It isnt though, for those of us that are passionate about backpacking.
I decided this year that since it takes so long to get in top backpacking shape, and I feel so strong in midsummer after a few backpack trips, why not try to stay in shape throughout the year? Why not try to maintain that strong feeling as long as possible.
So I have been carrying an old backpack full of dumbbell weights on my before dawn walks this fall. I plan to keep on doing this every morning right on through the winter.
It is amazing how gradually your body gets accustomed to the added weight, until eventually you hardly notice it. When I first started my legs would be sore after a long walk. Now the weight feels like it belongs there, and I walk just as fast as I do without it. My legs never get sore.
I always make sure to carry my ID with me, in anticipation of the day when I am stopped by the police who figure I am coming from a camp down by the river.
Trekking poles and two dogs in front of me might help me look more like a backpacker, rather than a transient though. (I hope anyway). Actually I am independent enough (eccentric) to not really care what others think of me.
My two border collies love these early morning walks when the streets are quiet and they can pick up the scents of nightime wanderers - usually foxes or raccoons. And they think I am allright for taking them out so early, before I head out to work - what else matters?
I believe my prolonged training really helped during my last backpack trip, in October. I went up some extremely steep slopes with ease. I hiked all day long exploring from my basecamp. I came back ready for a nap, and hungry, but not exhausted or sore.
A strong body is the means to experience those mysterious and renewing mountain days and nights. I figure whatever I have to do to enable me to have more of those times, as long as possible, is worth it.
On this last trip I heard elk bugling out in the distance, between the rustling of the aspen leaves, that were in their fall glory. Coyotes yipped at night, down in the meadow below the hill I was camped on. I found a fresh bear track in the mud a few hundred yards from camp. On one night a sudden thunderstorm rolled in over the divide, lighting up the entire mountain range with lightning flashes. At times the thunder was so powerful that I could feel the mountain shake beneath me, as I lied in my tent with my two dogs, warm and dry.
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