As many of my friends here know, in 2007 my Mom (SierraAddict on WPSMB) and I made our first bid at a Whitney summit. As many of my friends here also know, we failed to reach the summit hut.
A huge deterrant to reaching the peak was our pack weight. At 45 lbs, mine was the heavier of the two by a couple of pounds and by the time we reached Trail Camp I was dead.
For the last 3 years it has been one of my driving goals to get that stupid packweight down. I have whittled and wheddled and fought with the urge to throw that one thing back into my pack for just in case. Last summer I had my pack weight down to about 35 lbs.
This weekend I was participating in a leadership training through my local boy scout council (I am a fairly active leader in the program) and a part of that training was an over night backpacking trip. Low milage, little gain... just basically a teambuilding excersize that doubled as an oppurtunity to get under pack for a little bit. We split our crew gear (cooking equipment and food), we had our own gear (all the other stuff including tents and sleeping bags, etc), and we carried our own water (I knew after asking that we wouldn't be very far from trustworthy water sources at any point in time so I had one naghene bottle).
As I stepped up to the scale, I verbally estimated 25 lbs while silently praying it would be under 30. The instructor took my pack, slipped it onto the hanging scale and grinned at me "20 lbs". I was STOKED! Finally, finally, FINALLY!!!!
