Backcountry Camping Without the Hike

It’s kind of sad that we tend to spend less time in the backcountry as we get older. There are many reasons - time and other commitments come to dominate our life. It may be that the effort required to carry all your camping gear with you makes hiking in too much of a challenge.

If you have ever spend time in the backcountry we can pretty much guarantee that you often reminisce and promise yourself you will go back one day.

For most of us that day will never come. We have come to value our comfort too much.

In Pete Zimowsky’s article for the Idaho statesman he introduces us to a growing trend in ‘drop camping’. Effectively you pay a number of ‘outfitters’ to take your gear out to you camp site (and may even erect and strike your camp for you). Camper’s can then simply hike out carrying a day pack.

Seems like it is a rapidly growing trend. Read Pete’s article below to find our more.

Enjoy the backcountry without a backpack

By PETE ZIMOWSKY, Special to the Idaho Statesman, September 8, 2015

 

Do you like camping in remote alpine areas but want to relax in a lawn chair with your favorite wine and other comforts of home?

A drop camp may be your answer to enjoying Idaho’s high country without the hassle. With a drop camp, outfitters take hikers’ gear into the backcountry, drop it off at a predetermined site and leave. When the campers are ready to go home, outfitters pick up all the gear and haul it back to the trailhead.

“It’s growing, especially as people get older,” said Darl Allred, who owns Sawtooth Wilderness Outfitters, a horse-packing outfit in the Sawtooths.

Allred regularly takes hikers and their gear to beautiful alpine locations where they have many of the comforts of car camping. The difference is the horsepower to haul the load miles from the highway is provided by a pack string.

Drop camps, or spot-packing services, are a major part of Allred’s business in the summer, he said as he cinched the ropes tight over manties on his pack horses before a trip into the wilderness area last week. Manties are canvas tarps used to wrap up gear in neat rectangles, almost like gift-wrapping. The gifts are supplies hikers don’t have to carry.

“One advantage is that you can have a nicer camp than if you were backpacking,” Allred said, saddling up his lead horse for a trip out of Grandjean, one of the main trailheads for the Sawtooth Wilderness. “It’s just nice to have lawn chairs and food that can be hauled in a cooler.”

Although the service is appealing, hikers still need to prepare their gear carefully, because there’s no such thing as unlimited horsepower. Pack horses can typically carry about 150 pounds of gear. Allred carefully weighed gear on a scale in his barn at Grandjean recently for a group of hikers in their 60s. Go over the weight allotment, and hikers have to add another horse to the trip.

For food, outfitters suggest boxed noodles, rice dishes, instant hot cereal, and “just-add-water” pancake mix, although some canned veggies and fruit can be packed in. Hikers can also take the basics, such as coffee, cocoa, cooking oil, toilet paper, seasonings, paper towels and trash bags. It makes camp cooking a lot more convenient. Allred suggests freezing meats that will be put in a cooler. Frozen meat takes the place of ice, which is heavy. Cured meats, like ham, keep fresh longer. Eggs and breakfast meats also can be packed in a cooler.

Don’t depend on campfires for cooking, even though it’s the backcountry, because there could be fire restrictions. Lightweight backpacking or camp stoves are more convenient and efficient than a campfire, anyway.

Besides the convenience of a lot more gear, arranging for a drop camp frees up hikers to explore lots of areas on day hikes from a base camp deep in the wilderness.

Scheduling a drop camp isn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. Plan now for next summer’s trip. Most outfitters are currently busy dealing with drop camps for hunters as big-game seasons begin throughout the state.

Outfitters offer hiking and horse packing trips in Idaho from the Seven Devils to the Sawtooths to the White Clouds and other wilderness areas. Hikers can search on the Idaho Outfitters and Guides Association website ( ioga.org) for outfitter services….

Want to know more? Head over to the Idaho Statesman now to read the full article

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