Ask the guide: what we carry and what we leave behind

We asked all eleven guides the same two questions in June: what is always in your pack, and what did you stop carrying. The answers were shorter than we expected and agreed with each other more than we expected.

Always

A paper map of the whole area, not the route. Two head torches. A litre of water even on a day with rivers. Tape. Every guide said tape, and none of them agreed on what kind.

Six of eleven also carry a small thermos, which is not a safety item and which they defended more vigorously than anything that is.

Stopped

Spare boots at the trailhead. A second stove. Anything solar. Two guides have stopped carrying a satellite messenger on the Romsdalen routes because coverage is now good enough that the weight was insurance against a case they could not name.

The disagreement

Knives. Four carry a folding knife, five carry nothing, and two carry something closer to a tool than a knife. Nobody could give a reason that convinced anybody else, which felt like the most honest answer of the survey.