Try this website making your packing list https://lighterpack.com/
Yeah, all of this.Originally Posted by Hikingjim
I'll never understand why anyone poo-pooh's "base weight", it's a useful tool/metric, even though slightly ambiguous at times for some.
And what a contrast of typical packs in Georgia compared to packs in Maine! When I hiked the AT NOBO, I flipped around in the White's in NH because of logistics of my wife joining me for that 100 miles, so we went SOBO through that section, so going against the hiker-grain, we saw tons and tons of AT hikers getting close to their finish. We counted just over 200 NOBO AT hikers in 6 days on the trail (yes, you can tell AT thru hikers vs. average Joe hikers). I'd say only a small handful had larger packs, most were nicely trimmed down.
Compare that with the stupid-huge packs you see in Georgia. Yikes!
It really is not a huge effort or learning process to hike relatively light, yet fully equipped. To get UL is more work and money, of course.
Last edited by colorado_rob; 11-15-2016 at 10:37.
It seems at times there's also a huge element of ego or emotional investment in traditions (hence "trad," and open hostility toward UL) and also a macho element to carrying a big pack; witness one of the above comments "Are you weak?" Wow, that's pretty condescending!
Well at least the mass market gear makers are starting to trend toward truly Lightweight if not UL... there's a fair number of 2-person tents in the 2 lb weight vicinity, and stuff is generally getting lighter.
"Hiking should be fun, not work, so lighten up" - Andrew Skurka.
During a recent AT section hike in Ga my wife and I encountered a young lady laboring up Ramrock mtn as we were descending. Her pack was so heavy she was bent over at what must have been close to a 45 degree angle. She wasnt a big woman, maybe 130 lbs and mentioned her pack weight was close to 40 lbs. (for a 30 mile, 4 day hike). No one needs to be lugging close to 35% of their body weight around on their back. It cant be good for the hips, knees and ankles. This young lady was part of a hiking group and was more than likely talked into carrying that much weight by the group "leader". Somehow I doubt she had any fun at all on that hike and may not ever want to backpack again.
I really am a "to each his own" kind of guy but when I hear someone being asked if they are "weak" because they want to carry a lighter load.....well, I just have to shake my head and press on.
For the record: I don't pooh-pooh wanting to carry less. I just don't see the point of comparing specific numbers. Sure, you want the lightest gear that you can afford that will do the job you want it to do. There are a lot of tricks for making that happen - lighter weight alternatives, making pieces do double duty, and just leaving useless stuff home - that people would be wise to learn. Which leads me into:
I find that new hikers struggle to learn how to carry light. Once you know how, it surely seems easy, but it is indeed a learning process for the uninformed - and if you don't have someone to show you the ropes, it can be quite daunting.
One reason that I never state a base weight number is that my weight of gear varies greatly depending on the destination, the season, and the duration and purpose of the trip. I'm not much of a long-distance hiker, so I can't advise on what you need specifically for "fast and light - knock out a couple thousand miles in a season." I can say what I would carry for a 4-5 day summer trip in the Taconics, perhaps, and presume that a thru-hiker passing through Connecticut or Massachusetts might need much the same. I don't know that for sure, not being a thru-hiker. Maybe there's less variability in the specialized domain of the thru-hike.
Coming from that perspective, I can say that my Big Four for that sort of trip consist of a Granite Gear Crown VC60 pack (tall), a TarpTent Notch (plus a Tyvek sheet in case I sleep in a shelter), a house-brand 20° down bag (Long) from the REI outlet, and a Therm-a-Rest ProLite self-inflating pad. I can say that none of those seem to me to be insanely heavy choices (your opinion may vary), and I surely see thru-hikers up here in the North carrying similar stuff. Nevertheless, pack weight wasn't the primary consideration with any of them. I sometimes like to have a little bit more comfort or versatility, and I'm a cheapskate. That's why I don't have a dedicated lightweight bag or quilt for Summer. Summer is too short around here for me to justify the price to myself just to save a few ounces.
What does the stuff weigh? I usually have no idea. If I'm considering replacing a piece of gear or building a different system, then I might start weighing things, so that I know whether I'm actually moving in the right direction. Otherwise, why do I care? I'm going to have to carry it whatever the number is.
I suppose I do care, for this sort of discussion - just to have a benchmark for comparison. So now I guess I have to go look stuff up....
Pack 1.02 kg Tent 0.77 kg Tyvek 0.15 kg Bag 1.28 kg Pad 0.45 kg
So my total for the Big Four is 3.67 kg, or just over 8 lb 1 oz. I could surely lighten it..
0.15 kg - Leave the Tyvek at home if I'm not sleeping in shelters. I seldom, do, anyway, and often I do leave it home, but I'm trying to stay 'AT-style' for this discussion.
0.86 kg - Sleep under something like an EE Revelation 40° rather than using my old sleeping bag.
0.15 kg - Use a torso-length Z-Lite Sol rather than the ProLite
???? - The above three changes would bring my Big Four down to about 2.5 kg (5 lb 8 oz). With it that light, I would likely be able to go with a frameless pack. I haven't researched frameless packs, so I don't have a number for what the saving would be.
But I haven't made those moves. In colder weather - which is a lot of the hiking season where I live - I'd be back with the heavier bag and the full-length pad. I therefore haven't spent the couple hundred bucks that the quilt would run me, to say nothing of the price of an UL frameless pack.
I could save yet another couple hundred grams by switching the TarpTent out for a tarp. But the bug season around here is murder. Blessed is he who sleepeth behind screening, for he shall remain sane.
If I were to be out for a couple of months in the Summer, then I'd be willing to spring for the summer-weight gear, and adjust the system to a 5-pound Big Four. But a long trip in hot weather has never been my hiking style. Moreover, my Big Four are likely always to be heavier than some. I'm a big guy. I need gear that fits.
If I were to do a traditional GA-ME thru-hike, I'd probably try to get the better of both worlds. I'd plan to drop some bucks on new gear if I had such a big project. That would mean that I could haul the 8-pound kit in GA and NC, swap out for the 5-pound kit in Damascus, and pick up the heavy gear again in Hanover. I could drop some of the cold-weather clothing for the middle section as well. That's a guess based on what I know of the weather patterns. Again I've never planned a thru-hike. I could be completely off base.
What does all that number crunching to get a weight figure tell me? Nothing. Whatever the figure is, I have to carry it.
What does the figure tell you? It depends entirely on your point of view, and ranges from, "Another Kevin is a clueless weekender who carries stuff that's way too heavy," through "Another Kevin is a pretty typical middle-of-the-road cheapskate hiker," to "Another Kevin has put some thought into gear and recognizes that it has to fit togetrher in a system, so going UL is a major commitment." But what insight does the figure, by itself, give into how I might go lighter or why I might want not to?
A final thought: I wouldn't reap most of the benefits of UL without considerably more work on the FSI (From Skin In) weight. I never have a weight problem if I can hike regularly, but a combination of health and life issues kept me in for most of a year, and I'm having to start up again with baby steps or I'm going to wind up right back in rehab.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
I'm at 13.2 BPW. I still want to cut out a few pounds and I think I can
Well said and well thought out post, Kevin. We really are not that far apart in our pack weight views.
I just think "base weight" is a useful kinda-sorta metric for beginning-intermediate folks to see where they are at with respect to well known average pack weights, and it only makes sense when one excludes food, water and other consumables, and I agree, only makes sense in context of time of year and type of hiking.
I had a longer response typed in, but hot some weird key stroke and lost it all....
You have to know whats in your pack, and what it weighs, if you want to control it.
Its that simple.
The majority of being light, is learning to simply not take what you dont really need.
Big psychological barriers for some folks.
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 11-15-2016 at 22:26.
+100You have to know whats in your pack, and what it weighs, if you want to control it.
Its that simple.
Especially in a thread titled "Gear Weight"
Thus my recommendation early on to get a good digital scale. And also, as mentioned previously, use a spreadsheet app like lighterpack or geargrams.
Last edited by cmoulder; 11-16-2016 at 07:46.
My goal is to be under 27 pounds SKIN OUT - with 5 days of food and 1 day of water.
This is what i have made up so far. thanks for the link to the LighterPack site, very helpful for me. Liking the results so far and im sure there will be more tweaks to come.
https://lighterpack.com/r/akwcym
As our friends Down Under say, Good on ya, Mate!
Agreed. I'm a fan of using base weight since it's what you'll be carrying every mile, and that's the best weight metric to use for getting pack weight to a minimum. Food and water weight is in constant flux and will never be consistent except possibly on resupply day. My target is usually 10-12lb base weight in summer and 12-15lb in winter. I always plan on 2L of water and 5lbs of food, so my pack weight is usually 17-22lbs. I don't even weigh it anymore.
"Though I have lost the intimacy with the seasons since my hike, I retain the sense of perfect order, of graceful succession and surrender, and of the bold brilliance of fall leaves as they yield to death." - David Brill
Ah. You're in Georgia. I see.
I live Up North. If I bring my full kit of winter traction gear, that alone weighs 8 pounds 9 ounces - including ice axe, leash and sheaths, crampons and crampon bag, snowshoes, tails, gear ties, screwdriver, and spare parts), and I can't dispense with a gram of it if the snow conditions are varied enough. Maybe it's the extreme variation in conditions that I hike in that makes base weight seem like a meaningless number. When I hear numbers quoted, I can't help but think that a winter day trip, even in near-ideal conditions, has my buddies and me lugging packs that might be double the weight of what we'd bring for a summer weekend. Yes, I said, 'day trip.' You still have to bring enough dead geese that spraining an ankle won't mean freezing to death, and enough traction gear that you won't go off a cliff.
It's not just the weather, either. How much photography am I planning? Am I doing map making? Am I planning to fish? Is the trip long enough and the weather warm enough that I'll want my bucket to bathe?
Maybe pack weight comparisons among thru-hikers do make sense. If everyone is hiking basically the same hike, day after day, then there's a lot less variation in the stuff you need. If I were a thru-hiker, I'd probably have that five- or five-and-a-half-pound Big Four that I discussed earlier. But I'm not a thru-hiker, and I suppose I don't think like one.
ETA: Also, 5 pounds of food? Do you really plan a 3-day resupply cycle? On the one longish (a little under 140 mile) hike that I've done in the last few years, I had a six day food carry in the middle. I'm slow, I was planning 8-12 mile days. It turns out that 12-15 was more comfortable for that trip, but I couldn't factor that in the initial planning. I left on the long section with about 11 pounds of food, I think. Some of it was odds and ends that I picked up at a general store and didn't weigh.
Last edited by Another Kevin; 11-16-2016 at 15:41.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
Yeah, I keep forgetting that the AT goes all the way up there! I've never been past TN.
I can last 3-4 days on 5lbs of food @ 3000 cals/day. In fact, I usually have some left over. I try to keep my trips under 100 miles with a resupply option in there somewhere. This year all of my outings have been near or along the southern AT.
"Though I have lost the intimacy with the seasons since my hike, I retain the sense of perfect order, of graceful succession and surrender, and of the bold brilliance of fall leaves as they yield to death." - David Brill
I have a number of extensive gear lists by season, weight and cost. My kit summer 13.5 to 3-season 15.5 ex. Food/water. Send pm with email and I will forward.
An 'old school' gear list. Written down. Cool. As you add & subtract gear choices, you may find an online gear list system - like GearGrams.com - more advantageous. Once you create the master gear list in the 'Gear Library,' you can then create a list (on left side of page), i.e. desert hike list, AT list, Ultralight list, PCT list, etc. You simply click & drag items from the Gear Library into the new list. When you delete from the Gear list, it doesn't remove it from the Gear Library... just the list you are working on. Once you play around with it a while, it becomes 2nd nature.Want to ask you all what your average pack weight will be? I'm totaling up my gear i will be taking and so far im at a 23lb base weight. which seems high since i know a lot of the other thru hikers have base weights of 10-15lbs.
now if i add the 10lbs of food for 5 days and another 2-3 lbs of water i could be looking at a 35lb pack.maybe im drinking a little too much of the UL koolaid but i know carrying too much stuff can hurt mileage and your body.
I put up a picture of my list so far. Attachment 36922
Also i know my weight will go down after the spring and summer comes and that will lighten things up a bit too.
Good luck in your lighter gear quest.
2013 AT Thru-hike: 3/21 to 8/19
Schedule: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...t1M/edit#gid=0
I have made a concerted effort over the last few years to reduce my pack weight. That being said, a 23 lb base weight seems awfully high, even if you're not a gram weenie. One reason may be that you are using a hammock instead of a tent. Don't get me wrong, I love hammocking, but you definitely pay a weight penalty. I mainly limit my hanging to the summer months where I can get my pack weight down to a decent level. I also like to hang in the summer since its cooler than sleeping on the ground. My shoulder season base weight is 13 pounds and during the summer, run at around 10-12 lbs depending on whether I'm hanging or ground pounding.
i don't think you saw my latest replies. https://lighterpack.com/r/akwcym
If you are using a compactor bag or the like for your pack liner, you can ditch the Osprey cover. 4 oz gone that won't actually help too much on keeping your pack dry, it will still wet out from the rain between your rain jacket and the pack.
Definitely getting the weight reigned in.
AT: 695.7 mi
Benton MacKaye Trail '20
Pinhoti Trail '18-19'
@leonidasonthetrail https://www.youtube.com/c/LeonidasontheTrail
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
