How to store your clothes in your hiking bag?
Preparing and organising your rucksack is crucial before setting off on a hike. It is important to choose your rucksack carefully and not to overload yourself by taking only the essential items and clothes. Packing your backpack will be essential, both for practicality and for your own safety. Find out how to pack your clothes in your hiking bag.
Photo by S Migaj on Unsplash
Balancing the weight of the rucksack
Storing clothes properly in your rucksack ensures comfort, practicality and safety when hiking. If you distribute the weight in your rucksack incorrectly, you risk suffering from back, shoulder and hip pain. Your muscles will have to compensate for the weight on one side rather than the other and this can be a handicap, especially if you are going to be hiking for several days.
On the trails, you may encounter technical, steep or slippery terrain. In this situation, you can easily fall or injure yourself if your centre of gravity is too high, because your backpack is poorly distributed.
Finally, organising your rucksack well allows you to access the most useful and smallest items quickly and leave heavy and bulky items in other areas of the rucksack.
Organising your hiking bag
To organise your backpack, it is best to separate it into four areas:
- The bottom of the bag
- Along the back
- The front part
- The top of the bag
At the bottom you can place your sleeping bag. The advantage is that it cushions your bag well when you put it down. If you have access from the bottom, it can also be useful to put a piece of clothing in the bottom of the bag so that it is easily accessible.
Along the back, it is better not to put any clothes on and prefer heavy and cumbersome items such as a stove, gas cartridges, food or your tent.
The front is the area where we recommend you put your clothes, which are light and not very dense. They can also hold heavier objects.
The top of the bag is often easily accessible. We therefore advise you to put some clothes there, such as a rain jacket, down jacket or your fleece. If it suddenly rains, you don't have to unpack the whole bag to protect yourself and you save time.
Smaller items of clothing such as gloves or a hat can be placed in the outer pockets to make them even more easily accessible when needed.
Organising your clothes with different tricks
In order to take up as little space as possible, you can roll up your clothes instead of folding them. This technique not only saves space, but also allows you to arrange the clothes better. You can slip them between heavy or fragile items so that everything is well secured.
Using travel pouches to compartmentalise and organise your bag can also be a good idea. You can organise your bag according to the purpose of your belongings. For example, a kitchen pocket, a clothes pocket for the bivouac, a spare clothes pocket... This allows you to find your way easily when you need something.
Knowing how to store your clothes in your backpack is essential. It allows you to gain in comfort, safety, but especially in practicality. Having easy access to certain items of clothing, such as rain gear, and less easy access to items that are not essential during a hike (such as sleeping gear), allows you to hike in better conditions without having to keep packing and unpacking your hiking backpack.