Remember that TV series Will it Blend? On the show, they took the most random things and put them in this souped up blender to see if it would…blend (duh). Well, I’m doing that today, but instead of a blender, I have a 40 liter backpack that I’m trying to pack with *a lot* of stuff.
This weekend, I’m headed to Royse City, Texas for the Intermediate level course with Texas Survival School. This morning I took some time to pull out my gear for packing.
Now, this blog post is a bit more serendipitous than the others I’ve done so far, because I sort of challenged myself to see if I could fit *all the things* I’ll be taking with me. What prompted this?
Back in the year-that-shall-not-be-named (*cough*2020*cough*), I took a solo trip to Shenandoah to hike a section of the AT.
At the time, the only two packs I had were my 75 liter Osprey, and my 40 liter Vaude. I knew I didn’t want to haul around my 75 liter pack, so I ventured to pack everything I would need in the 40 liter Vaude. (Remember my “17 Essential Items” post where I said that anything smaller than 45 liters would be difficult to pack the standard amount of gear? This was when I formed that opinion.)
So, there I was, packing the standard amount of stuff (basically, everything I have in my “17 Essential Items” post, minus a sleeping bag, plus a sleeping bag liner and a hammock)… Full disclosure, that backpacking trip to Shenandoah was kind of my re-introduction back to the trail, because I had been on a fairly lengthy break after my first baby was born in 2017. In February 2020, I’d had my second baby, but with all the madness, uncertainty, and soul-crushing isolation that came with COVID, I was in a fairly fragile mental state. Post-partum hormones are hard. Post-partum hormones plus life in the time of COVID: harder. I was never formally diagnosed, but I suspect I was on the fringes of post-partum depression during that time. Life was tough (as it was for many)…and sadly, memories of my second child as a baby are fuzzy, because I was in such a fog at that time.
…ALL THAT TO SAY…I was a bit out of practice with packing, so I was pretty optimistic about packing a 40 liter pack with so much gear.
Well, I did it! I got all my gear into the 40 liter pack….but there was cussing. And sweating. And my fingers hurt from all the shoving and straining. And I took a step back and realized that the point of that hiking trip was to get out of my fog and relax. And if packing my bag each day was going to be such a challenge, that was kind of defeating the purpose. So I bought my 45+10 liter deuter pack and never looked back.
But here we are. I have once more decided to make my 40 liter Vaude earn its closet space as more than a day pack.
Texas Survival School provides a list of gear you should bring to their courses. There’s the baseline required gear, then the optional gear. Within the required gear, they suggest bringing two to three changes of clothes. The first thing I did was pull out the clothes I would wear, as well as choose my extra clothes. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m all for wearing the same thing each day you’re out there (again, with the exception of undies). If anything, I bring one spare set of clothing, just in case. (Call me the smelly kid all you want; clothes can add a lot of weight.) And also, after my experience at Dinosaur Valley, I’m bringing two extra pairs of socks. (Read that blog if you don’t know why that’s significant.)
I packed the extra clothes into the compression sack, then referred to the “Required Gear” list to get that all arranged. Here’s what that looks like.
This is all still pretty tame and would *easily* fit into my 40 liter pack with room to spare. But I’m not done yet.
In addition to this required gear, there are a few things on the “optional list” I’m going to bring. Here’s what all that looks like.
With the tent and camp chair added to the mix, I was starting to get a little nervous about whether I’d be able to make it work with the 40 liter pack. But, I also knew I still wasn’t finished.
After checking things off the required and optional lists, I knew there were yet a few more items I wanted to bring. Here’s the final picture of *all the things*.
That’s a lot of stuff. And I know what you’re thinking…
“Hiker Chick, isn’t the point of the survival class learning how to survive in the backcountry *without* all this gear?”
Yes; you’re absolutely right. My goal is to eventually take and pass the “knife only” class TSS offers, so at some point, I’m gonna hafta try this out without all the extras. That being said, I’m still framing what I’m learning around if a normal hike goes bad. What stuff would I have with me? For example, I will *always* bring my emergency kit and my water filter. I will *always* bring my toiletries, because not brushing my teeth isn’t an option. I will *always* bring my folding knife in addition to my full tang knife (two is one, one is none). See where I’m going?
Of course, the exception to the *always* is the knife only class, but I’m still working my way up.
So, let’s answer the original question: Will *all the things* fit into a 40 liter pack?
A few concessions: my tent and camp chair were not going to fit into the bag. I knew that from the get-go, so I didn’t even try. But I did have some extra gear straps that I used to lash both of these to the bottom of my pack (we’ll see if those gear loops hold; pretty sure they’re only intended for trekking poles 🤔). Everything else fit inside the cavity snuggly. I actually prefer this, though, because when I get to the course location, I can detatch my tent first, put it up, then get the optional stuff out of the bag. After that, I’ll repack it with only the “required gear”, if needed. Obviously I wasn’t going to pack the clothes I’ll wear, or my knives. I’ll be wearing all that. My first aid kit will attach to the hip belt when I put on the pack, so that’s why it’s still sitting there.
This was a fun challenge. I admit I was getting nervous when I saw *all the things* laid out. But since I’ve been getting lots of packing practice lately, it ended up being easy, peasy.
What do you think? Did I miss anything? Are you curious about a specific piece of gear I’m bringing? Let’s talk in the comments below, or you can email me at Astrid@IndieAuthorAstrid.com.
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