Light Weight Horse Camping

Low Impact Horse Camping Without Pack Stock

 

 Go on a Diet – Ultra Light Weight Horse Camping

 

For those of us without pack stock, or those of us that want to try foregoing the hassles on pack stock, venturing into wilderness areas and camping off of your riding horse, or mule, may seem to be an untenable goal.  It’s not. While camping off of your riding animal will take a bit more planning and be an exercise in moderation it is certainly doable and certainly fun!

We’ve been working on perfecting low impact horse camping over the past few months and I wanted to share what we’ve learned thus far. We certainly have much further to go in this adventure and research but this may help you in your own trip planning.

 

Go on a diet, both literally and figuratively.

 

The weight that your riding stock can accommodate is the limiting factor to how far down the trail you’ll travel and for how long you’ll stay. A commonly heard figure is that a well conditioned horse can carry 20% of its body weight. Think about that for a moment. An average horse weighs about 1,000 pounds, giving it a carrying capacity of 200 pounds. That’s not much. For many of us our extra padding alone will take us over the 20% mark before we even add in our saddle and tack. Give up that extra helping at dinner and get some exercise, your horse will thank you.

 

A western style roping saddle can weigh well in excess of 40 pounds, so consider a lighter weight trail saddle. There are many excellent options for trail riding that weigh under 30 pounds. Since it is unreasonable to expect most people to replace all of their tack with the light weight gear favored by endurance riders here are a few other places where you can shave a few ounces or pounds from your total capacity.

 

In Camp

 

When you’re camping off of your stock your horse will be carrying you and your camp so it behooves us to look at ways to reduce the load here as well.

 

Each of these fully loaded horses is carrying a load of just under 21 pounds. 

That includes two days of feed for horses and humans, cooking equipment, shelter and sleeping systems, and an emergency kit.

 

The large cantle and saddle bags together weigh only 8 pounds and contain lightweight yet bulky items such as sleeping bags. The smaller pommel bags contain heavier items including horse feed.

 

Horse Containment

 

When using pack stock or camping at a trailhead we like using a heavy, ½ inch diameter rope that is easy to work with when hanging a highline. For camping off the horse, however, something lighter, that packs smaller, but is just as strong is needed. Filling these needs is a product commonly called “mule tape”, used by commercial electricians to pull electrical cables through conduit. It’s very strong, very light, and very cheap.

 

Tree savers are another must have piece of your highline setup. Use 2 inch polyester slings with loops sewn into each end to eliminate the weight of the steel rings typically found in traditional tree savers. A few climber’s carabineers reduces rope on rope friction. Instead of using heavy knot eliminators use a lightweight carabineer, or 3 inch ring,  tied to the highline with a prussic loop.   

 

Human Accommodations

 

While the look and comfort of a traditional bedroll and wall tent is wonderful, woe is the equine that has to haul it.

 

Camping with horses doesn’t have to harken back to the 1870’s, instead we can take a few pages from the backpacking communities’ book and move into the 21st century with our choices of camp gear.

 

Shelter – There are many options for lightweight tents that weigh under 5 pounds. The issue that we've found with tents is that they take up a lot of space. We've started using hammocks as a lightweight, and extremely comfortable alternative.

A good camping hammock will weigh well under a pound and when paired with a bug net and rain tarp still pack into a football sized space and weigh less than 2 pounds.

 

Food – This is a major limiting factor for humans as well as stock. While there is a plethora of freeze dried human food available our equine companions need high fiber feed that equates directly to bulk and weight. This is where the importance of trip planning comes into play. Doing a bit of research prior to your trip will help you to anticipate feed availability for your stock. Look for meadows which typically are good grazing areas.

 

There are many resources available to horse riders, including the web, horse clubs, and land managers that can help you in locating areas with good grazing opportunities. If you choose to camp for more than a day or so in an area without good grazing you'll need to use a pack animal for hauling in horse feed.

 

Much more to come…

 

 

 

Have a tip(s) that you'd like to share? Let us know!