We are not young people. We do not have anything to prove or conquer. But, we love adventure and we love traveling the path less beaten. Not having backpacked for 12 years, we are, well, 12 years older. Since we are planning for a Himalaya trip in the next couple of years, we thought that we’d better test-drive our bodies in the closest high altitude we could find – the High Sierra. And, since backpacking gear has made great improvements in the past decade, we opted to go ultralight.

So, that means that we started our journey on the Internet, where all good journeys begin. We did plenty of research, and skulked the aisles of our local REI for hours. We tried on backpacks, pinched sleeping pads, disassembled store displays and queried store staff to supplement our web findings.

The decision to go ultralight was arguably the single thing that made our trip much more pleasurable. Even with the bear canisters, our packs were both under 30 pounds, completely packed for six days.