My cousin and good friend Tim recently moved to Hobart,
Tasmania and we had been discussing the need to organise a hiking adventure. After a lot of research, Tim
recommended that we attempt the Mount Anne Circuit in the mountainous wilderness
of Tasmania’s South-West wilderness. This circuit is notoriously challenging both
for its topography, which is steep, rocky, muddy, and unforgiving, and for its
unpredictable and extreme weather changes. Every information guide recommends
that the hiker be prepared for any weather conditions, all year round. I should mention it is also stunningly
beautiful. The fact that it was recommended as a 4-5 day hike fit perfectly
with our timeline and sealed the deal. We set the date for the Australia Day
long weekend and organised to have the Friday off as well to give us a full
four days of hiking. It was the height of summer and we expected the weather
would be optimal.
For me, a lot of the enjoyment of outdoor adventure is in
the planning and anticipation of the event so I immediately set about preparing
myself for the challenge. There were so
many considerations for this hike, in terms of gear, food, skill, and physical
preparedness. There was the challenge of extreme weather conditions, then the
challenge of rock climbing, and the length of the hike (carrying sufficient
food and water).
Due to the challenging terrain, we decided to take the
minimalist approach to hiking gear and go ‘lightweight’. This entails only
taking the minimum of necessary items, and forgoing the luxuries (or most of
them). The theory is that with minimal
pack-weight you are free to just enjoy the experience of the hike rather than
sweating and groaning under a heavy load. The first step to going lightweight
was to begin weighing all my equipment, and tallying up the total weight of my
pack. A quick Google search will show you that lightweight hikers go crazy for
weighing everything and cutting weight wherever possible, even to the point of
trimming excess length from bootlaces or pack straps. I must admit it is
addictive once you get started.
One of the key principles of lightweight hiking
is that you should only bring items that serve multiple purposes. For example;
A knife can be used for repairs, camp fire preparation, preparing and eating
meals, cutting rope, prying or opening things; there is no need to bring a fork
and spoon when you can use a Spork that does both etc. With regard to clothing, the lightweight
mantra is “layer”. This means thinking
about each item of clothing as one layer in a system of layers. For example,
instead of bringing a really warm jacket that you can only use in sub-arctic
temperatures and makes you sweat like a strung-out junkie the moment you move,
you bring several layers (a merino under layer, a shirt, a merino mid-layer and
a shell rain-jacket). The combination of layers supplies the same warmth, but
is much more versatile, and can be varied for many conditions. A good test to layering
is that you should be able to wear all the clothing you bring at the same time.
This phase of the planning took a lot of forethought and some difficult
decision making. A particular struggle for me was the decision to bring a
lightweight knife rather than one of my favourite, heavy duty ones. You need to
be ruthless.
I also meticulously organised my meals for each day of the
trip. I estimated how many calories I required each day and then began to sort
out all meals, including snacks, based on a high caloric diet to give Maximum energy
for minimum weight. To complete the process, I sealed each day’s food in
separate Ziplocs to make it easy to know what food to eat each day during the hike.
I also acquired some new items, including a pack, some lightweight trail runners, and a new cooking pot but I'll post about these later.
The preparation was done and now it was time for the adventure!
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