Today I was a Sherpa

and by that I mean I carried somebody's backpacking pack halfway up the 'Y'.

With all the hiking I've done, for some reason I've never 'backpacked'. Last week I got a little taste of backpacking, and an even smaller taste of being a sherpa.

What: A night-hike with a 2 guy/2 girl group, but not a date :(
Where: The guys were hiking to meet friends already on top of Y Mountain, to camp...in the snow.
Why: The girls went along for the night-hike and good-company of it. (Tempting as it would have been to camp on top of a mountain in the snow, I don't have the gear). To get a taste of backpacking, we swapped packs with the guys. I always thought backpacking would feel like carrying a big backpack, and I guess it does, but I didn't realize what carrying a really big backpack would feel like.
The secret to carrying these 50ish lb things: cinch the waist belt at the waist (which is a weird feeling in and of itself), so all the weight rides on the hips (so the guys told us). We realized that generally speaking, girls have more 'behind' than guys, so the weight was on the hips and the glutes. Whew, a good workout! The shoulder straps are cinched to prevent the pack from rocking and potentially pulling you over backwards. Even with the shoulder straps cinched, the pack sways with each step, creating a strange sensation of keeping your balance. The 'Y' trail is steep, so this was a good test for us.

Earlier the guys had mentioned how light one feels and how much energy one has after taking off the pack. They probably wanted to feel that when they reached the top of the mountain, so to do them a favor by not doing too much of the work for them, we swapped packs again at the top of the Y :)
Kudos to backpackers and sherpas who can carry & balance that much weight up a mountain! Maybe I'll invest in a backpack and to build up, carry 50 lbs up the Y every so often...but that would look really funny:)