does anyone else find the culture surrounding ultralight backpacking/thru-hiking annoying
occasionally, i (with a great deal of shame) get sucked into the youtube shorts rabbit hole. there’s this couple on there whose content is dedicated to backpacking, specifically the variety of backpacking where you peel off all of your skin so you don’t have to carry an extra 2.1lbs on your 11,000 mile thru hike.
there’s nothing wrong with backpacking—i like backpacking!! i’ve gone on a lot of backpacking trips myself. and there’s nothing wrong with thru-hiking either—i’d love to do the PCT/ACT someday. but it gets to a point where i feel like it becomes less about spending time in the natural world and more about dropping the price of a used car on a tent that weighs ever so slightly less than every other tent on the market. it’s commodity fetishism for people who have a membership at their local indoor bouldering gym