Glen Van Peski is known as the king of ultralight backpacking. While backpackers will hit the trails with a pack that weighs upwards of 20 pounds, Glen's pack usually only weighs around 12 pounds. Glen is also the founder of the functional lightweight backpacking and hiking gear company, Gossamer Gear, and the author of Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker.
Glen Van Peski is known as the king of ultralight backpacking. While backpackers will hit the trails with a pack that weighs upwards of 20 pounds, sometimes even up to 50 or more, Glen's pack usually only weighs around 12 pounds. Glen is also the founder of the functional lightweight backpacking and hiking gear company, Gossamer Gear, and the author of Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker.
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Glen Van Peski:
I like to be moving. So generally, if it's light out, I'm hiking. Francie, my wife, knows the expression, honey, you're burning daylight. And so if you're walking all day, then carrying a lighter load means you're enjoying it a lot more. You're able to see what's around. You don't need to stop and take your pack off just to let your muscles get unknotted, and you have less injuries.
Shelby Stanger:
Glen Van Peski is just like any backpacker. When he's getting ready for a trek, he's thinking about everything he needs to take with him. But there's a major difference between Glen's backpack and those of most other hikers. Some backpackers will head out with a pack that weighs upwards of 20 pounds, sometimes even up to 50 or more, but Glen's pack usually only weighs around 12 pounds. That's why he's known as the king of ultralight backpacking and why one of his trail names is Legend. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios Production brought to you by Capital One.
Glen Van Peski is the founder of Gossamer Gear, a brand that makes equipment specifically for ultralight backpackers. If you're unfamiliar, ultralight backpacking is a style of backpacking where you carry the least amount and the lightest weight gear you can. Glen has introduced thousands of people to this style of backpacking, not just through his brand, but also through speaking engagements and just meeting people on the trail. It's made him a bit of a celebrity in the outdoor world. He's also just one of the nicest people ever.
I met Glen years ago, when I was speaking to a group of Girl Scouts. Glen spoke before me, and he was telling the scouts about all the things you need or don't need in your pack. I always remember that at the end of his talk, one of these little girls raised her hand and asked, "What about carrying emergency candy?" Glen paused, and I really wasn't sure what he was going to say. I mean, he's so focused on lightweight packing that he's cut his sleeping pad in half, but Glen looked up at the little girl and said, "Of course, you need emergency candy. Just pack something light like jelly beans." From that moment on, I knew we'd be friends.
Glen Van Peski, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. It's so exciting to have an old friend on the show who's taught me a lot about hiking.
Glen Van Peski:
Well, it's very exciting to me to be on your show, having been from .... Your book chronicles our meeting all those years ago, and then having watched you build the podcast, it's a treat to have a familiar face for this experience here.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get involved in the outdoors?
Glen Van Peski:
Well, as kid, we did a lot of camping. My dad had a pickup truck. He's super handy. He made this system of trays and stuff that went in the back, and so we'd go to national parks and camp, and we'd go on hikes. And so that was at an early age. Then when my parents divorced when I was in fourth grade and we moved back to Massachusetts, my mom joined the Appalachian Mountain Club. And we'd go on hikes around there. And then when I graduated high school in '76, I thought it'd be a good idea to ride my bicycle cross country. So we did 4,200 miles with a couple friends. So that was a fun adventure.
Shelby Stanger:
What year was this?
Glen Van Peski:
This was 1976.
Shelby Stanger:
In 1976, you rode your bike across the country?
Glen Van Peski:
Yeah, it was crazy. I mean, no helmets, no cell phones. I think I called my mom twice in six weeks from pay phones.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you have any stories from that trip?
Glen Van Peski:
The one that really sticks in my mind .... A lot of times we'd be riding on state highways that had been replaced by an interstate, so the old rest stops and stuff were still there, so we'd just camp at a rest stop. But sometimes, if we were near a town, we'd just go knock on a door and say, "Hey, we're riding from Massachusetts to California on our bicycles. Can we pitch our tents in your front yard?"
This one night we stopped, and I went up and knocked on the door and this old guy answered. And so I'm like 17, 18, so I had no idea how old he was, but he seemed old to me then. And he said, "Yeah, sure, but it'd be better around the side of the house. There's less wind there and stuff." So I said, "Great." So we go there and we're setting up, and he comes out and he says, "What time are you guys leaving in the morning?" And I said, "Well, we've got miles to do. We're trying to do 80 miles a day. And so we're kind of getting an early start before it gets too hot. So we are usually going by seven."
And he was kind of disappointed and he said, "Ah, we'd really like to make you breakfast, but my wife's got really bad arthritis and it's just brutal in the morning. She just can't get up that early." I said, "Oh, that's fine. We're just happy to have a place to camp. We don't expect any breakfast. That's fine. Appreciate the gesture." And he came out with a little package of Hostess Donuts. He says, "Well, since we can't make you breakfast, we can at least give you these little powdered sugar donuts."
And so the next morning, sun's up, we're packing up, and we're about to wheel off, and the door to their house opens and he beckons us up. And so we think, "Eh, he wanted to say goodbye or something." So we go in. And his wife had gotten up in spite of her brutal arthritis, and they had made a feast. I mean, there were eggs and home fries and biscuits and potatoes and pancakes and syrup. I mean, there was so much food. I'm pretty sure we ate through their weekly food budget in that one meal.
And I was just so touched that she got up through the pain so she could feed three smelly strangers. And I've been telling that story for almost 50 years now, and I like to think that, I'm sure they're gone, but that they told that story for many years from their side about the four hungry kids that they'd never seen eat so much that they met that summer of 1976.
Shelby Stanger:
That trip and that breakfast in particular had a tremendous impact on Glen. It taught him a lot about generosity, which is a trait that's become a central pillar in his life. The trip was also a preview for Glen's career in the outdoor industry. When Glen and his friends ended the ride in California, he got a job at a civil engineering firm. From there, Glen went back to school to become an engineer. The things he learned on the job about the cost of materials and the power of simplifying didn't just help him at work. They were also useful decades later when Glen started backpacking with his family.
How did you become so obsessed with ultralight backpacking? Was there a time where you just had this heavy monster pack?
Glen Van Peski:
Yeah, we have a picture of me with my probably 13-year-old son, Brian, our oldest at that point, in the Sierras, and I had this huge pack on, and he's got a huge pack on, and my pack for that week in the Sierras weighed 70 pounds when I put it on the scale. And shortly after that, since I was an adult leader in the local scout troop, my friend read Ray Jardine's Pacific Crest Trail Hiker's Handbook, when he talked about ultralight backpacking. And he wasn't the first, but I think is generally credited with the resurgent interest in ultralight backpacking. I remember he had a gearless in the back of his book showing like an eight pound base pack weight. So his tent, his pack, his sleeping bag, pots and pans, extra clothing, first aid, all that stuff was under eight pounds. And I remember looking at that and going, "Oh, my gosh. That's crazy." And now, I mean, I can't recall the last time that I went out with a base pack weight that was over five pounds.
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get your pack so light?
Glen Van Peski:
So my mom believed that every kid should leave home knowing how to do three things. They should know how to cook, they should know how to bake, and they should know how to sew. She just considered those basic life skills that everyone should know how to do. So when I rode out of town on my bicycle, I knew how to do those three things. So for the Sierra trek, I went into REI. Okay, we're going to be a week in the Sierras. What do we need? And so, of course, we got the MSR stove and the SIG fuel bottle and big down sleeping bag. And so I bought, I don't even remember the brand, the latest big internal frame pack, and it weighed seven and a half pounds empty.
Shelby Stanger:
That's pretty heavy.
Glen Van Peski:
Yeah. And now it's like all my gear in the pack weighs less than that. So I looked at the pack, and I thought, "Well, that's a good place to start, something that weighs seven and a half pounds." So I got some fabric and some webbing, and I sewed myself a pack. And it weighed like a pound. I thought, "Well, that's a good start." And then I started sewing tents and stuff sacks and just making lighter stuff. If I had crazy ideas, like my feet get cold at night so that's probably the one piece of gear that I still have from that first Sierra trek is a pair of purple fleece socks that I bought on that fateful day at REI, and I still carry those.
Now, I have cut slits in them so I can put my thumb through and they can be mittens so I've modified them slightly. But the first pack, I thought, "They're relatively heavy socks. I'm only wearing them at night." So I thought, "Well, during the day, I can stuff them in my shoulder straps and they'll be padding so dual use. And then why do I need a frame because my sleeping pad, I'm only using that at night, so when I'm not sleeping on it, I can fold it up and that can be the frame for the pack." So since I could sew, I could incorporate these crazy ideas into my packs and make them really light.
Shelby Stanger:
And since you're an engineer, that helps, too.
Glen Van Peski:
Yes, yes.
Shelby Stanger:
You can engineer these ideas.
Glen Van Peski:
That's true. Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
Once Glen discovered that he could make his own gear, he started to experiment to find exactly what worked for him. Between the constant revisions and the decades he's spent out on trails, Glen's setup is dialed in. His backpack itself is eight ounces. He said he's carried lighter, but this one has the luxury of some nice pockets. In his pack, he carries a tarp that he uses for shelter, a custom sleeping bag with a single layer of nylon to cut the wind and keep bugs out, a small pot made out of a beer can, and fuel tabs for cooking. As far as hygiene goes, he carries a minimal first aid kit, a small bottle of sunscreen, some liquid soap, and my personal favorite, a little fingertip toothbrush. It's taken him many years to perfect his packing list, but it certainly helps that he's been designing his own equipment since the 90s.
So when did your curiosity for ultralight backpacking lead you to found your own gear company, Gossamer Gear?
Glen Van Peski:
I made a pack for myself, and then because I'm an engineer, as I'm hiking along, I'm thinking like, "Well, this is good, but it'd be better if I did this, or, gosh, I wonder if this would work." And so I made another pack. And this is something I always tell people when they tell me, "Oh, I made myself a pack." I say, "Just be warned. It probably won't be the last pack you'll make." Then I made another pack. And finally about the fourth pack, I felt like I'd gotten things pretty dialed in. We, just joking around, gave them names like my name starts with a G, they called it the G1, and the second one was G2, and the fourth one was the G4.
So this was early, early internet days. And so I put the plans up on a listserv for anyone to make that they wanted to. I drew out a crude kind of pattern that you could make yourself a pack. And some people did. I'll be giving a talk somewhere. And after the talk, someone comes up with this battered old pack. So this is a G4 that I made myself like 30 years ago. I still use it, which is cool. So I put the plans up on the internet for free, and then I keep getting calls, "Well, I don't know how to sew" and "I don't know anyone that knows how to sew. Could you make me one?" And at this point, I'm working 80 hours a week as an engineer. It takes me 10 hours to make a pack from rolling out the fabric, marking it, cutting it, sewing it. I mean, it's a process.
And so I told them, "No, I can't make you a pack." But I kept getting calls. And so finally I thought, well, I felt bad for these people that their moms didn't teach them how to sew before they left home. So I thought I should figure out a way to get a couple packs made. And so I was talking to Quest Outfitters in Florida, a couple of sisters, and I got my materials from them. And they said, "Well, there's this place on the West Coast in this trade publication, a cut-and-sew operation. You could call them. So I called up and he says, "Our minimum order is 100." And I'm like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. This is not going to work." I figured I needed 25. I figured 25 packs. Everyone can have one. They'll stop calling me. We'll be done. And so we went back and forth a little bit, and he finally agreed he would make 50 packs. And so I thought, "Well, they'll be in my garage for the next 5 or 10 years, but I'll eventually get rid of them."
So then I sent him up a sample of my pack. And he had told me, "We've sewn outdoor gear. We know what we're doing. We've made other packs." I remember a phone conversation with him after he looked at the pack I sent him. He says, "These are not like other packs we make." And I said, "Yeah, that's kind of the point. They are different." So we went through the process and ordered some fabric, got it shipped to him, and he got to work on the packs. And our son, Brian, put together a little rudimentary website that people could fill out a form for an order. And I started getting orders. So I grabbed a yellow pad of paper and wrote down the date, the name, and I put a check mark when their check arrived in the mail for $70, and that included postage. I even took delivery of the 50 packs. I already had orders for 86. And that was my first indication, this might not work out quite the way I thought.
Shelby Stanger:
After placing that initial order, Glen realized that lots of people were interested in ultralight backpacking. Glen's knack for designing gear turned into a full-blown company called Gossamer Gear. After a few years of running it himself, Glen's friend, John Mackey, bought the business. If that name sounds familiar, it's because that's the same John Mackey who founded Whole Foods, the grocery store chain. When we come back, Glen talks about how he applies the mentality of ultralight backpacking to his life and what all his time in nature has taught him.
Glen Van Peski fell in love with ultralight backpacking after he took his son on a trek in the Sierras. His pack for the trip weighed 70 pounds. That's like carrying a 7-year-old on your back. After that, Glen became obsessed with making his pack as light as possible. He found that carrying less weight allowed him to go farther and see more. Glen has learned a lot from packing less, both on and off the trail.
So what are the benefits of taking less gear?
Glen Van Peski:
The benefits are so many. I mean, one is you get to enjoy the hike more. I should say it depends on how you like to enjoy the back country. I know people who just like to hike into a lake, do a base camp, and then day hike up the peaks and stuff around. And if that's how you do wilderness, then pack weight's not that big a deal. You probably want to pack a nice chair in. It's a different experience. Usually, for me, I like to do miles. I like to experience. I don't sit well, generally. I like to be moving, so generally if it's light out, I'm hiking. Francie, my wife, knows the expression, honey, you're burning daylight. It's like, "Let's move. Sun's up. We should be walking."
And so if you are walking all day, then carrying a lighter load means you're enjoying it a lot more. You're able to see what's around. You don't need to stop and take your pack off just to let your muscles get unknotted. And you have less injuries. I am remarkably injury-free, and I think a lot of that's due to carrying a light weight. It is just you're less likely to sprain something, wear things out, wear out joints when you don't have that much weight on. You are able to help other people. If you do get into trouble, someone can run ahead. And you can redistribute their load if everyone's carrying light loads. So there's a lot of benefits, a lot of benefits of going lighter.
Shelby Stanger:
Besides the physical benefits, what are the mental and metaphorical benefits?
Glen Van Peski:
One of the benefits of going ultralight and minimal on the trail is it gives you a new appreciation for all the conveniences that we take for granted. I mean, I live in a 3,000 square foot house with instant hot water. We've got a 16-inch mattress with a memory foam topper and down comforter, and I've got these amazing pillows. That's just what life is. I mean, we just take it for granted. But after you've been on the trail, sleeping on the ground on a quarter-inch foam mattress and having to treat your water, it's like hot water coming out of a faucet is a miracle. It kind of resets what your expectations are, I guess, and your joy and appreciation for how good we have it here.
And in life, taking less gives you more margin, so you have the ability to notice someone else that maybe there's a reason they crossed your path in life. And maybe it's because they have a solution to something that you've been working on, or maybe you can help them with something they've been working on. Because we have been intentional living on less than we make, we give away a significant portion of our income. So we have a separate account that anytime money comes in, a big chunk of it goes to this separate account. So when needs come up, we can meet those. We don't have to ask, do we have money or not? Now, I'm always excited when I meet new people because I think like, "Wow, do they have something that I need to hear or am I going to be able to help them in some way?"
Shelby Stanger:
Generosity is something that you have a lot of. I mean, you really downplay it, but I've seen you just give basically the pack off your back to someone else. It's really interesting. Where did that come from?
Glen Van Peski:
I think it goes back to that summer of 1976 and that breakfast, just giving of your life to impact someone else's.
Shelby Stanger:
Glen has a new book called Take Less. Do More. In it, he chronicles stories from the trail and lessons he's learned over the years.
What has all your time in nature taught you about the power of subtraction?
Glen Van Peski:
One of the great things about being in nature is the focus. I love the world, the front country world I live in and being connected and being able to text the neighbors and if they want some bread that I just baked or stuff like that and just being connected. But it takes a toll. I meditate every morning, and I think I suck at it because my brain's always going. But being outside, there's no cell phone coverage, you can't fix anything in the house that needs fixing, you can't talk to the insurance person to do whatever you need to do, you can't make a doctor's appointment. All you need to think about is like, "Am I hungry?" or "What am I going to eat next and where's the next water and where am I going to camp tonight?" I mean, life just gets distilled down to such bare essentials that your brain can just wander, think about big questions. You can think about people that maybe you should reach out to when you can.
Or the other cool thing is talking to people. We've done a fair amount of walking trips in Europe. And when you're walking all day with people, and sometimes you're by yourself and your own thoughts, but sometimes you naturally find yourself pace wise you're walking along with someone. And you really have a chance to get to know them. You ask them something. They'll say, "Oh, it's a long story." And then you go, "Well, we got all day." And you get a chance that we don't really get in life because like, "Oh, that sounds interesting, but in 15 minutes I've got to be somewhere else." So you don't have that time. So having that uninterrupted time to connect with people is huge.
Shelby Stanger:
I find it inspiring that ultralight backpacking has opened up so many opportunities for Glen to build and cultivate relationships. One of the most important things he's learned is to be intentional. Glen creates every piece of gear with a purpose, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have a sense of humor about it, too. For example, he mentioned that his favorite piece of gear was something called a crotch pot. It's a small durable bag that you fasten inside your pants with lightweight plastic hooks. The idea is that you put your food in a Ziploc. The Ziploc goes inside the crotch pot, which goes in your pants, and then your body heats your dinner. Our producer, Sylvia, was so fascinated by this that Glen even sent her one. Go check it out on Gossamer Gear's website if you're interested.
Glen Van Peski, thank you so much for coming on the show, sharing your amazing stories, sending a crotch pot to Sylvia, and just being so darn nice. If you want to get a copy of Glen's book, you can pre-order it now at glenvanpeski.com or wherever you get books. Again, it's called Take Less. Do More. 100% of the proceeds from Glen's book will be donated to the Pacific Crest Trail Association. Take Less. Do More. comes out on April 16th, and I can't recommend it enough. You can follow Glen on Instagram at gvanpeski. That's G-V-A-N-P-E-S-K-I.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producers are Jenny Barber and Hanna Boyd. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas. The Ziploc goes inside the, oh, my God. Okay.