The 5 Gallon Problem illustrates the advantages of carrying much less backpacking gear and extra compressible gear in a extra visible manner than is feasible with a gear checklist. It’s notably efficient for gear shakedowns in teams the place individuals can examine the quantity and house that their gear requires with different individuals’s backpack contents.
Instructions
To take part on this problem, put all the gear you carry inside your backpack, within the exterior pockets, or lashed to the surface, right into a 5-gallon bucket. Depart your backpack out, along with meals, water, water bottles, and gas.
Emphasis on Gear Quantity, Not Weight
The vital factor to emphasise within the 5 Gallon Problem isn’t the burden of the gear within the bucket, however whether or not the gear suits within the bucket. Gear that’s extremely compressible and requires much less quantity is nearly all the time lighter, if solely since you want a smaller quantity and a lighter backpack to hold it.
In the event you can’t get your whole backpacking gear right into a five-gallon bucket, there are some frequent gear swaps or removals that you need to use to scale back the quantity that your gear requires:
- Quilts require much less quantity than bulkier sleeping luggage
- Down sleeping insulation is extra compressible than artificial sleeping insulation
- Trekking pole tents require much less quantity than ones that require separate tent poles
- Siliconized polyester or siliconized nylon tents require much less quantity than tents made with Dyneema DCF.
- Single-wall tents, tarps, or mids require much less quantity than double-wall tents
- Stoves and gas that may be packed inside prepare dinner pots require much less quantity
- Carrying fewer garments reduces the required quantity
- and so forth.
Extra conventional backpackers who use bulkier gear or who deliver further garments received’t have the ability to get as a lot gear into the bucket, which gives a chance to undergo their pack and eradicate pointless gadgets.
Enjoyable the 5 Gallon Problem
In the event you’re attempting the 5 Gallon Problem with a bunch, and it’s clear nobody goes to have the ability to match all of their gear into the bucket, you may chill out the principles a bit by letting contributors miss a shared merchandise like a tent or a cumbersome merchandise like a sleeping bag. Going by means of the train will nonetheless have benefit as a result of contributors will see the affect that bringing further garments, cumbersome cooking gear, or a big sleeping pad can have on the quantity of their gear.
Credit
I didn’t invent the 5 Gallon Problem. I realized about it from two associates named Ken “DripDry” Holder and Lee “RevLee” Fields. They use it to show Boy Scouts and their mother and father about the advantages of bringing much less pointless gear on backpacking journeys.
I feel the 5 Gallon Problem is an excellent thought and one which resonates with individuals who aren’t as number-oriented, however are extra visible. An overflowing bucket does make for a memorable picture.
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