Start with 20 to 30 pounds in the pack. Garden mulch comes in sturdy 20-pound plastic bags which are ideal for our purpose. They’re cheap, they spread the weight comfortably, and don’t shift around, unlike lead ingots and similar items. It’s important that the pack be filled out so it fits comfortably, regardless of its actual weight. If you start with 20 pounds of mulch in the bottom, you can fill it out with clothing, or even bubble wrap.
Now, with your boots on your feet and the pack on your back, you can either hike around the neighborhood or go to your gym and get on a treadmill or stair climber. Both have their advantages. The treadmill allows you to alter tilt and speed, and gives you measurements of things like time, calories burned, or vertical feet climbed; hiking outside accustoms you to uneven surfaces, bad weather, and heat and cold, with no bars to hang onto.
Aside from exercise, this also breaks in your boots and your pack. There are few things worse than blisters from new boots, but you can also find yourself rubbed raw by shoulder straps that are too stiff, or a waist belt that doesn’t conform to your shape. Having most of the weight of the pack on the waist belt is a key advantage.
Once started, you steadily raise the bar by increasing pack weight, lengthening your distance (or time on the treadmill), or timing yourself for a set distance like five miles.
By the time you’re finished, your boots should fit like soft slippers and the pack feel like an old flannel shirt.
In my book, backpacking like this is also the single best way to burn calories and lose weight, assuming you are also watching your diet. It gives you strength and endurance and, like running, is mildly addictive once you start to see results.
Depending on the weather, I also wear hunting clothes. This allows you to correct any little problems, like socks that slip down, or a belt that gets in the way; you can figure out how you’re going to carry your binocular, and get used to doing it.
By the time you arrive in camp, you and your equipment will be as finely tuned as your Rolex, and you will have the sweet satisfaction of listening to the guide complaining how out of shape and unprepared all those other guys are.
Gray’s shooting editor, Terry Wieland, has been a backpacker since childhood, including winter camping on cross-country skis and snowshoes. Would that he had shown such admirable determination in other pursuits.
