South Beyond 6000

After last weekend's glorius hike and with this past weekend's hike botched (work, weather & timing); I've had time to decide to undertake the South Beyond 6000, a tour of 40 of the highest [41] peaks East of the Mississippi. I even ordered the guide book for it.

All of this got me looking up lightweight backpacking (well, mostly reading the ultralight websites with a grain of salt). I've never weighed stuff out to optimize weight, I go by feel and a modicum of common sense. I've never minded carrying a 35-ish pound pack. My pack is comfortable, the workout is good and packs always get lighter as you hike... Now I'm gearing up to do the weighing thing with a scale. My goal is 10% base pack weight reduction without elimination, i.e. I can't cut anything out, I can only make stuff lighter: like I'm still bringing the 7oz of Knob Creek, but the steel hip flask has got to go. Time to begin drilling holes in the toothbrush!

Hopefully I will be able to view a decent chunk of the list this season, including some bushwhacks and out of the way peaks. I made the mistake of doing all of the 30 or so popular peaks of the ADK's 46r; and that's about as far as it got.

Anyway,

3 down,

37 to go.