For 10 months, "g" proclaimed he'd have the lightest pack when the Boy's trekked for 5-days in the backcountry of Grand Teton National Park. He meticulously weighed every item in his pack, projected the weight for shared community food and gear, and boasted a sure thing: "Ma pak will weigh tirty-svn pownds!"

OK. So what happened?

The Boys flew from Albany to Wyoming via six connections on their discounted tickets to Jackson Hole. Somewhere above the cloud line "g" whipped out G-WeB's Pack Weigh-In Poll. Here's where the fun began.

On a scale of 1 to 8 (1 = the lightest), each of the Boys was asked to rank the anticipated pack weight of each hiker. Then, the night before the trip, with packs brimming with gear, food, and bladder filled hydration systems, the Boys would have their packs weighed on the Official G-WeB Scale. The outcome would settle, once-and-for-all, the "who's got the lightest pack" debate!

However, there seemed to be some anticipated and obvious givens. It was quite possible "g" would have the lightest pack. After all, he'd bored his e-mail buddies to death with a never-ending stream of pack-weigh-in-updates! But... there was the "unknown variable": Steady as a Mule Mike.

Except for Whinin' Warren My Packs Too Heavy with this 58-Ounce Bottle of Fuel and 5-Pounds of Oscar's Cured Chicken who hiked with Mike in college, no one else knew the kid from Wisconsin. But, there were stories. And there was a growing sense that Mike might be one of those radical, militia survival types who might be packin' only a knife and the clothes on his back.

Other sure-thing and notable rankings in the middle-of-the-pack-weight range included Gotta Have A Lighter Pack Larry and Steve the Bionic Knee. Although Larry had tightly secured a reputation for packing gear and food in a most illogical manner (must we remind you of his trip into the Canyon when he chose to leave home his 10-ounce air mattress to lighten his load, but carried 8, 16-oz. cans of vegetables), he had become paranoid about his conditioning at 10,000 feet. (Heavy pack + limited O2 @ 10Kft = a raging fear of hiking failure in the backcountry.) So... Larry was considered a middleweight pack contender.

And the Knee? Steve had been plagued with severe post-surgery, left knee problems during the last three big trips. To rectify the problem and extend his backpacking tenure, the Knee became driven to (1) carry less pack weight, (2) to be aggressive with his knee strengthening training, and (3) to use the new Ronco ZX-95 Titanium Rocket-Hinged Type Knee Brace. The question seemed to be: "Will Steve's pack be lighter then Larry's in the middle-pack-weight division?"

There were some definite shoe-ins. High Altitude Joe was infamous for carrying a heavier pack at the end of a trip. (Go figure.) Bottled Saranac Black and Tans, a 2-pound multi-tool and his lightweight cot (?) seemed to round off his usual pack weight at about 70-pounds. Only rivaled by Why Do I Have To Carry 83-Ounces of Fuel, 8-Pounds of Oscar's Cured Ham and 5-Pounds of Dehydrated Black Beans for Dinner #3 Warren, the Boys wondered who would tip the scale for 8th place!

Last but not least, was Whiskey Totin' Roger the Stream Jumpin' Semi-Retired Guy and AXE. Perhaps the oldest guy in the group with a rather large retirement stipend from EMS, the Boys generally figured Roger would (now) replace all of his gear with Titanium-this and technical-fabric-that and have a pretty low pack-weight. AXE on the other hand... who could know. AXE has a severe form of a sociopathic-low-pack-weigh-in delusion. He'd swear, "My pack's no more then 40 pounds," as he unloads 6 pints of non-refrigerated milk, 4 bananas protected in Tupperware, an LL Bean mini-espresso machine and a (hard covered) Tom Clancy novel from his pack.

By the time the Boys hit Jackson Hole, all but Mike (arriving two days earlier) had ranked the hikers by pack weight. On Wednesday at 9:00 PM, the night before the hike, the Boys took the G-WeB's Pack Weigh-In plunge. Oh my goodness...