Should You Bring a Camp Chair Backpacking? Our Editors Debate. - Backpacker

Going without a chair in camp in Panama Photo: Adam Roy

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Whether or not a backpacker carries a camp chair tells you a lot about them. Do they view camp as a destination to get comfortable and enjoy? Or just a brief pause that’s necessary if they want to spend a weekend walking without collapsing from exhaustion? While camp chairs have gotten lighter and lighter over the past several decade, they’re still far from standard in most backpackers’ gear lists. Should they be on yours? We asked two of our editors to weigh in.

I want it on record that I don’t hate comfort. I’m the kind of person who’s constitutionally unable to sit on a couch without eventually oozing into a lying-down position. I like fireplaces and cozy flannel shirts. I’ve been known, on occasion, to wear Crocs. But when it comes to comfort, it’s possible to have too much of a good thing.

If you’re a middle-class person in the global north, you likely live in an environment that’s tailored to your physical ease. Your clothing is mostly soft and always clean; your furniture is upholstered, your temperatures are controlled. Like a fish in water, you’ve likely become so used to the comforts surrounding you that you’ve ceased to register them.

But sometimes, I think, a little discomfort can help us fully engage with the world. When you feel the sweat trickling down your neck or the hard rock underneath the seat of your pants, what you’re really experiencing is the feeling of being a human being out in nature, immersed in the sun and the bugs and the cold ground. Yes, when you leave the chair at home, you’re sacrificing a little bit of comfort—but you’re gaining so much more.

Then, there’s the obvious problem with carrying a chair: the weight. Backpacking chairs have gotten a lot lighter over the years, with models like the Helinox Chair Zero tipping the scales at a single pound. But you know what weighs less than bringing a lightweight seat? Leaving it at home. A chair is a luxury item that you can replace with any log or relatively flat rock. If I’m going to carry that weight, I’ll bring a book, a first-night meal, or exactly 1 pound of Swedish Fish instead.

I don’t judge anyone who brings a chair—or any other personal luxury—but to me, focusing on comfort in camp is missing the point. The joy of backpacking is in movement and, for once in our comfort-swaddled lives, immersing ourselves in the wide world around us. So rebel, I say. Leave the chair at home. Sit on the wet grass or the cold, hard rock. —Adam Roy, Editor in Chief

Just like Adam, I have an admission up top: I don’t hate discomfort. I read a book on the Finnish concept of “sisu” several years ago, and it changed the way I behave. This Nordic trait boils down to channeling your determination to rise above all adversity. Just when you think you’ve reached your limit, you can always dig deeper. Basically the opposite of hygge, it’s how Finns are resilient enough to ice swim through the winter months, which is central to their culture.

Since I read that book, a lot of my life has trended toward hobbies and activities that test my patience: I actually enjoy running marathons. I write for a living. On the weekends, I climb rocks until my fingertips are raw. Plus, I regularly spend long hours carrying lots of weight on my back and setting up camp far from my comforts of home. I know what it’s like to test my strength, and doing so has let me experience parts of the backcountry that I’d never be able to if I took the easy route. However, there is a line between a hardy challenge and straight-up misery. How can you balance the two when you’re voluntarily putting yourself into uncomfortable scenarios? For me, having reliable comforts makes all the difference.

I bring a chair on most backpacking trips, and I actually use it. It doesn’t detract from my ability to connect with the outdoors at all. I’m still hearing the same birds, feeling the same wind, and getting bitten by the same bugs as I would if I was sitting on a rock. In fact, I feel like I can focus on connecting with nature a little more. (Sitting directly on wet grass or cold ground would also trigger my Raynaud’s-prone extremities to numbness that would take me out of the experience of being outdoors.)

In a community that prides itself on grit, it can be controversial to admit that you go out of your way for luxury. However, determining your hiker status by how much you want to suffer isn’t something we should be doing. We all have had hikes that tested us, whether with whipping rain, technical scrambles, or random accidents. After a brutal hike, being able to reliably and comfortably sit down can help recharge your suffer meter. And doing so on an uneven log or soggy grass patch definitely doesn’t do it for me.

It’s easy to get caught up in the argument about weight, but honestly, chairs don’t weigh that much. My legs have never buckled under the weight of my 1 pound, 11 ounce REI Co-op Flexlite Camp Chair. And a chair weighing a single pound, like the Helinox Chair Zero? Weight-wise, that’s chump change. A decade ago, we wouldn’t be splitting hairs for the sake of weight class status, and doing so now is pretty trite. Just grow up and bring the extra pound or two. — Emma Veidt, Assistant Editor

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