mountain

Thinking about your dream backpacking trip all across Europe, where you eat your way through the countryside and the towns? How do the Southern Alps of New Zealand sound, as you walk the trails of the fellowship? Or are you more up for the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail, as you see everything between Maine and Georgia on foot? Whatever you’re thinking, here are seven things you need to know about minimalist backpacking.

The Mountain and the Suitcase Growing up in Texas doesn’t give you a lot of experience with hiking enormous mountains, but my brother Jeremy and I were excited to hike Utah’s Mount Timpanogos (11,752 feet) one night in mid-October 2007. Hiking with us was a guy named Jeff, whose climbing pack was actually a rolling suitcase.