There are three dark emotions that can attend the end of any long hiking trip.

The first is interpersonal: I swear I’ll never again set off into the woods with that whiner. The second is gear-related: how can someone in good conscience sell a tent/boots/shirt with seams that pop apart under my gentle/frantic/angry tugging?

The third, and far more common, is the self-loathing that arises when your pack disgorges a several pounds of underused items. Pounds that you just carried 40 or 60 miles. Fifteen or 20 of them pretty much uphill.

Seriously, what made you think you wanted to experiment with (and be frustrated by) a second (homemade) stove. Who calculated that you’d need that extra 8 ounces of oatmeal. That big bowl? Comfy long trekking pants and comfy long-johns? In July? Really?

If you don’t go on another trek for several months, you will forget this disgust. Adventure is bubbling in your veins, and it sounds like fun to try that new utility tool someone gave you for Christmas (though of course you’ll also take your trusty pocket knife, because you always take that).  How do you remember it isn’t fun? It is work. Unnecessary, soul-crushing work.

Two suggestions: first, write yourself a note. As soon as you get off trail and have a chance to stare coldly at all the excess baggage you’ve pulled from your pack. Write the note in tears and sweat and the grime that’s accumulated in the folds of your over-tanned flesh. Explain to yourself what you didn’t use, and why, and what it felt like to have your heart slamming against your chest as you hauled that crap over boulders at 10,000 feet. And at 11,000 feet. And so on.

Second,  carefully review REI’s helpful article on ultralight backpacking. There’s probably nothing here you haven’t seen before. But it’s well written, reasonable and pretty comprehensive. And safety isn’t compromised. You probably won’t be fully converted. Anyone who has reached a certain age will stick to a few of the creature comforts than the pure ultralight enthusiast will forego. But it’s a way to remember to shed those unsightly and ungainly pack-pounds.

Painting: Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou (1847), by Alfred Boisseau, via Wikimedia Commons