The pre-1984 McHale Packs label.

Just in case backpackers do not know, Alpine Style is a style of climbing big mountains that is the opposite of 'expedition style' of setting up a chain of stocked support camps clear to the summit. I'm not sure if Reinhold Messner coined the term or who did but it was in the 70s. I used it as my label name from 1977 until 1983. I used Alpine Style as my label to empasize that if you do go alpine-style then you better have a failsafe and ultimately reliable pack.

Below: Me in the High Sierra in 1969 a short time before my solo 'unsupported without resupply' 11 day John Muir Trail trip that I began with a total load weight, including pack weight, of 40 lbs. Backpacking has not really changed in over 35 years. You can see from the photo that nice light down sweaters were available back then also. As opposed to what some people new to backpacking have claimed, there was plenty of light gear available 35 years ago for Alpine Style backpacking. Some have also claimed that unsupported thru-hiking is new. What's old is new again - that's all.

The photo below was taken at Wallace Creek Camp during an Onion Valley to Whitney walk just before I did the Muir Trail. See my story lower down.

Below I tell Eric Ryback story to emphasize again that unsupported thru-hiking is not new as some have claimed.

Eric Ryback, below, on the cover of his PCT book. He was 18 years old when he did the first thru-hike of the PCT in 1970. Not only was it the first, he helped the forest service lay future plans for the PCT. Many sections of the trail did not exist when Eric did it. Based on his book he did the AT the year before! I've started reading it and was gratified to find out that his plan was to walk with only 5 food stops, which further supports my argument that this type of backpacking is nothing new. His plan was to go 375 miles on each of his 5 pack loads. That would be impressive even today! The first photo in the book has Rainier in it. He did the trail north to south and what could be one of the most interesting facts is that the North Cascades Hwy did not exist then. I'm really glad I picked up this book. I'm not sure which Kelty he has but I had a Kelty BB5 external then, aftering retiring my Magnesium Camp Trails External. His looks like a BB5 since they had the large rear pocket. I've finished the book and he did hold to his plan of 375 miles per pack load. At one point in the book he gives a glimpse of his base weight at 30 lbs ( was probably a bit lighter! ) including pack, 35mm Nikon with 100mm lense and light magnesium monopod. He also used a tarp for tenting. Although he used Levis he customized at least the first pair so that they laced in the calf area and could also act as gaitors when needed. It's a great story with lots of great pics throughout the entire book. One funny anomoly in the book I have: At the end is a shot or 2 of Washington's Mt. Adams and it is credited as being in S. Cal! He did not set a time record but you cannot argue that he did not do it in the best 'STYLE' possible. They don't make teenagers like they used too!

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My Muir Trail trip was also back when it was not about how fast you did things but about just doing them. Even back then the Muir Trail was one of the classic challenges - I can't remember how I became interested in the trail, but I know I was supposed to time things so I would meet a particular person at Mineral King for a ride home, and when I got there THEY were not there! I had to do an unsupported hitch -hike home to L.A.!

It was a natural thing to see just how far you could go on a pack full of food - that's backpacking - look at Ryback! It was common practice to cut the tops off plastic baggies and leave the toothbrush ( or cut the handle off ) at home and put in some mileage. I did what was common except that I may have been younger than most. Starting with a total load of 40 lbs, I was out there for 11days in mid September and I challenge anyone to do it more effectively and more comfortably today than I did with my one small pack load 36 years ago. One of my last days on the trail went from sleeping at the Rae Lakes and then going over Glenn Pass and Forester Pass the same day and sleeping at Wallace Creek. I think that day was 36 miles. Interestingly, Ryback did this same section in about the same way. I probably did it because of my skimpy sleeping gear. After that, I went on down the Kern Canyon and finished at Mineral King because I had done a 60 mile trip earlier that summer with some friends that included going over Whitney - no point in going there again. I'm sure many other people over the years have done similar things and to call long, light, unsupported trips a 'new' style, and unthinkable in the past ( they claim that to do trips like this comfortably was unthinkable even a decade ago - ' they ' is the company I've gradually been deleting from this story ) is a little off the mark and shows either a complete ignorance of the past or a lack of respect for it - makes great marketing style though - pretend you are the first and fake out the newbies - pretend there is no history - like everyone that hiked before 1995, 1985, or 1975, were in the dark ages. Going light and far is simply not new - it used to be called backpacking. What's new is that more people than ever before have stepped into the trap of their pack being the least effective piece of gear they own just to save some weight.

There certainly was a gear glut in the 80s and 90s that included the invention of the 2 lb Goretex rain parka and etc..... ! While at the same time effective light gear from the past like climbers half-bags disappeared from the shelves - who wants to suffer in half a sleeping bag? I'm sure someone is claiming to have recently invented those also. The new generation of backpackers wanted comfort and damn if they weren't going to carry it. For many people it was fun to buy all the new gear of the 80s and 90s, but they soon discovered they could not carry all of it all of the time! They truly were a NEW generation of gear buyers. Now the whole world could supply itself at the used gear stores! These NEW people needed couching and that seems to be what the 90s were about. If you think the new crusaders of the New Muir Trail will be going more comfortably than I was with my magnesium Camp Trails pack .....welcome to the 'NEW WORLD' of backpackers hunched over with their silcoat bags trying to escape the pain of them with every stride. The Camp Trails Mag frame was about the lightest of the time, 3+ lbs.,(I don't know the exact weight of it but it was very adequately light) and if I had a choice today between it and ANY brand of silcoat bag, I would take that frame without hesitation. As it was, my load was mostly food and the total load from midpoint on was pretty light. I recall something like a 15 lb load or less near the end which is not bad for the high Sierra - almost 4 decades before todays obsession with base weights! I know I still had food when I finished. If the atmosphere had been that of racing like today I could easily have left some food behind, gone lighter, and gone farther each day. I remember though, even being out there for 11 days, I felt like I went through pretty quickly and had little time to explore. You went as light as you could but there was not as much obsession about the actual weights (but there was some), the numbers and lists, like there is now - you went as light as you could and then thought about other things. There was a Schoolteacher doing the trail and we'd hook up and walk together once in awhile, although for the most part we were separate. I would pass him up in the evenings because he was an early starter - unlike me that got up around 8:30 and walked till I couldn't see any more. Although he was going light too, we never talked about gear - hell, we didn't have any and it was the most basic stuff. Most of the load was food and we may have talked about that. I miss those little pemmican bars they used to make - the new ones just aren't the same. We talked about real things, and what was on my mind and his was Vietnam. He was the only person that ever gave me any advice regarding the draft and war. He was the one that ever really opened my eyes about what was going on and that's what I remember talking about - period.

If you read the rest of my letter way above this section, I try to make the argument that there are limits to the light thing in regards to packs if you really want to feel your best - there can always be a lighter pack but so what? I could have my brain and spine removed to save some weight too. Yeah, wouldn't it be great for some if I had no will to write this stuff. Things just weren't that different back then if you were smart. I used a very light blanket - no sleeping bag, a poncho - no tent - no other rain gear, and the absolute minimum of clothing, but I had a light down sweater made by Alp Sport that apparently was ahead of it's time - I lost weight - just like people do these days that put in the miles. I had a light urethane pad that rolled up in it's own light nylon cover. Once the trip was over and I tried to go back to those great home meals I vomitted for several days until I got used to the shear volume of food! THAT only happened one more time about 5 years later when a friend and I went in from the west and climbed Clarence King WITHOUT food! Now that's Alpine Style. I was such a visionary!

The only thing that would be significantly lighter these days would be the stove. I had a Primus and that was not so bad. The poncho would be silcoat these days instead of 200D fabric. Overall the load would not be that much lighter these days. The only thing left is the pack - I know what discomfort is and I know it when I see it in others. Todays light packs have nothing on what I used back then. I think most of the people carrying frameless silcoat bags ( no brand reference here ) these days loaded with 35 lbs and more would be more comfortable and better off with the Magnesium framed Camp Trails external I had, and I say that with absolute sincerity. I am not impressed with people today that carry packs lighter than they need to be and should be and then deny the discomfort they are in.

.........When I snorted some sugar I discovered, speckled on the rocks at the top of Pinchot Pass, and those occasional M&Ms I would find on the trail, I was probably officially cheating on the whole new Alpine Style thing - you got to take advantage sometimes - spilled abandoned food! I carried peanut M&Ms but had to ration them, so when one showed up somewhere......! I know food is no lighter these days. There were freeze dried pork chops back then too. One of my favorites was Rich-Moor Freeze dried Vegetable Beef Stew. Sugar, rice, and milk in my light aluminum measuring cup/pot was always a treat. My Mother would bring home, from the hospital were she worked, these packets of high energy powdered food to mix in water. I took them also. I remember being bonked before the climb up to Rae lakes and after a nap and a drink of that weird vanilla powder food I really kicked going up the hill. People made mistakes back then too. I passed people burning the excessive amounts of food they had brought - there was only one big pile at some Vidette Meadows camp and someone mentioned that the Boyscouts had just cleared out. I may have scored some powdered milk there! It was nuts even back then. It just SEEMS like along time ago because we hadn't landed on the moon yet - that was later that year though. But you know what? There are people that claim THAT didn't happen either. You gotta love the revisionist thing! Maybe we should start working on Really getting to the moon and we should all start Alpine Style Thru-Hiking because these are, as far as anyone knows, new concepts. Who knows, maybe I WAS the first to Alpine Stylize the Muir Trail.