Monthly Archives: August 2012

Becoming A Backpacking Samurai

Backpacking is an outdoor activity that allows you to experience the great outdoors at its finest. Whether you enjoy hiking in the mountains, through forests, or along lakes or rivers, backpacking is the method for bringing along everything you need to survive in the backcountry. That means packing all the necessary food, water, sleeping gear, cooking gear, and other camping supplies to keep you comfortable while on the trail. Unless you want to carry several hundred pounds, you will want to limit the weight of your gear as much as possible. That is what becoming a backpacking samurai is all about.

Minimalist backpacking, which is what the title is alluding to (becoming a backpacking samurai), involves limiting the weight of your gear to the extreme. That means doing without a lot of comfort items, such as sleeping pads and extra clothes. Every piece of gear needs to serve multiple functions, and needs to be as light as possible. To become a backpacking samurai, follow the below tips when packing and planning your trip.

  • Down sleeping bags are generally lighter than synthetic sleeping bags. Substitute a down sleeping bag to save a few ounces in this category.
  • There is no such thing as lightweight water. Water is heavy. To save weight on how much water you carry, plan your hike along a river, stream, or lake, and only carry what you need, and then filter and refill your bottle when you need more.
  • It is always a good idea to pack enough food for your entire trip, even if you think you can catch your dinner at that high mountain lake you are hiking to. Rather than packing cans, go with mylar pouches. Dehydrated foods weigh less than MREs or other food items with water since they do not have any water weight.
  • Lay out your gear, and ask yourself if you really need an item. If the item serves more than one function (cook stove for cooking food, boiling water, melting snow, etc.), it is more worthy of coming along.

These are some tips to help you lighten your load when planning and packing for a backpacking trip. Follow these tips to become a backpacking samurai, and go to backpackingsamurai.com for more information on gear choices.

An easy dessert to cook while camping

For most people, cooking while camping can be time consuming and stressful.  If you are bringing kids along, finding food they will eat can be the hardest part of your trip.  While everyone will probably enjoy eating smores for one night while camping, it’s not the healthiest dessert you could be cooking over the fire. One great (and basically effortless) dessert you could be making instead are ‘banana boats’.

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All you will need to make banana boats is:

Bananas (one per person)

An assortment of your favorite candies or other additives

Tin Foil

A knife

Hot coals or hot remnants from your campfire

To make the banana boat, you will need to leave the banana in the peel.  You will take the knife and slit the banana from the stem to the bottom of the banana.  Be careful that you do not slit through the bottom side of the peel or all the contents will melt out of it.  Also, have the slit on the side of the banana that will continue to face upwards even when you are not holding onto it.

Next stuff the banana with any food or candies that you enjoy.  This can be anything from peanut butter or nuts, to little marshmallows or broken up pieces of candy bars, like Snickers.  While chocolate is always delicious to add, it may be too sweet for some people.  This is because the banana will caramelize from the heat, making it extremely sweet all by itself.

When you are finished stuffing your banana to your hearts desire, wrap the banana in tin foil.  If you have a lot of people, you may want to mark the wrapped bananas with permanent marker so they don’t get confused with each others.

Next place the wrapped bananas on hot coals or the hot remnants from your campfire.  Again be sure to place the banana so that the slit if facing upwards or all the goodies will fall out and melt on the banana peel.  Leave the banana on the fire for approximately 15 minutes.

Be careful if eating them directly after removing them from the fire, they will be extremely hot.  While they may not be the healthiest dessert (raw fruit would be healthier) they are fun for the whole family to make and experiment with the different additives.