighter and more packable.
I still have a tent, but it’s a light one. I still take a stove, but it fits inside of my coffee cup, along with the fuel. I still take a sleeping bag, but it’s a summer bag for sure, very light and eminently packable. It’s been a game, this packing of the freight, and I have already learned a great deal. It is good to pare life down to somewhere near the essentials every now and then, just to remind ourselves what is really necessary.