Trail & Timberline On-line — November-December, 1999
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Trail & Timberline featuresGuargualla, Ecuador
Wild Colorado featuring articles on the Wilderness Act "Just the Facts, Ma'am" CMC Public Land Policy Director Vera Smith makes a plea for a deeper understanding of wilderness Myths & Facts about Wilderness Volunteers further wilderness efforts Colorado Wilderness Bills of 1999 Happy Anniversary, Baby. The Wilderness act turns 35. Is it grown up yet? |
Ancient carriage technique shames high-tech packsby R.J. SecorA tumpline is a simple strap that runs from the top of the head to the bottom of a pack. It is probably the oldest technique of human load carriage. Native Americans, French Voyageurs, and North American mountain men have been known to carry heavy, bulky loads long distances using this method. Today, many people in developing countries still use tumplines to carry loads that may weigh as much as seventy percent of their body weight.
The author modeling the TumplineI have used a tumpline to carry knapsacks for the past four years, and I have enjoyed the reactions I get from other hikers. I once encountered some US Marines from the Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California. Our brief greeting was punctuated by the word, “sir,” while they stared at that strap on top of my head. More often, young people laugh at me and ask if I am a Sherpa. But occasionally someone asks me why I am using such a weird device. I reply: “Because it is easier.” Proper Tumpline headstrap placementIn 1994 I took part in a mountaineering expedition to Cho Oyu, a 26,748-foot mountain approximately fifteen miles northwest of Mt. Everest. We hired six Nepalese climbing Sherpas to assist us with load carrying. These Sherpas were skilled, professional climbers, outfitted with the most up-to-date mountaineering clothing and equipment. But despite having state of the art packs, with shaped, load-bearing waist-belts and shoulder straps, they carried them using tumplines. I recalled that the noted American climber and equipment designer Yvon Chouinard had described the virtues of the tumpline in the 1980 Chouinard Equipment catalog. While he had originally started using the tumpline as therapy for chronic back pain, once his back pain had disappeared he noted that it was easier to carry a pack with this seemingly primitive method. So I picked up one of the Sherpa’s packs. The massive load crushed my shoulders but it felt a little better once the waist belt was tightened. The Sherpa suggested that I unfasten the waist belt and then he adjusted the tumpline so that most of the load was carried by it with only a small amount of weight on the shoulder straps. The weight seemed to disappear. My torso was completely unrestricted and I was able to breathe easier without the “corset” of the waist belt and shoulder straps. I experimented further with the tumpline after I returned home. I carried a load of water once a week during my daily afternoon hike (2.5 miles one way with 1,270 feet of gain) along a good dirt road in the mountains behind my home. To be fair, I should state that it took me a long time to get used to the strain on my neck. I used it on fourteen of my afternoon hikes and on five weekend trips before embarking on a hundred mile, two-week hike in the High Sierra. On my afternoon hikes with a fifty three–pound load (thirty-three percent of my body weight) I averaged forty nine minutes fourteen seconds with the tumpline and fifty two minutes, thirty seconds with the load-bearing waist belt. With sixty-six pounds (forty one percent of my body weight) I averaged 52:25 with the tumpline and 58:18 with the waist belt. And on the two-week hike I alternated between using the tumpline and the waist belt each day. I found that I could hike faster, breathe easier, and feel less tired at the end of the day with the tumpline than I did with the waist belt. My hiking and climbing friends were skeptical that this ancient method was better than their modern corsets, so I contacted John Kirk, the Load-Bearing Team leader at the US Army’s Natick Research, Develop ment, and Engineering Center at Natick, Massachusetts. He replied: “When soldiers who typically carry 60–100 pounds in a rucksack have been instructed to carry loads on their heads … they have a difficult time with it.” But he referred me to the cover story of the February 1986 issue of Nature. The authors of this article measured the oxygen consumption of women from the African Luo tribe (who balance the load on top of their heads) and the Kikuyu (who use the tumpline). The women walked on a motorized treadmill with and without loads. Loads of up to twenty percent of body weight had no perceptible effect on oxygen consumption and, presumably, on energy cost. In other words, they carried the equivalent of twenty percent of their body weight free. Increasing the loads from twenty to seventy percent of body weight increased the energetic cost (based on oxygen consumption) of the women from zero to fifty percent. The researchers compared their findings with similar studies of US army recruits. Army recruits carrying backpacks (with just shoulder straps and no waist belt) with twenty percent of body weight loads increased oxygen consumption by thirteen percent, and seventy percent loads by nearly one hundred percent. (I believe that it would have been more relevant to measure the oxygen consumption of experienced, fit hikers using packs with load-bearing waist belts.) As far as I know, tumplines are not commercially available. I make my own by using eighteen inches of two-inch wide seat belt webbing for the head strap. I then sew seven feet of one-inch flat webbing to one side of the head strap. On the other side of the head strap I attach a ladder lock buckle and run the one-inch strap through it. The rest of the one-inch strap goes down the sides and underneath my pack. Most external frames have the packs attached to the upper two-thirds of the frame, and I have found that it makes no difference if the strap goes immediately beneath the pack and above the sleeping bag or if it runs beneath the sleeping bag. The head strap goes on top of the forward part of my head, just above (not on) my forehead. I usually place a washcloth inside of my hat (not so much for padding but for absorbing perspiration from my bald head) and place the tumpline on top of my hat. I don’t attach the pack’s waist belt and only have a small part of the load carried by the shoulder straps (to keep the pack from swaying) while most of the pack weight is carried by the tumpline. But I do resort to using the waist belt and the shoulder straps when hiking downhill, especially along a steep, narrow trail. I don’t need to breathe so much going downhill; I am usually hiking faster; and I typically need to turn my head frequently to see where to place my feet. While I encourage hikers to try the tumpline I also want to urge everyone to take it easy when you first use a tumpline. Novice backpackers (using a waist belt) should not carry more than twenty percent of their body weight in a pack, and even with this weight restriction those on their first overnight hike probably will feel new muscles the next day. The beginner’s tumpline load should be light, perhaps no more than fifteen percent of body weight, and even then your neck may be stiff the following day. Start by carrying a small daypack with a tumpline. Take it easy and gradually increase the pack weight. Your neck and back muscles will slowly get stronger, and I believe that you’ll find it easier to carry a pack. But best of all, the pleasure you get from hiking will increase. |
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