PAT NEAL: Peninsula backpacking basics
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 20, 2026
IT WAS ONE of those days I waited for all winter. There was not a cloud in the sky or a breeze in the air. It was way too nice to stay at home and do the chores.
It was time to get ready for that first backpacking trip of the summer.
Backpacking, for all its popularity, is really nothing more than a slow and painful torture that would be outlawed by the Geneva convention if it wasn’t self-inflicted.
The only good thing about backpacking is, when you finally put down your backpack, it’s possible to experience a brief period of weightlessness. Enjoy! That’s as good as it gets while backpacking.
Chances are you’ll spend the rest of your backpacking trip either cursing everything you put in your backpack or everything you forgot.
If you put everything in a backpack that you really need on a backpacking trip, you probably wouldn’t be able to lift it.
I’d like a fancy backpacking tent, but they are heavy, bulky and expensive. It’s OK, just take a sheet of plastic, some bungee cords and duct tape, and you’ve got a waterproof shelter that’s light and cheap.
I’d like to go backpacking with a complete first aid kit, but they are heavy, bulky and expensive. Just take the duct tape off your plastic tarp and you’ve got a first aid kit.
I always like to have plenty of ammunition when I’m backpacking, for first aid and fire starting. Simply pry the bullet of a large-bore cartridge and give it to the patient to chew on, in case they get fussy while you operate. You may want to sprinkle the wound with gunpowder and light it to cauterize it in nothing flat. Use any excess gunpowder to get that pokey campfire started. Multi-task!
Smear any wounds with honey. It’s been used as an antiseptic ointment since before the Iliad. Cover the whole mess with duct tape and you’re on the road to recovery.
Some people wonder what kind of food you should take on a backpacking trip. They have never been backpacking. Because, by the time you get done dragging yourself to wherever you end up backpacking, you won’t care.
Stick with the three basic food groups: chili.
So, there you have it, a lightweight camping kit that’s got almost nothing in it, with everything you need to survive.
In these challenging times, it’s important to economize when you’re backpacking because you are going to need every spare dime just to get into the wilderness these days.
Olympic National Park wants $55 for an entrance fee, $6 for a reservation for a wilderness permit that costs $8 per person per night, but kids camp for free.
Warning! Due to severe overcrowding of the wilderness, with 50,000 campers a year, some wilderness campsites are reserved months in advance. Don’t forget the $75 deposit and $2-a-night fee for the required bear-proof canister for your grub.
If you think you can get off cheap by camping on Forest Service land, think again. The Forest Service wants another $30 just to park at the trailhead.
Think you can dodge that by camping on state land? Nope. You’ll need a $53 Discover Pass.
Welcome to the seamy underbelly of backpacking. It’s not a sport for cheapskates anymore.
To be fair, we have to pay for the increasing numbers of backpackers that get lost and injured, and start forest fires.
As for the rest of us facing the financial uncertainty of our times, we might be better off by staying home and doing the chores.
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Pat Neal is a Hoh River fishing and rafting guide and “wilderness gossip columnist” whose column appears here every Wednesday.
He can be reached at 360-683-9867 or by email via patnealproductions@gmail.com.
