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  • My gear drying out at the Twin Lakes visitor center...

    My gear drying out at the Twin Lakes visitor center last July. It rained every day for two weeks. This year I'm aiming to lighten p my load.

  • Grandma Gatewood and her shoulder-slung pack.

    Grandma Gatewood and her shoulder-slung pack.

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Dean Krakel, freelance journalist
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Emma Rowena Gatewood, “Grandma Gatewood” walked out of her house one fine day in 1957 at age 69 and hiked the entire Appalachian Trail — 2,180 miles, from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Mount Katahdin, Maine.

“I thought it would be a lark,” she said. “It wasn’t.” Gatewood read about the Appalachian Trail in the August 1949 issue of National Geographic. After suffering through an abusive marriage and raising 11 children, the Appalachian Trail had sparked her imagination. Often after beatings she had run away to the woods seeking solace. Now she found peace on the trail.

Gatewood never stopped walking. In 1959 she celebrated Oregon’s Centennial by walking from Independence, Mo., to Portland, Ore., on the Oregon Trail — 2,000 miles. She thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail again in 1960, and for the third and last time in 1963, at age 75.

Gatewood hiked in Keds sneakers and lived on dried meat, cheese and nuts. Slung over her shoulder in a bag she carried a cup, blanket, raincoat, extra clothes and a shower-curtain shelter.

“Most people today are pantywaists,” she told lightweight-backpacking guru Ray Jardine.

At the opposite end of the backpacking gear spectrum is yours truly. I have two tents, five packs, three fleece tops, three sleeping bags, five shell jackets, two down jackets, three bivy bags, three tarps, four headlamps, eight pairs of trail running shoes, myriad water-purifying systems, a passel of knives, plethora of tent stakes, two sets of hiking poles, microspikes, nano spikes, Kathtoola snowshoes and a Raven ice ax.

Obviously I’m no Granny Gatewood. But as I plan for this summer’s Colorado Trail expedition, lightening the load has become, well, a theme. Ideally with five days’ worth of food I’ll be carrying a sub-25-pound pack. That’s spooky light for a guy who has been slogging along under 50-plus-pound loads for years.

Going light involves more than converting pounds of gear to ounces with coin. “Head is more important than heel,” Gatewood said. And the easiest way I’ve learned to be smart about lightening up is to leave things behind:

• No stove this year. No stove, no fuel canisters, no cook pot, no scrub pad, no coffee. No coffee! I’m dealing with it. The plan is to rehydrate dehydrated meals in a plastic jar as I stroll along happily munching on pemmican cakes.

• No tent. A tarp is lighter and packs easier. Tarps are a thinking man’s shelter … that part worries me. Tarp failure is ugly.

• No conventional sleeping bag. No bivy bag. No poncho. No space blanket.

• No S.O.G. Elite Seal Team knife. I know. I know! How am I going to whack down pine boughs, spear fish or fend off bears? What if ISIS dudes are slithering around in the woods? My minuscule Swiss Army Tinker Knife (.08 ounces) will have to suffice.

I weigh everything. Every. Thing. Weight is factoring into the few items that are up for debate. For example: Should I leave the fleece? The Patagonia hoodie (14 ounces) is good on a misty cool active day, but heavy. Or should I take the 8-ounce Montebell UL down sweater instead? For now I’ve packed both.

The 7-ounce Rab wind and rain shell is super-sexy and supposedly bombproof. I’ve been field testing it. So far so good. We hate equipment failure, especially expensive equipment failure. Could just take the battle-tested Marmot Ageis, though (14 ounces).

Then there are hiking poles — to take or not to take. This is slightly problematic. Hiking poles also serve as the tarp erectors. So not taking them and depending on sticks could be potentially disastrous. But I do like to walk hands-free.

There’s other gear to consider: My tent stakes are long and heavy, and I could replace them with lighter and more expensive ones, but these I can pound into hard ground with rocks, and that gives me peace of mind. The Mylar ground cloth is a nice light touch, but will it work? I could carry my 5-ounce tent footprint for a few ounces more.

In all this cutting down and back and out, I don’t want to be stupid-light either. Splashing along in the rain at 12,000 feet wearing ziplock bags over damp socks inside soggy running shoes doesn’t constitute a catastrophe — I could have packed more socks! — but it certainly pushes the needle on the fun-o-meter way down.

By traveling light I’m not saying to hell with every form of comfort. This Colorado Trail walk is a vacation, after all.

Dean Krakel: dkrakel@denverpost.com

What’s making the cut (so far)

• An Osprey Exos 58 pack carries it all. 2 pounds, 10 ounces after I removed the multicompartmented 5-ounce lid.

• A garbage bag inner pack liner. 1 ounce.

• Enlightened Equipment Revelation down quilt. 20 ounces.

• A Zpacks 7-foot-by-9-foot flat tarp and tie-out lines, 11.5 ounces.

• MSR Groundhog stakes, 5.25 ounces.

• Mylar groundsheet, 1.8 ounces.

• Cuben fiber stuff sack to hold it all, 0.75 ounce.

• Patagonia capilene top and bottom, 14.25 ounces total.

• REI long-sleeve shirt, 6.4 ounces.

• Mountain Hardware long pants, 11.6 ounces.

• Bug headnet, 0.8 ounce.

• Patagonia R1 fleece hoodie, 13.6 ounces. (maybe)

• A Rab wind and rain shell, 7 ounces, replaces last year’s 14-ounce Golite jacket.

• Sawyer mini-squeeze system for water purification, 2.1 ounces.

• Aquamira water purification droplets (just in case), 1.5 ounces.

• Silva compass, 0.75 ounce.

• Outdoor Research wind pants, 10.5 ounces.

• 3 Bic lighters, 1.5 ounces total.

• Spare running shorts, 4 ounces. (Last year I wore one pair of running shorts and one tech T-shirt 90 percent of the time, with New Balance Leadville 1210 running shoes. I’m using Leadville running shoes again, just a size bigger this year)

• 1 pair Balega medium weight running socks, 1.6 ounces.

• 1 pair Smartwool socks, 3.2 ounces.

• 1 pair Asics glove liners, 1.6 ounces.

• Halo skullcap, 1 ounce.

• Pack rain cover, 4.5 ounces.

• Cut-in-half spork, 0.25 ounce.

• Black Diamond headlamp, 3.1 ounces.

• 3 spare batteries, 1.5 ounces.

• Mosquito repellant, 0.6 ounce.

• Sunscreen, 1.1 ounces.

• Glide, 0.4 ounce. (Rubbing toes and heels with this lubricant prevents blisters.)

• Medical/blister/toothbrush with the handle cut off and toothpaste tablets, 7 ounces.

• Pentax Optimus WG-1 camera, 5.8 ounces.

• Three spare batteries for camera, a notebook and pen. 4.4 ounces.

• Umbrella, 7.25 ounces.

• Plastic jar for hydrating food, 2.2 ounces.

• The Colorado Trail Databook, 3.75 ounces.

• Maps, 2.4 ounces.

• Monte Bell UL down sweater, 7.6 ounces

. • Thermarest Zlite sleeping pad whacked down to three-quarter length, 9 ounces.

Total pack weight without food and water: 14 pounds, 12 ounces.

I want to take it down 2 more pounds. Good-bye, fleece. Cut the Ibuprofen ration in half.

Dean Krakel

Backpacking gear tips

The best book on everything Colorado Trail is “Yogi’s Colorado Trail Handbook.” Jackie McDonnell is Yogi, a veteran of hiking thousands of miles on the long trails. (Yogi’s Books P.O. Box 860573 Shawnee Mission, KS 66286

Paul “Mags” Magnanti has The Colorado Trail “End to End” Guide at PMags.com. It’s as through as it is thoughtful and entertaining.

Ray Jardine’s book, “Beyond Backpacking: Ray Jardine’s Guide to Lightweight Hiking,” covers all things long-distance and lightweight.

Andrew Skurka is one of the most infamous distance walkers in the modern age. He has a wealth of information at andrewskurka.com.

Eric Asorson, or “Eric the Black,” is a cartographer, long-distance hiker and guidebook publisher who maintains a very cool website complete with gear lists and an active Colorado Trail blog. blackwoodspress.com

Gear-weighing site: weighmygear.com/pack-weight/

The Colorado Trail Foundation: coloradotrail.org

— Dean Krakel

Editor’s note

Denver Post photo editor Dean Krakel plans to spend a month this summer trekking The Colorado Trail — 489 miles from Denver to Durango crossing eight mountain ranges. This is the fourth in a biweekly series on his preparation for the big hike. See Krakel’s photos from the trail last year at dpo.st/coloradotrail2014.