Ultra Light Practice?


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Dan Kirkland

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Hey All, well in my efforts to get back out into the woods I have decided that once I complete school and get my debt paid off that I want to try to go out and go backpacking for at least a 3 day or 1 week trip.

However in my past trips with my uncle he always made REALLY heavy packs. On my first backpacking trip with him he packed a 53 pound pack that I carried for a 3 day 60+ mile trip, it sucked!

So I'd like to try to do it again but with a MUCH lighter pack. I realize that it takes some experience to get the weight down to like 15 pounds but if I'm just starting out what is something that you guys would recommend I do to practice and start getting my feet wet?

Any advice is welcome :)
 
I would suggest you read all of the gear lists in this forum and put a kit together yourself. Go out on a few overnighters and see which gear you really use. After a few of these, you will start to get your pack weight down by eliminating the gear you do not use. Like you said, "get your feet wet first".

Experience is the only way you can learn.
 
pm Justin_Baker. He does the crossover UL vs Bushcraft thing.
 
Hi Dan,

This is my first post. You may want to check out "Trail Life" or "Beyond backpacking" by Ray Jardine. He has an interesting take on lightweight backpacking: you really don't need a lot of stuff or expensive gear, and you can make a lot of gear/clothing yourself and save some $.
 
Spend the extra bucks on a lightweight backpack, sleeping bag and shelter. That is where you will save some good pounds and money spent on those items goes a long way (comfort on your back during the hike and a good nights rest). Food and water weigh a ton, helps a bunch to plan out your food for every meal, maybe even take dehydrated stuff, and to know where water sources are along the hike in and where you camp for the night. Cook kits can rack up some weight, usually though a nice titanium nesting cup and maybe a lightweight cup or bowl is all you really need. Cooking over a fire will save weight on fuel, something to consider. Simply getting a scale and weighing everything you bring will help you reconsider your gear choices, it helped me a bunch.

While not super ultra light, here is my 29 pound load-out complete with food and water for 3 days/2 nights - http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57223
 
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Actually the best advice I have seen recommends spending money on a lightweight backpack last. A good lightweight backpack will weigh two pounds or less. A good backpack will weigh more, but a lightweight backpack wont haul a heavy load where as a regular back will haul a light load fine. Once you have refined your gear and got your load to where you are comfortable at, then you buy a lightweight backpack based on your particular needs. My load runs about 30 pounds right now for a 5 day winter trip, but that is with a heavy ruck that weighs 6 pounds. I don’t think it takes a whole lot of extra experience to get to the ultra light weight, I think it takes a bit more money or ability to make stuff. That and realizing most items are a compromise.

I can’t see my load getting to much lighter because there are some things I just am not going to compromise on. I personally feel a lot of ultra light folks don’t have enough of a safety net built into their gear. To me that’s where some realistic redundancy and bush craft skills start to come in.
 
Horned Toad said:
Actually the best advice I have seen recommends spending money on a lightweight backpack last. A good lightweight backpack will weigh two pounds or less. A good backpack will weigh more, but a lightweight backpack wont haul a heavy load where as a regular back will haul a light load fine. Once you have refined your gear and got your load to where you are comfortable at, then you buy a lightweight backpack based on your particular needs. My load runs about 30 pounds right now for a 5 day winter trip, but that is with a heavy ruck that weighs 6 pounds. I don’t think it takes a whole lot of extra experience to get to the ultra light weight, I think it takes a bit more money or ability to make stuff. That and realizing most items are a compromise.

I can’t see my load getting to much lighter because there are some things I just am not going to compromise on. I personally feel a lot of ultra light folks don’t have enough of a safety net built into their gear. To me that’s where some realistic redundancy and bush craft skills start to come in.
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I purchased a lighter weight pack first, under 3.5 pounds (I believe your pack should weigh ~10% of your loadout) and had no problems, I see no reason to buy 2 bags or postpone buying a lighter weight bag first, ultralight packs can't carry much weight comfortably, but most big brands offer ~3 pound bags that can carry a decent amount of weight, but are still light enough to use throughout your quest to shed pounds.

As far as experience helping you drop some pounds, I believe it helps a whole lot, I can sit at home and think about what gear to bring and what gear I'll use till I'm blue in the face, but until I am living out of my backpack for a few nights, carrying the weight 10+ miles up and down hills and mountains, I won't really know what performs well, what I need, what I don't need...etc. I first started backpacking lugging almost 50 pounds, over the course of last year I shed things I didn't need and now I am under 30 pounds now and every trip I see ways to lighten my gear or leave things that I don't need/use.
 
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Dan Kirkland said:
Hey All, well in my efforts to get back out into the woods I have decided that once I complete school and get my debt paid off that I want to try to go out and go backpacking for at least a 3 day or 1 week trip.

However in my past trips with my uncle he always made REALLY heavy packs. On my first backpacking trip with him he packed a 53 pound pack that I carried for a 3 day 60+ mile trip, it sucked!

So I'd like to try to do it again but with a MUCH lighter pack. I realize that it takes some experience to get the weight down to like 15 pounds but if I'm just starting out what is something that you guys would recommend I do to practice and start getting my feet wet?

Any advice is welcome :)
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You asked for advice, I'll oblige

1, Don't wait for school to be over and debts repaid, get out and enjoy the outdoors NOW, even if only for local day trips.

2, 3day 60+ mile trip with 53 lbs?... thats what pack mules are for!... take some time and enjoy every mile, stop and smell the roses!

3, Don't go back packin with uncle overload anymore...lol

Your obviously a little younger, so take it from someone who's a little older...enjoy every day ( time goes by way too fast ) and appreciate the smaller trips, and lighter loads. You'll have many more enjoyable memories.
 
zammer said:
You asked for advice, I'll oblige

1, Don't wait for school to be over and debts repaid, get out and enjoy the outdoors NOW, even if only for local day trips.

2, 3day 60+ mile trip with 53 lbs?... thats what pack mules are for!... take some time and enjoy every mile, stop and smell the roses!

3, Don't go back packin with uncle overload anymore...lol

Your obviously a little younger, so take it from someone who's a little older...enjoy every day ( time goes by way too fast ) and appreciate the smaller trips, and lighter loads.
Click to expand...

+1 you may even find yourself less stressed and doing better in school because of the relaxing time spent in the woods.
 
I'm with Chert, if you want to get your pack weight down the "Big 3" are the first place to start: Pack, Shelter, Sleep system. From there, get a scale to weigh everything you want to take with you and you'll pretty quickly see how fast stuff adds up and figure out what kinds of stuff you can cut weight on.

After the big three it usually starts running into the old adage "ounces add up to pounds" and you'll find the weight reductions require shaving a few ounces here, a few there rather than saving pounds at once you like you might with an UL down sleeping bag over a cheap synthetic one. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to cut the tags out of your clothing and drill holes in your toothbrush, but the point is the "couple extra ounces" here there and everywhere add up to pounds of extra weight in no time. Weighing everything makes you account for it at each step.

You have 3 basic tricks to shedding weight:

1) Replace gear with lighter versions - does NOT always mean spending money; replacing a Nalgene with a recycled Gatorade bottle for example saves several ounces and is cheap/free.
2) Leave stuff at home - every item in your pack needs a REALLY good reason to carry it. Limit the number of "extra" or "luxury" items.
3) Find multiple uses for every item (see #2, since it allows you to shed items from your pack).

Multiple use items are a key component - if you have a poncho that serves as rain gear/groundsheet/pack cover/tarp then you cut the number of items and thus drop weight and bulk from your pack. One thing that's common on UL-centric sites like backpackinglight, hammockforums or whiteblaze is posting your full pack list and asking for feedback on what you could drop from your pack or replace to save weight. You can do that here too but you'll probably get much more aggressive weight saving tips on forums geared more toward fast & light hiking.
 
One of the best information sources I've found on UL hiking is this:

http://www.hikelight.com/articles.html

It's not hard to incorporate a blend of UL and bushcraft hiking/camping. The big 3, as has been mentioned already, is your shelter, your sleeping bag and your pack. After that, it's probably going to be your cook system, food, and clothing. See what you can do to lighten that up while remaining comfortable- hiking/camping should be fun, not a miserable survival experience. On your other items, make note of what you don't use when you go out and if you don't use it for several trips and it's not a safety item, leave it behind next time.
 
Chert said:
I purchased a lighter weight pack first, under 3.5 pounds (I believe your pack should weigh ~10% of your loadout) and had no problems, I see no reason to buy 2 bags or postpone buying a lighter weight bag first, ultralight packs can't carry much weight comfortably, but most big brands offer ~3 pound bags that can carry a decent amount of weight, but are still light enough to use throughout your quest to shed pounds.

As far as experience helping you drop some pounds, I believe it helps a whole lot, I can sit at home and think about what gear to bring and what gear I'll use till I'm blue in the face, but until I am living out of my backpack for a few nights, carrying the weight 10+ miles up and down hills and mountains, I won't really know what performs well, what I need, what I don't need...etc. I first started backpacking lugging almost 50 pounds, over the course of last year I shed things I didn't need and now I am under 30 pounds now and every trip I see ways to lighten my gear or leave things that I don't need/use.
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Well we will have to agree to disagree. I got the advice on buying the pack last from the Six Moon Design website. After thinking about a bit I can see where it makes sense because ultra light backs are limited on volume. To me that’s what makes a difference way more than weight. Especially when dealing with sleeping bags. To me it sounds like the OP already has some gear or access to gear. So if you are going to be upgrading anyway, you upgrade the pack last.

That’s where I am at now; just slowly upgrading gear I have had for years.

I also feel there is so much info on the web already it’s not hard to find a sub 20 pound list and copy one. From there you can really fine tune things for your needs.
 
The best thing you can do for yourself is to get a light, highly compressible sleeping bag. That's one thing where I would recommend putting down some extra cash. That alone will save you so much weight and space compared to those big coleman monstrosities. Down is the best, but synthetic is fine as well. I have a mountain hardware lamina 35, it cost somewhere around $130. It takes up barely any space in a pack. If you can get a quilt, those are much lighter too.

Then learn to use a tarp over a tent. If you really like tents, you can get some real lightweight ones but they will be expensive.

Then, either change to a foam pad over an air mattress, or spend the bucks for a really lightweight mattress. If you want to go farther, cut a foam mattress down so your butt fits on it and your head rests slightly off the pad on your pack or clothes that you use as a pillow. Always use natural insulation on the ground when you can. Keeps you much, much warmer.

Size down your cook kit. I use a gsi glacier cup or a mil surp canteen. I eat and drink out them. They are small, but just big enough.

Unless you are dealing with nasty water, I would ditch any filter and just go with water purifcation tablets. They weight absolutely nothing. You can always boil, but that takes a lot of extra time when you are trying to get started at the beginning of the day.

Just cook over a wood fire. If you are in a "sensitive" leave no trace area, a small wood stove might be an acceptable option. If you are in like a national park, you can just wat until you get to a fire ring and cook there. I usually don't see a need to cook in the middle of the day when you are hiking, but a mini alcohol stove and a small amount of fuel is nice for more leave no trace areas.

Size down your clothing. A couple of light layers is usually all you need. You are super hot when hiking, when you get to camp get a fire going instead of throwing on extra layers. Only care one extra pair of socks, one extra shirt, one extra underwear and that's all you need.
Carrying a warmer bag is always more weight efficient than carrying extra clothing specifically for sleeping. That being said, you should wear all of your clothing to bed but don't carry extra clothing for sleep if you can avoid it. However, obviously extra clothing is an easy way to extend your temperature rating.

Bushcrafty tools are very useful and can save you a lot of weight, but don't get carried away. A small hatchet is usually all you need, don't carry a big boys axe unless you really think you will use it to it's full potential.
You can carry a small tarp and if you think it will storm, you can always build a roomy, natural shelter with your cutting tools. You can also use them to build natural insulation mattress, you can use them to make tarp stakes, and you can use them to build a fire in really wet weather or to gather firewood for an all night fire. You just have to adjust your gear choices with the intention that you will use your cutting tools to improvise a lot of things and improve your situation if the weather turns on you.

Now on to packs, unless your pack really sucks I would try and downsize your gear first. I would not recommend a frameless pack unless you go really, really ultralight and have a total pack weight under 20 lbs. I would recommend a lightweight framed pack like the ULA packs or a lightweight osprey pack.
 
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Only thing I would add to Justin’s post would be that your area and where you plan on going might dictate gear.

For me, since I am in a low humidity area, I have a down bag and use a tarp. If I am going somewhere that has mosquitoes I take a small tent.


I also prefer a water filter and some sort of gas stove. I do think in the summer I would consider dropping the fuel stove for some sort of wood burning stove. My last big trip was late in the year with some elevation thrown in. I took a wisperlight, they are heavy but I didn’t want to be messing around if I hit bad weather.
 
couple things that helped me to get a good idea what my stuff weighed and where I need to start cutting was to buy a digital scale that did grams, Harbor Freight special, and then I plugged it all into the geargrams.com website. Allowed me to categorize my crap and create load-outs. I learned that I have too much crap but also I can handle a 40 pound pack with food. So then I start figuring where I can leave things at home or replace them with lighter things. Might be helpful. I hope to get a base weight of under 25 right now lol
 
Check out the stuff at GoLite online then go to one of their store events. The stuff at the store will be roughly 12/off the online price.
REI carries some of their UL packs rebranded to REI. The store event is the way to go, though.

Regards,

ezra
 
In my opinion, experience is certainly the best teacher. My last outing was expressly to test out a new tent and sleeping bag. As far as food I brought 2 gallons of water, a small cooler with a bunch of ice cubes and a pack of hotdogs, a bag of campfire marshamallows, a bag of sunflower kernals, 10 fruit-and-grain bars, and a bag of trail mix. I used maybe half a gallon of water, 2 hotdogs, 1/3 bag marshmallows, and about 4-5 fruit bars. In short, didn't use half the food i brought.

What I could have done was just put a couple hotdogs in a ziplock with a fist full of ice cubes, another ziplock of marshmallows, and half the fruit bars.
Meaning: I could have left half the food AND the cooler home. Yeah, I was car camping so i had room for it all, but it was a waste of space.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, definitely gives me alot to start with, especially thanks to Justin Baker for all his advice, definitely appreciated :)
 
Dan Kirkland said:
Thanks for all the advice guys, definitely gives me alot to start with, especially thanks to Justin Baker for all his advice, definitely appreciated :)
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I posted a video where I breakdown my gear list. This is about a 20lb. load because I was testing out some gear and just bringing some stuff to mess around with. My lightest load is 15lbs. or so base weight (no food or water). that includes pack, sleeping and a decent tent. Carrying a heavy pack is brutal. No need to do it and you'll be a lot happier not doing it.

Get a cheap scale and weigh everything. Be ruthless about it. Do you really need it? Put a piece of masking tape on each piece of gear. When you use it, peel it off. At the end of the trip see what you did and did not use (Excepting first aid or emergency kit). If you didn't use it, then don't take it next time. Getting down to 20lbs. for three seasons is possible to do even on a budget.

Gear list:

Backpack: Granite Gear Vapor Trail
Tent: Hilleberg Akto
Sleeping Bag: Mountain Hardware Ultralamina 32
*Sleeping Pad: Big Agnus Air Core or Thermarest Ridge Rest Shorty
Stove: Snow Peak Giga Power
Cookware: Snow Peak Titanium and Light My Fire Spork
Headlamp: LED Aurora
*Compass: Cammenga Tritium (or much lighter Suunto) w/Whistle
*Knife: Fallkniven F1
*Water Purificaiton: Platypus GravityWorks or Aqua Mira
Fire Kit: Swedish Fire Steel and Vaseline/Cotton Balls
First Aid Kit: Adventure Medical Kit Ultralight
Survival/Emergency Kit: Adventure Medical Pocket Surivival Kit w/mylar blanket
Jacket: Mont Bell Thermawrap UL or Mountain Hardware Compressor
Knit Cap: Merino Wool Ice Breaker or Wool Power
Socks: Merino Wool Ice Breaker or Wool Power
Long Underwear: Merino Wool Ice Breaker or Wool Power
Extra Clothing: Synthetic Shirt
Rain Gear: Helly Hansen Impertech
*Umbrella: Golite Umbrella
Water Bottles: Generic Spring Water Bottles
*Emergency Communication: SPOT Satellite Communicator
*Luxury Item: Amazon Kindle

* Items that are optional and/or have heavier/lighter alternatives.

Lightweight Hiking Gear Overview - Hiking in Norwegian Fjords - YouTube
 
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zammer said:
You asked for advice, I'll oblige

1, Don't wait for school to be over and debts repaid, get out and enjoy the outdoors NOW, even if only for local day trips.

2, 3day 60+ mile trip with 53 lbs?... thats what pack mules are for!... take some time and enjoy every mile, stop and smell the roses!

3, Don't go back packin with uncle overload anymore...lol

Your obviously a little younger, so take it from someone who's a little older...enjoy every day ( time goes by way too fast ) and appreciate the smaller trips, and lighter loads. You'll have many more enjoyable memories.
Click to expand...

Amen to all that! Especially #1.
As for packs, I have to brag on my ULA Circuit pack.
 
when I was much younger I would go on 30 to 50 mile hikes with 90 some pounds. I've covered sections of the appalciantrail with 20 pounds. I was generally more comfortable with the heavier load - also when trail running it was generally a solo or one partner experience. there is something about being half way thru your excursion, breaking out that ---- heavy cast dutch oven and cooking up some peach cobbler and sharing it around with your traveling group. dirt time
 
santa said:
when I was much younger I would go on 30 to 50 mile hikes with 90 some pounds.....
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screw.... that......

What on earth were you carrying that required you to have to lug that much gear around? 90 pounds is like carrying a moped through the woods
 
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