If you are deep in the wilderness, whether you are backpacking for pleasure or trying to get out for survival, having a strap on your backpack break can be devastating. The uneven pressure will start to cause shoulder pain in a mile or so, foot and knee pain soon after, and depending on the terrain you attempting to cover the lack of balance it will create could pose a serious threat to injury, which in the wilderness could quickly turn deadly. So what do you do if you backpack strap breaks and you have ground to cover with a load? Here is one quick and easy solution that requires no tools or special skills.
- First you will have to take the pack off and remove the contents so that you can arrange them for horizontal weight distribution.
- Lay the pack on the ground, on the side with the strap that is still intact.
- Put the items back into the pack in a way that distributes the weight for this orientation. The pack will be carried on your back sideways, the way it is on the ground, except that the side with the strap will end up being on top. This will be harder if you have an older pack with a hard external frame.
- Lengthen the remaining strap to allow for as much length as you can without it coming undone when weight is applied.
- Roll the pack so that the intact strap is facing you, and on the upward side, with the back of the pack on the ground.
- Hold the lengthened strap up and put your arms and head through the strap so that the strap goes around your back just under your arms.
- Then, lift that pack up and over your head allowing it to fall behind you. Tighten the strap as needed.
This might not be as comfortable or as stable as a pack with two straps, you might still want to get a walking stick, but this should have you on your way in no time with a lot more comfort and stability than one strap on one shoulder ever will.
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