I am not a backpacker. I am a fly fisher. I do not backpack for the sake of backpacking. I backpack as a way to get to the best, most secluded places in California to fly fish. The majority of California backpackers do not fish — they treasure the backpacking experience on its own terms and value just being in the wild. Those backpackers approach the experience much differently than I do. Many do grueling hikes covering many miles, and they love it. Many fly fishers who backpack, however, rarely hike more than a handful of miles. We do not need to. We do not spend the day hiking. We spend the day fly fishing.
I realize the thought of backpacking into the wilderness without any backpacking experience may seem daunting. It was daunting for me, when I first started. I was lucky to be able to go that first time with an experienced backpacker who taught me a lot. If you have that luxury, great. If not, you can still do it with the guidance from this article and myriad Internet resources and books.
Dispelling Myths
Backpacking does not have to be a death march. Suffering really does not have to be part of the deal. Although there are backpackers who revel in covering 18 miles of trail in a day and ascending to literally breathtaking heights in brutal weather conditions, they typically are not fly fishers. Fly fishers use backpacking as a means to an end. I have made plenty of backpacking trips where I hiked only a couple of miles a day. Remember, it’s about fishing, not about hiking.
Equipment
I remember saying to myself, some 25-plus years ago, “Oh my God, this fly-fishing thing is more expensive than golf!” I was a cheapskate who started with a $60 6-weight, a $30 reel, and a bargain fly line. Through the years, I kept improving my equipment to the point where now, I pretty much have a fortune invested in fly fishing. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. And let’s face it — the nice stuff is expensive.
If you’re worried that backpacking can be equally expensive, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that high-quality backpacking equipment can be costly, too. But the good news is that just like fly-fishing equipment, backpacking equipment includes entry-level gear that is quite affordable. You can find plenty of Internet deals, if you are willing to shop with a browser.
And on top of that, with backpacking, there is a cost-effective way to get started by renting equipment. You do not have to invest thousands of dollars to get into the backpacking thing. Some mountaineering and outdoors shops rent backpacks, sleeping bags, pads, and tents very inexpensively. You can often apply the rental fees to a purchase, if you so desire. Visit, for example, https://www.adventure16.com/info/rentals, https://www.rei.com/stores/rentals.html#california, and https://www.lowergear.com. If you search the Internet for “backpack rentals,” you’ll find myriad places that rent equipment.
It’s All About the Weight
For a three-nighter, targeting a total of less than 35 pounds weight on your back would be awesome. I have never been able to accomplish that. Typically, for a three-nighter, I am carrying around 45 pounds. And yes, I weigh my pack. That is my rule: a maximum of 45 pounds for a three-nighter. Even though I try to be efficient, I have a personality that says, “I just may need his.” I carry thousands of flies and use 10. I carry two rods, two reels, and two spools with sinking line, and I use one rod and reel. I’m not efficient — yet. I’m a work in progress.
When choosing a backpack — when choosing any hiking equipment, really — you should consider visiting a store that specializes in this activity. Their employees have the expertise that allows a newbie to make smart choices based on the terrain you’ll likely hike, the seasons you prefer, and the probable length of your trips, in terms of both days and mileage.
My backpacking consists of mostly two-to-four-nighters, and I’ve found that a medium 65-liter backpack is perfect for such excursions. You’ll need to decide on whether to go with an external-frame or internal-frame backpack. The latter tend to be lighter and have increased in popularity over the years, but external-frame packs remain useful, and because they don’t hug your back, they provide better ventilation when hiking in hot weather. There are plenty of Internet resources to help guide your decision. Some well-regarded retailers, such as REI, offer advice on their Web sites. For backpacks, I especially like the advice at http://www.sierratradingpost.com/lp2/backpack-guide/?osid=prodspec-bg, but don’t limit yourself to that store when choosing gear.
Use a sleeping bag that is designed for backpacking and rated for the season and night temperatures that you expect to encounter. Goose-down bags are lightest, but lose their insulation capacity when wet. A mummy design keeps your legs together when you’re sleeping, so it’s the most efficient for warmth, but some don’t like its constraining feel. I believe a soft pad for under your sleeping bag is worth every penny. The most comfortable are lightweight, thin inflatables designed specifically for backpacking. Thermarest is a well-regarded brand.
For a tent, choose something specifically designed for backpacking. That means small and light, but built for the sort of weather you expect to experience. It should also be sized for the number of people who’ll be staying in it. Sierra summers are typically mild, with little precipitation, but you may experience thunderstorms and even (although rarely) snow. It’s a good idea to get a tent with a rain fly. A ground sheet can help protect the tent’s fabric floor. Practice setting your tent up at home before you hit the trail.
To cook your meals, you’ll need a backpacking stove. There are a variety of stoves built specifically for this activity, and all are very light to carry. The important variables are the number of people you plan to cook for and your preference for fuel. A few decades ago, backpackers liked stoves that burn white gas. These days, stoves that use readily available gas canisters are more popular. Mine is a Jetboil. It’s tiny and amazing and at $100 is fairly expensive. It has lots of competitors. I know plenty of backpackers who wear hiking boots on the trail and also carry in wading boots. That adds an awful lot of weight. I have hiked the Forks of the Kern Trail in Keen sandals (not recommended), and I have also backpacked in simple trail-running shoes. It really depends on the trail you are going to hike and the length of your hike. The longer it is and the rougher the terrain, the more you should consider using high-quality boots or shoes designed specifically for backpacking. (Again, this is where visiting a specialized outdoor store is useful.) For some shorter backpack trips, I’ve lately had success hiking in my wading boots. Fly-fishing manufacturers such as Korkers, Simms, and Patagonia have designed lightweight boots that are relatively suitable for bushwhacking. The Korkers have soles that can be switched, allowing you to use grippy rubber-treaded soles for the trail, then change to felt when wading. You typically buy wading boots a size larger to accommodate the neoprene booty, though, so you really have to double or triple the socks you wear to avoid getting blisters while hiking. Yes, I made that mistake, too. Also, pack a pair of comfortable, lightweight shoes or sandals for the camp. As for waders, the time of year and weather conditions will dictate whether you need to bring them. In August in the Sierra, you can often just wade wet. When I do backpack with waders, I carry the cheapest waders I can find, because they are light.
The fly-fishing backpacker does not typically have to carry that much water, because your purpose is to get to water. Water is weight. And water in food means weight, as well, so you’ll need to decide if carrying fresh vegetables and fruits and such is worth the strain on your back. The dehydrated backpacking meals available today can be pretty good. You just need to manage your food pleasures with your sacrifices. My wife, Kelly, and her friend Meredith have a saying about backpacking, “More booze; less food.” It is worth it for them to hike in with bourbon or wine. Lightweight plastic backpacking bottles are made for exactly this purpose.
Bring a bag and a rope to secure your food over a high limb in camp so that the bears don’t take advantage of you. In fact, many places in the Sierra require you to keep food in a bear proof container. Pack out all your trash. Just remember that every ounce counts, and those ounces add up. A waterproof fly box with 500 tungsten beadhead nymphs is going to have significant weight. I’m a hypocrite, because that box is exactly what I drag in with me — after all, you never know when you are going to need 100 different types of nymphs in myriad sizes. But it’s a mistake. I have a goal this backpacking season: one fly box. We’ll see.
Safety
I will be honest with you. Over my life span, my attention to safety has been directly proportional to my age. We can all relate to the fearlessness of youth. I did some crazy, stupid things when I was younger and got in some scary predicaments. My animal encounter stories are epic, and I have said to myself many times, “Now how the hell am I going to get myself out of here.” It was only after a lecture from my longtime fly-fishing mentor and best friend Tim Hoffmann that I really started paying attention to safety. You need to pay attention to safety when backpacking because of the lack of access to a car or civilization if you do get in trouble.
I always carry bear spray when backpacking and always have it in reach. I have never used it, let alone unsheathed it. Bear spray can be purchased on the Internet or from any outdoor retailer for around $35. Bear spray is essentially a giant bottle of mace that shoots in excess of 30 feet. It will knock down a grizzly bear from 10 yards away.
In California, we made our grizzlies go extinct over a hundred years ago, so we don’t need to worry about getting eaten by them, and I don’t carry bear spray because of bears. Bear spray will work on any mammal. We have mountain lions, of course, but they are not pack hunters, and attacks on humans are rare. Bear spray could neutralize a mountain lion in a matter of seconds. Mostly, though, I carry bear spray because of the strange human encounters I have had in the wilderness. There is a population of people who live in the wild in California. Some are mentally ill. Some are running from something. Some just live in the wild. It’s best to be safe.
Everyone reacts to altitude differently. I have made it close to 14,000 feet with little trouble, other than huffing and puffing because of the lack of oxygen at that altitude. I have not experienced altitude sickness, which includes vicious headaches and vomiting. Some of us have the physiology to experience high altitudes with few if any problems, and some of us do not. I do find acclimating to altitude helpful. One of my backpacking mentors, Warren Lew, always takes a full day and night of acclimation as close to the trailhead as possible, whether that means camping or staying at a hotel.
You will have to carry some form of water-treatment system with you. Many of the rivers in the Sierra contain Giardia lamblia, a parasite that colonizes and reproduces in the small intestine, causing diarrhea and abdominal distress. Some watersheds also hold cattle or sheep, and their waste may be in the water you want to drink. As with any technology, there are epic battles of opinion between proponents of fluorescent-light-based water-treatment devices and those who favor chemical and filter-based systems. I have used SteriPENs for years. They use fluorescent light to kill the bad stuff. They are easy to use, lightweight, and claim to handle 98 percent or more of the bad stuff in the water.
I always carry a lightweight backpacking medical kit, too. It contains simple things such as Band-Aids, gauze, and antiseptics.
My ultimate safety device is a Garmin (formally Delorme) InReach Satellite Tracker. With my InReach, I can send and receive text messages anywhere in the world without the need for a cellular signal. Garmin provides me a Web site where I can share my journey in real time with loved ones and fellow fly fishers. It works with a companion app on my smart phone that provides me all kinds of information that it gathers from the satellites, including the weather forecast for the exact area I am in and topographic maps for that area. But most importantly, if necessary, I can trigger an SOS to get emergency help from the 24/7 global monitoring center. The drawback is that it is expensive. At least for me it’s expensive. The device is around $400, and depending on the plan you sign up for, it costs around $15 a month. You can turn off the service when you don’t need it — for example, in the winter. I often fish alone in the wilderness. Or I backpack into the wilderness with kids teaching them how to fly fish. The value of being able to text their parents messages such as, “We are doing great and having fun” is invaluable to me and to the parents. Of course, texting my fly-fishing buddies messages such as, “On the upper Kern; 40+ to 22 inches today” is equally as valuable.
Gadgets
Many nonfishing backpackers pride themselves on leaving all technology behind. Others pride themselves on “minimalist backpacking,” where very little goes into the backpack. That’s not me. In addition to the InReach, I bring a significant amount of technology with me. That means I carry a backpacking solar charger and spare batteries for all my “toys.” All that weight is worth it to me. If I’m alone, I listen to fly-fishing podcasts or music on my phone at night. I have an Olympus Tough TM-2 camera that I bring with me. It’s waterproof — I love taking trout pictures underwater. It’s also designed to withstand a 10-foot drop to cement without breaking. And it stamps the location of the picture with the GPS coordinates. There is plenty of software that displays my pictures, allowing me to answer the question, “Now where did I catch that fish?” That TM-2 camera costs around $250 and has plenty of competitors.
There is a new gadget I just bought that I just couldn’t resist. It’s the Thermacell MR-BP Backpacker Mosquito Repeller. It’s about $25 and weighs only three ounces. I haven’t received it yet, so I can’t report on its performance, but it gets great reviews. It uses a tiny amount of backpacking stove fuel to produce a canopy of relief from mosquitoes. Let’s face it, we are coming off one of the biggest winters in recorded history in California, and that means the mosquito season is already a nasty one.
Permits
In my opinion, the absolutely most complicated and confusing thing about backpacking in California is figuring out the permitting system. It is seemingly different for each wilderness area and for each national or state park or preserve. Some permits are free; some are not. Some permits can be given out only in person at a ranger station and some can be acquired on the Internet. Figuring out the permit for where you want to backpack will take some work, if you don’t have access to people with experience. It’s best to call the appropriate ranger district for advice on permitting. Because of quota restrictions, many permits in California have to be acquired months in advance, especially for popular hiking trails.
There are a few places in the California backcountry where you are allowed to have a campfire. You will need a California Fire Permit though. They are free after taking an online test: http://www.preventwildfireca.org/Permits. And of course, in addition to permits, you’ll need a California fishing license.
Preparation
I always seem to have one or more issues on a backpacking trip. More times than not, these are trivial. Sometimes they are significant and require me to adapt and overcome. The saying “Stuff happens” applies here. The problem is that in the wilderness, what you are carrying are almost all essential items. Therefore, when something is lost or broken or forgotten, it is something essential. I learn from these mishaps every time I do a backpacking trip. You make the mistake of not hanging your food in a tree only once. I always prepare a detailed list of what goes into my pack and double-check that list. I even detail the procedures I need to do the morning of the hike in. In backpacking, you have to ensure that you have all your necessities, or it can ruin your trip or end it prematurely. To me, this type of preparation is worth it.
Go for It
Backpacking will get you to those special f ly-fishing places in California where you will likely have the fishing on a stream or lake all to yourself, a place that is beautiful, remote, and does not get a lot of fishing pressure, where the trout are wild and easily fooled, and where fishing dry flies is the norm, not the exception. Yes, to the inexperienced, backpacking into the wilderness and spending one or more nights there can seem daunting. But there are plenty of resources available to help you backpack safely and intelligently. California has an extraordinary amount of fishable water that is not accessible by car. Consider a fly-fishing backpack adventure this year.
