Backpackinglight.com puts lightweight hiking gear to the ultimate test

Ryan Jordan likes to keep things light.

But that doesn’t mean life is easy. Or inexpensive. Or that there’s any lack of misery.

By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

On the other hand, his combination of savvy, strong legs and high-tech products let him cover some incredible distances under his own steam.

Earlier this summer, he walked 225 miles in the Beartooth Mountains in 10 days, carrying a pack that never weighed more than 20 pounds.

Now he’s made a business out of his enthusiasm for ultralightweight backpacking.

The 33-year-old Bozeman resident, who has a Ph.D. in civil engineering, also is the publisher, editor and ramrod of an online business he calls http://www.backpackinglight.com

The company puts new products through rigorous field testing, evaluating manufacturers’ assertions and publishing the results for people who, as one reader described them, are "gear junkies."

Jordan has been fanatically trying to reduce the weight of his backpack ever since he had a summer job in the Olympic Mountains, teaching Boy Scouts how to backpack.

Then, about three years ago, he became increasingly frustrated with gear manufacturers who produced gear that either "didn’t work or wasn’t that light."

He started writing critiques of that equipment and a couple years ago turned those endeavors into a subscription-based Web publishing business.

Anybody can log on to his site for a sample, but premium subscribers pay $24.95 a year for full access to product reviews, editorials and writeups of trips Jordan and others have taken.

His market research shows at least 40,000 people visit the site at least once a month. Their average age is 47 and they spend an average of $1,000 to $2,000 a year on gear.

"These are not passive enthusiasts," he said of his readers.

Plus, lightweight backpacking gear is the fastest growing sector in the vast market for outdoor recreation equipment.

"Three years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a two-pound down sleeping bag," Jordan said. "Now, there’s about 20 of them on the market."

But finding the best one is a challenge. That’s where Jordan and his fleet of volunteer gear testers — some say abusers — do their stuff.

None of those testers — they live in North America, Norway, Australia and New Zealand, and all are trained in science or engineering — receive any pay. But they get to keep the gear they test.

The Web site is now 2 years old. It accepts no sponsorship or advertising, but has gained enough credibility that manufacturers come to Jordan, asking him to test their stuff.

He also works with them on product design.

And there’s some amazing stuff out there. Most of it, Jordan said, comes from "cottage manufacturers."

Jordan modeled some of it in his backyard last week.

His personal base kit weighs in at less than 6 pounds. That doesn’t include food or water, but it does include clothing, a sleeping bag and pad, backpack, cookware and stove, and a first aid kit.

The alcohol stove weighs just 0.4 ounces. A titanium cup doubles as a cookpot and weighs in at 2.1 oz. His down sleeping bag is a 1-pounder and he beds down in a high-tech bivy sack under a poncho pitched like a pup tent.

Almost everything serves more than one purpose. For example, the 10-ounce down jacket is also part of his sleep system. So is the poncho.

"There is no lighter combination of shelter," he said. "The philosophy is to get people thinking in terms of clothing and sleeping gear as a system."

Some people have criticized him and other ultralight proponents, accusing them of putting people in harm’s way by sending them into the woods without enough gear.

But he maintains a lack of knowledge gets people into trouble more often than does a lack of stuff.

Tom Murphy agrees. He’s a prodigious hiker, a well-known backcountry photographer and long-term veteran of Park County Search and Rescue.

People can get themselves in trouble carrying "too much stuff," Murphy said. "A guy carrying a 90-pound pack is going to beat himself up. He’s more likely to get hurt. Your best tool to protect yourself is your head."

Murphy pointed to the example of John Muir, who trekked all over, carrying almost nothing. People in India and Africa do the same thing.

But weather can be a problem in the northern Rockies. To go as lightly as Jordan does, "you’d have to have a much higher pain threshold," Murphy said.

Jordan agrees that he endures a lot of misery, but mostly when he’s testing products.

When he’s doing one of those 200-mile pleasure walks, "it’s actually very comfortable," he said.

For one thing, a light pack means you need less food. He eats about 2,000 calories of freeze-dried food a day, walks 20 miles a day and said he never loses any weight on his trips.

He knows his body well enough to pace himself, to give it the proper amount of food and water, to balance his exertion to his intake so that he sleeps warmer, thereby avoiding the need for a heavier sleeping bag.

Since he relies on down insulation for its superior warmth-to-weight ratio, that means he needs the right skills and materials to keep it absolutely dry, all the time. Down is useless when wet.

And lightweight materials can get expensive. He said a novice to lightweight backpacking can build a base kit that weighs 20 pounds for about $250. But the 6-pounder, the one where the only padding in your pack straps consists of your spare socks, will cost as much as $1,500.

And what you gain in lightness you can lose in durability. Some of that stuff won’t last forever.

Still, his readers are avid and most seem to appreciate his efforts.

They are "working through the real science of clothing and sleep systems," one hiker wrote from New Zealand.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/08/24/news/packingbzbigs.txt