I'm 5'8" and anywhere from 145 to 165 lbs depending on what activities I'm pursuing at the time. I've carried up to 65 lbs in Montana with a lot of off trail and carrying a ton (at least it felt like a ton) of group gear for new hikers. For some reason I always end up ferrying someone's pack or carrying part of their load to get their sorry butt up the mountain. .......
......In that same trip I ended up carrying a food bag and other gear weighing about 9 lbs for a guy that was uncharacteristically out of shape and suffering from the altitude. I then carried my pack and his pack of 55 lbs for a couple miles over a 12000 ft pass. I was in the best shape of my life as I was ready to do a 100 mile mountain bike race in CO. It was almost surreal as I carried nearly 100 lbs up the pass as I was only weighing 145 lbs.
That's what always happened to me when I was
MUCH younger !
I remember a trip back in '73 to the Smokies in April where I was the "Student" leader my senior yr in HS. I was in charge of 6 students and there was one adult chaperone, the local Army recruiter who volunteered for the duty.
The first day was a 6 mi bushwack through the Rhododendron Hells from Ramsay Cascades straight up to get up to the AT. It poured the entire day. The next day was worse. By the 3rd day one of the girls threw her pack down in the middle of the trail and said she was done. I nonchalantly picked it up, and started hiking down the
trail which by now was a festering mud bog.
And I might add, these were standard issue '70s generic gear= very heavy.
Anyway the gal got up and followed us until we were able to beg our way into an already overcrowded shelter where I spent the night flicking mice off me but that's another story.
Once back home, I got non stop calls from the recruiter telling me he'd never seen conditions that bad in 'Nam and wanted to recruit me for officers school.
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