Wt for the Alpine Walk

[jjoz58]

Hi Guys - I am doing the Alpine walk with my wife and daughter starting mid November, from Mt Hotham to Tharwa. By changing over some of our gear to light wt gear I have got our packs, with 8 days food and 3 lts of water, down to 21kg for me and 16.5 for the females. I'm carrying most of the heavy? stuff and group equipment. We have the capacity to carry another 3 lts of water each if required.

We are from Qld so probably have a little extra warm weather gear and I'm not willing to go to just tarp like tents due the the changeable conditions in Nov/Dec. I'm also used to carrying 60+kg in the army with packs no where near as comfortable as civie packs. Our tents, 2, are only 1.7kg each, sleeping bags with liners and mats 1.560kg, I just don't see how we can get lower.

People experienced with that walk have told me we are still carrying to much? What are your thoughts?

[Empacitator]

Can you post a list of everything you are carrying?

Taking light(ish) gear is a good start but it's still very easy to take too much gear, or multiple items that are not necessary in a group situation

[Moondog55]

I'm impressed!
@ a kilo per day of food that is a base weight of 10 kilos; I have never got my load for that area that light when assuming the worst weather for the time of year and plenty of comfort at night
Yes you may be carrying one jumper too much and you may be able to shave off some weight by judicious pruning but without seeing the full packing list I can't say for sure

[Empty]

"I'm also used to carrying 60+kg in the army with packs no where near as comfortable as civie packs".

Probably needs a separate thread JJOZ but I would be fascinated to hear your insights into the army's rationale that they can load men up with such huge weights and still expect that they can function enough to carry out their duty. Notwithstanding the incredible fitness routine employed by the military it still seems staggering that the army operates this way.

I saw a doco on blokes trying to get into the special forces and not many could cope with the excercise where they had to do a 2 day solo trek carrying 50 kilos from memory.

Anyway, don't want to sabotage your thread but you have piqued my interest.

[Moondog55]

Try being a radio operator, that much plus the radio! or a machine gunner add another 15kg. Why do you think the Infantry are called grunts? Take a step "Grunt" take another step "Grunt" LOL perhaps a better nickname would be "Mules"

It depends on how fast you need to move I guess, I can remember one winter when I weighed my pack thinking it must weigh at least 80 kilos and was shocked to find it only weighed 55

[jjoz58]

I've uploaded a PDF file with a list of equipment and wts. I've increased the gas we usually use in Qld but it is probably the only thing I am worried about. Caches about every 6-7 days. And it's 7 days of food not eight.

All the food we use is freeze dried, except for most snacks and breakfast, which I pack myself so we get a meal and taste we like. I've also found the prepackaged meals are a bit small after a full day of walking. This is more than we eat in Qld and on a couple of trial walks the females can't eat it all in a day. The wonders of freeze dried food.
Breakfast is usually oats with freeze dried fruit or pancakes.
Lunch we do chunky soups, wraps
Mains are usually about 400 grams when re-hydrated
Snacks - nuts, dried fruit, bars and chocolate
Also I have special extra's of cranberry orange scones with jam and butternut biscuits with honey which I cook up in a pan.

[Mark F]

I won't comment on your main items, they seem fine and to start changing them becomes expensive. Dealing with the low/no cost things below could cut 500 grams from each pack. Also remember that you can ditch items at each resupply drop along with your rubbish.

You seem to have way too much gas. I assume the quantity on the sheet is for a 1 week section. I would only carry two 230g canisters but 3 if your are concerned. Remember that most of the time you can use fires for cooking if you run a bit short.

You seem to have both headlights and torches. You will have relatively long daylight hours so I wouldn't be worrying about carrying spares.

Your water carrying system seems very heavy so I assume you are using bladders or rigid bottles rather than flexi bottles or pet bottles. I generally find 3 litres capacity enough so a 2 l and a 1 l flex bottle or 2 x 1.5 l pet soft drink bottles - weight each person about 60g. Even going for 5 litres per person you should be under 100g per person.

Lots of other small savings to be made - why carry 60 metres or paracord? 10 metres should be plenty.

Have a look at the PP bowls that come packaging frozen dinners - eg Lean Cuisine. 18 grams 500ml capacity and virtually unbreakable.

The recharging setup seems a bit heavy. Once you get a couple of days out from Hotham there is almost no phone reception until Thredbo and then once you pass Jagungal none until Canberra. The gps will mainly be needed in the first week so (until you get to the NSW border) perhaps just carry one anker to Thredbo and swap to the second or recharge there. Carry a pack of lithium AA's for the gps as a backup.

Hope this helps.

Toiletries seem heavy - share, repackage and put extras in your resupplies. This applies to several other items as well.

[johnf]

Food looks a bit light @571g pd especially as is extended trip, not just the 7 days. I would check and count the calories. Can't find anything much to reduce but not sure you need so much gas with those simple meals, have you tested how much you use? What water containers are you using? I use one of those fold up flat plastic types which are about 35g for 2l. Also you may not need to carry 3l every day depending on where the water sources are.

[jjoz58]

Water - we carry a 2lt and 3lt Osprey Hydraulics with one feeder tube since they connect to any bag and a 1 lt bottle. The lt bottle is only 40grams, 100gr that was a guess. Only ever load the 2lt bag unless the water situation dictates otherwise. Just back from a 3 day walk and the girls couldn't eat all the food doing 18km a day. Even I had trouble eating all of some of the main meals.
Para cord is just one of those things I always have in the pack!
Power - The females use their phones for photo's, lots of photo's, plus I need to keep the Inreach Satellite Communicator, which we use instead of a PLB, charged. They say the GPS batteries, rechargeable or lithium, are good for 16hrs but I have used a set in one day, especially if you are taking photo's. Since the recommended is lithium batteries, 2 a day or 4 every 3 days, is an expensive preposition. I like to leave it on when we are walking so I get accurate tracks.

[madmacca]

I agree with many of Mark F's comments.

At 10-14 kg base weight (ie. excluding consumables) you aren't doing too badly, but there is a fair bit of redundancy in your gear.

With 3 headlights between you, you already have redundancy there. You can borrow from each other if one fails. Ditch the torches. LED's don't fail like the old globes did. Perhaps 1 pair of spare batteries between you in case a switch gets knocked to "on" in your pack.

You shouldn't need a spare stove - a fire is your backup.

You could probably ditch 1 filter - boiling is your backup if it fails. There are really only 3 places you NEED to purify anyway - Mita River/Morass Creek, Johnnies Top/Buenba, and Whites River (although some may be more risk averse than me).

Ditch the spare trousers - wear the thermals or rain pants for decency if you need to wash your main pair.

I'd invest in a windscreen (I use some aluminium flashing from bunnings) which will dramtically improve fuel economy and ditch a 230 g gas cannister. btw, a 230 g cannister is 230 g gas + 110 g cannister walls = 340g. You could probably go with just 1 460 g cannister and pick up another 230 g at your resupply point on day 7, but your wife and daughter's risk tolerance may be lower than mine.

A 500 g polar fleece is pretty heavy duty, and will take care of most conditions you are likely to encounter. Even in a summer blizzard, by layering your merino t shirts and thermal tops under the fleece, you probably won't need the skivvies.

If your phones have a radio in them (may need headphones to act as an aerial), then the wind-up radio isn't necessary.

Most of the time you won't need to carry 3 L of water - usually you will pass 2-3 water points during the day. But on hot days, or where there are long distances between water points, sometimes you need to. But you will also need to see how wet the 2014 winter and spring are.

You probably need to compare the capacity of the phone & GPS batteries with the 15000 mAh anker, but with a charging panel, you can probably ditch 1 anker. You can charge up to 90% of a battery pretty easily - the final 10% takes a lot more. But you can probably comfortably keep all your batteries charged at 50-90%. If you are stopping at Thredbo, then you have the opportunity for a full recharge on AC there. How many watts is the panel?

Now the bad news:

I'd take along a spare roll of TP. If someone gets the trots and needs it, they need it.
Hand sanitiser is the easiest and simplest way of staying clean and healthy. A 30 ml bottle each. Mine lives in a ziplock baggie with my TP, so there are no excuses.
The general planning figure for food is 700-800 g per person per day. While your wife and daughter may not eat all that much on a weekend walk, I think you will find this changes on a multi-day walk when the body can no longer get by just drawing down its reserves - their appetite will almost certainly increase dramatically.

[Moondog55]

"[The general planning figure for food is 700-800 g per person per day. While your wife and daughter may not eat all that much on a weekend walk, I think you will find this changes on a multi-day walk when the body can no longer get by just drawing down its reserves - their appetite will almost certainly increase dramatically.]"

This is true, but you can add extra rations at each dump for a huge feed at each resupply

[jjoz58]

The general planning figure for food is 700-800 g per person per day. While your wife and daughter may not eat all that much on a weekend walk, I think you will find this changes on a multi-day walk when the body can no longer get by just drawing down its reserves - their appetite will almost certainly increase dramatically.

Is that figure rehydrated or dry?

Did the figures, last night, by rehydrating a days food.

Breakfast - 120grams
Snacks - 150grams -
Lunch - 170grams
Dinner - 350grams Total = 790grams per person

Some days are more as I have bread mixes for those special times or supper.

The caches will contain lots of luxury items and solid food for while we are there and a meal or two afterwards.

Gas - it's a lot more than we would normally use but I anticipate a lot more hot brews as well. We are doing a 6 day walk in June, Tewantin to Rainbow Beach, so that should refine the gas requirements.

People keep mentioning using fires, I was under the impression they are banned in the alpine region or is that just when there is a high fire danger?

[madmacca]

No, that figure is dry. Many weekend walkers use a planning figure of 2750-3000 calories per day, but for a longer walk you are probably looking at around 3500-4000 calories per day. Protein and carbs are both about 4 calories per gram, while fat is 9 calories per gram. A typical dehy'ed menu comes out at about 4 calories per gram (there is some moisture in there), so 600 grams per person per day is not likely to be enough. If you start deliberately selecting some higher fat foods, you can get this to around 5 calories per gram - peanut butter is one good source. I add about 20 ml of olive oil (basically pure fat) to dinner mixes. High fat snacks like crushed potato chips or Anzac biscuits also boost this figure.

A six day walk should allow you to experiment and dial in all your gear nicely (except perhaps the clothing).

The general guideline is no fires above the treeline (~1700 m), which is roughly Thredbo-Whites River, and around Mt Bogong. I can't speak for NSW, but Victoria does now allow gas stoves on TFB days.

On a 12 day solo trip over the Bogong High Plains in January, I used about half a 230 g cannister, doing a coffee in the morning, and cooking a meal at night. A windscreen increases fuel efficiency, as does turning down the control on your stove - a gas stove should be running at a quiet burble, rather than a loud roar.