Slackpacking? - Appalachian Trail

imported
#1

What does it mean for a thru-hiker to “slackpack”? I hear the term thrown around, but don’t really understand what it means.

lady-blaze

#2

Slackpacking means when a hiker hikes without his/her backpack.

Usually one brings a daypack to carry essentials (food, water).

It only works if you can get back to your starting point!

The point with slackpacking is you can do more miles with less stress on your body.

Bruce

#3

You deposit most of your pack weight with someone (usually with a car), walk for a day with minimal gear, and then collect the bulk of your gear at the end of the day.

Eric L.

#4

You don’t necessarily have to get back to your starting point - often, someone will deliver your pack to a point one day’s walk up the trail and you walk to your pack.

bullet

#5

Sounds like the easy way out.

lady-blaze

#6

It is if your a purist.

H.Y.O.H.

Bruce

#7

At first, I was against slackpacking. Not against others doing it–just didn’t think it was right for me. Then, after trying it a couple times, I realize that it just didn’t make SENSE to not do it. If I didn’t NEED my tent or sleeping bag or stove or WHATEVER…then why the hell carry it?? I felt satisfied just having carried my backpack, with or without full contents, the full distance. But really, even THAT didn’t matter. Sure as hell didn’t bother lugging it up Katahdin.

While staying Blackburn Trail Center, one of the caretakers shared with me a quote he had heard from someone else:

“Refusing to slackpack is like refusing to have sex before marriage. I guess you COULD…but why??”

Leki-Less

#8

Not for me, but if someone enjoys it, who cares? It is hiking for crying out loud.

Just enjoy your hike your way. Let others enjoy their hike their way.

Just my .05 worth.

Mags

#9

First of all I’ve never thruhiked.

That said I don’t believe I would ever slackpack doing a thruhike. My reason is the backpack comes along with me every step of the way. That’s part of MY definition of a thruhike.

Bruce

#10

I’m glad Bruce capitalized “MY” there. I think it’s important to remember that “thru-hike” really has no official definition, despite what some people might think (or even publish in their book).

Leki-Less

#11

Here’s my 2 cents…the point of a thru-hike, to me, is to walk from Ga. to Maine. (vice-versa for southbound, of course) If you can get someone to haul your gear for you, more power to you. In fact, figuring out the easiest way to get from here to there is part of the challenge for me.

Are you a hiker or a sherpa?

Mule

#12

It’s called “Freedom hiking”, not slack packing. Would you take a 35lb pack on a 10 mile day hike? Given the chance to, it’s a great way to see the trail.

Cheers

Cheers

#13

Before I took my first step on the trail, there were a number of things I thought I wouldn’t want to do. But, my, how things can change when you’re actually out there. Like, I thought I wouldn’t want to make special arrangements to get to Trail Days during my thru-hike. But, when the time came, I didn’t want to miss it. And I had a great time. I thought I wouldn’t sleep in shelters. Ha! That went right out the window on the second night, when it was pouring and cold, and there was a very enticing little slice of shelter floor beckoning to me. Used my tent plenty, but I slept on wood on many nights. And I actually slept pretty well (even with mice, snoring and other, uh, sounds.) And I thought I’d never slackpack either. But, man, did I enjoy feelin’ oh so light on my feet hiking those 19 miles between Bear’s Den Hostel and Damascus. I believe I slackpacked maybe half a dozen times after that (I’d have to pick through my journal to get the number right), but I never did it just to get big miles out of the way and never felt rushed. There were other things I did that, while I was sitting on my butt at home before the hike, I thought I’d never do, but one thing I DID do that I truly believed I would, was hike from Georgia to Maine. And that’s what truly mattered to me.

ramkitten

#14

Everyone comes to the trail for different reasons. If you come to hike the trail the easiest way possible, than slackpacking will appeal to you. What appeals to me about backpacking is that you carry all you need to survive, on your back! What an amazingly simple and freeing concept! No one said hiking a 2,000 mile plus long trail would be easy. In my opinion, slacking cheapens the experience as well as contributes to the commercialization of the AT, but hell, lots of hikers do it, it’s just not my style personally. Hike on ya’ll! One love, respect.

hawkeye

#15

I meant the 19 miles (I think it was) between Bear’s Den Hostel and Harper’s Ferry. I goofed.

ramkitten

#16

When I thru-hiked I did feel an issue with trying to get up that hill with slackers meeting me coming southbound and then me seeing them in the next town. At times it was me asking myself what I was doing killing myself or making myself uncomfortable while trying to accomplish the same thing other people were apparently accomplishing in a easier fashion. But now I realize I was not doing the same thing they were. But I do tend to agree with hawkeye about slacking contributing to the commercialization of the AT. As far as cheapening the experience, it can cheapen it for me. It is my problem letting that happen. As far as slacking I would never promote someone doing it if their intent is to backpack a long trail, being in this case the AT. But my definition of “backpacking” is not everyone else’s definition so it is a mute point. I had my experience and slacking would have cheapened it for me had I did it. I knew it at the time so I didn’t.

By the way, I took one of the day packs they offered me at Baxter and did not take my pack up Katahdin. After all, I wasn’t planning on spending the night up there.

Two Scoops

#17

Ramkitten,

I noted the correction, but when I first read “19 miles from Bears Den Hostel to Damascus” I was thinking this was a very creative way of stating just how good Freedom Hiking can feel. LMAO.

Anyway…

As I moved north section hiking, I didn’t slack until I got into New Jersey. From there north I slacked (er, Freedom Hiked) whenever it was available–sometimes out of necessity after injury or other medical issues, sometimes by choice. It didn’t detract from anything as I still passed every white blaze, in fact it may have at times added to the trek.

Up in Maine, it is possible with the right knowledgeable people to Freedom Hike–even in the “Wilderness.” I was lucky to hook up with some hikers, one of whom had a sister already providing support so it didn’t cost more than my share of gas and tote road admi$$ions in the Wilderness. But beware, because the accessible road crossings are so far apart you have to do back-to-back big mile days sometimes. In retrospect, I think I might have been better off heavy-packing some of that and doing shorter days shelter-to-shelter instead of bigger days road-to-road. It was 2003, however, rainiest year ever some said, and some of the Maine stream fords were fierce…for that reason I stuck with Freedom Hiking and not carrying much weight made the fords much easier/safer.

HYOH.

Skyline

#18

Over the years of providing the ferry service here in Maine, I have seen every type of hiker come across the Kennebec river. Slacking is a new phenom that has become mainestream. It’s become an outright feeding frenzy for trail service providers to “own” an individuals schedule and hiking experience, never mind their wallet. HYOH goes right out the window! Please understand that I am not against all forms of slackpacking. With the technological advances in “backpacking”, a hiker can be self contained with full supplies and proctective shelter at all times out on the trail. What a concept! Maybe, instead of a human powered canoe ride across the Kennebec, I should install a gas guzzling, smoke billowing, two miles to the gallon eight banger, petal to the metal cruise machine. How do you like me now! No, I’m sorry, that’s not in the forecast. For every 1,000 folks who say they intend to hike the trail someday, maybe one person will actually do it. And for those who hiked this incredible trail, whatever way, you deserve a lifetime achievement award. But, I will never forget the gleam in the eyes of hikers who ride across the Kennebec and say “I carried that pack the whole way!” ferryman

ferryman

#19

I’d like to put my “2 cents” into this topic, because I think the whole meaning of “slack-packing” has changed completely from when I thru-hiked the AT (1980). The first time I heard the term or phrase “slack-packing” was in Virginia at Raccoon Branch Shelter, when I met one of the infamous trail characters hiking the AT that year, “O.D. Coyote,” who was the first person to start that year ( Feb. 27th) and was the last to finish ( Nov. 29th). That evening he said that his “style” of hiking was to only hike as far as he felt like hiking that day whether it was 5, 6 or 7 miles a day. In other words hiking at a slow, deliberate pace to really enjoy the hike or simply put SLACKING WITH HIS PACK!!! Therefore, I truely believe he is/was the first thru-hiker to hike in this fashion, and termed his style of hiking SLACK-PACKING. I believe he has a book out or his own journal is called “Slack-Packing Papers.” So without sounding snobbish or anything like that, the whole concept of slack-packing has changed somehow over the years to mean something completely different and the AT experience has become completely easier due the numerous hostels, trail angels etc. who help out thru-hikers in this modern definition of slackpacking. I really have been dying to tell all the thru-hikers of today ( and thru-hikers from recent years)how the term “slackpacking” really originated from, so there ya have it.
P.S. In “80” all thru-hikers “hiked” across the Kennebic River in Maine…

Rippin Reils aka “Stroh’s Bro.”

#20

My trail name in 1986 was “The Yankee Slackpacker” and it had nothing to do with hiking without a pack. It meant you slacked off, hiked low and slow miles. Took “0” days in the woods. Real hikers carry thier packs and ford the Kennebec.

Lone Wolf