My neighbor, Randy, has been a tough one to convince to get lighter. All his gear is from the early `70s and his old Kelty pack is big and klutzy when he's got it loaded that it's got to be tough to deal with.



I really love that quote.

Randy's watched me get a lot lighter over the past few years, and I'm sure he's wondered about what I was doing too, but after our past few trips he's really beginning to see the beauty in the changes I've made, and he's even been telling his buddies about it, and now several want to do some trips with us this coming season.

I'll be excited to have them along and hopefully they'll enjoy themselves enough to want to keep going.

But there are a lot of others our age who I know could go, and I believe would love it too, but they won't. They recall hauling 75lbs in their military days, or old backpacking days, and being miserable, and while they love being outdoors, they won't go backpacking anymore either.