We’re only two days away from my (first) Translagorai1. I’ve put off writing this page for weeks, if not months. I told myself several times that I had an idea for how I might resume blogging about the next hiking trip I was preparing. And, even though I am not superstitious, I am not going to discuss one of the primary reasons I am currently here preparing for this journey. This Translagorai is, in many ways, the test for which I have been training physically and emotionally since February. It is one of the projects I am most excited about this year.

Last year, I also walked across the Trentino mountains, but if it is true (and often it isn’t) that we learn from our mistakes, I wanted to do better this year. And one thing I’ve learnt is that backpack weight is a crucial number. It might decide the fate of even the most modest trekking adventure. It can make the experience excruciating; you might come home uninjured, but if that number was higher than necessary – often because of a mix of absolutely unnecessary material – you might come home with a hamstring problem you will take months to recover from.

As a spreadsheets nerd, I did things correctly from the start. Every piece of gear, clothes, or other item that aspired to fit in my pack would be weighed (a few times, so I could get a reliable average 🤓). Also, when I chose to embark on the hike, I realized I’d need to improve a lot of my gear, specifically my backpacking gear (sleep system and backpack above all). So I separated everything into eight categories and methodically weighed everything – or estimated the weight based on the information I had. Here’s the result:

Although I may have overlooked something (hopefully minor), I’m pretty proud to have reached a base weight of roughly 6 kg. I was probably around 9 or 10 kg last year – and we didn’t even have a tent! So, why the theory? Because, in some ways, that weight doesn’t exist until it’s on my shoulders. That’s what I’ve been wondering since I entered the figures in that spreadsheet: will I be able to carry that weight for five days in a row?

  1. For whoever didn’t know about the Translagorai trail, here’s a map with several hikes in the area, including a description of the thru-hike. ↩︎