Why Does Pack Weight Matter (...and Where I Draw the Line with Weight Considerations)

Weight is one of the central questions for pretty much every piece of gear I am carrying in my pack and even the clothes I will be wearing on the trail. This consideration is so central to my process and methods of evaluating gear that I have taken for granted that everyone understands why weight matters.

Packing Lighter Allows you to go Farther

Carrying more weight slows you down and restricts the distances you can travel in a day. It takes more energy to carry a heavier load.

Packing Lighter is Safer

Your joints and muscles are less likely to experience stress and stains with lighter loads. Having a lighter load also makes it easier to maintain your balance which decreases your risk of falling injuries or injuries related to trying to correct an imbalance.

How Can you Lighten your load?

The Big Three gear items (tent, pack, sleep system) is where you can make the biggest difference in your total weight with changes to single items. Those items can also be expensive. If you are on a budget, you might be able to find some used options on ebay or Facebook marketplace. Patience pays off. For all of the big three items, if you have a limited budget, you should also investigate options for renting or borrowing.

The Big Three

Tent

If you you can find a trekking pole tent that uses Dyneema or similar lightweight nylon or polyester, those are good options. If you are willing to use a tarp or bivvy setup, you can probably find some good deals and your weight will most likely be even lower.

You might see if you can rent or borrow a tent for a trip. Find some local groups on Meetup or Facebook and see what local hikers and backpackers recommend for your local area.

Sleep system

Quilts are often a bit lighter than mummy bags because they don't have a back, but because they are the latest thing, the deals are harder to come by. Down is still the standard because you get the most insulation for the lowest weight and it compresses so small relative to other materials.

For my first backpacking trips, I could not afford down. I went with a light weight synthetic mummy bag (quilts didn't exist at the time). It wasn't too bad. Just a little over 3 lbs. The biggest issue was that it was bulky, but I had a pack that could handle the extra capacity.

There are inexpensive lightweight sleeping pads, but they are often less comfortable. For example, closed cell foam sleeping pads can be purchased new for under $40. They are a little bulky, but you can usually strap them to the outside of a pack or even use them to provide structure for a frameless backpack if you opt to go frameless. They are better than sleeping on bare ground, but only a little. They are also often only 20 inches wide, which means, if you sleep on your back, your arms are often hanging off the pad if you lay them at your sides.

Light weight inflatable pads with good insulating can cost $150 to over $200. The positive thing is you can occasionally find some deals on these.

Pack

They (people with more experience than me) recommend buying your pack last, after you have purchased a tent and sleeping system. Why? The size and weight of those items will inform your decision on a pack. Ultra light packs are going to save you the most weight, but they can cost $200 on the low end.

Traditional packs can also cost that much, but they can be easier to find used on ebay for less money.

My Osprey pack was relatively light weight, especially for a more traditional backpack. It had a number of features that I liked. But given that it had other issues related to water bottle accessibility, as well as reliability issues with the outside pocket, I decided to upgrade for myself. The Durston pack drops my weight by almost a full pound versus the Osprey pack and has all the important features I like about the Osprey pack, plus additional features that are important to me.

You have to decide what your own priorities are based on what you currently own and what you can deal with for your trip. If you are starting from scratch, I would suggest putting a little extra money into these pieces of gear because there are inexpensive light options for other pieces of gear.

Other Weight Saving Items

There are some really good options that can save you money when it comes to cook systems and water treatment.

Stove

This is a stove that weighs less than an ounce and people rave about them. BRS-3000T Ultralight Burner by BRS Outdoor. It costs $20 on that link currently, but I have seen it sold for less than that as well. The only way you can beat that weight is to go for an alcohol stove. Alcohol stoves are lighter and also less expensive, but there are safety issues that, in my opinion, are not worth the tradeoff. They also take longer to cook with.

Cookpot

This Toaks titanium cookpot is 750 ml and costs $25. It only weighs 3.6 oz. That is hard to beat.

Water filtering/treatment

Squeeze filtering water systems are under $40. You can go lighter and cheaper by using iodine tablets, but it takes a lot longer before you can drink. As I indicated on the Water Treatment article previously, iodine tablets are my backup.

More ways to save some weight

Clothing

I will be sharing an article on clothes that I will pack, but experienced backpackers will tell you that you do not need to bring a bunch of clothes to change into when you are backpacking. Many suggest bringing one spare outfit. They wear the dirty set during the day. When they get to camp, they change into their camp clothes and when it's time to hit the trail the following day, they put the dirty clothes back on. If you are camped near a river or creek, you can rinse out your dirty clothes and hang them to dry so they aren't quite so smelly and nasty, but you are likely going to be smelly and nasty when you are on the trail for a thru hike especially.

Less food

One thing I discovered on my long section hike is that I took a lot more food than I needed. The meal I planned for that one night was twice as much as I needed to eat, and I didn't need all the snack items I had packed. I think I eat less on the trail than I do at home. I didn't need an elaborate breakfast either. I got up and ate an energy bar and I was ready to go. I will be doing some more section hikes and overnight trips, so I will hopefully have things dialed in with regard to my food requirements by then, but there is no need to take so much food.

Water weighs a lot

You have more margin for error when it comes to food than you do with water. You don't want to skimp when it comes to carrying enough water. And there are sections of the Ouachita Trail that are notoriously dry. But when you are not on dry sections, you don't necessarily need to carry your full capacity of water. This is where planning ahead and knowing the route, knowing where water can definitely be found will help you to avoid carrying more water at a give time than you need.

As of now, I am planning to bring a 1 liter bottle, a 750 ml bottle and my CNOC 2 liter dirty water bag. I am debating about brining another bottle in addition to those, but I think 3.75 liters should be sufficient capacity unless it is exceptionally dry when I am on my trip.

On my recent section hike, for most of my trip, there was plenty of water. I did not need to stop and refill every time I came to a flowing creek or drain. Much of the time I was hiking, I was carrying a partial load of water. The biggest mistake I made on that hike with regard to water was not familiarizing myself enough with the area surrounding my camp shelter. There was water within 200 yards from my camp where I could have replenished for camp chores and also to prepare for the next day. Instead, I opted for bear bagging my dirty dishes until the next day and skipping a warm breakfast (I wasn't hungry for breakfast after my giant meal the previous night). Knowing that water was closer to camp than I thought it was, I could have carried less water to get to camp and just utilized the creek near camp to get water for the night and next day. Not only did I carry more water than was necessary on the hike from the previous fill to camp with a full pack, but I also added a bit of unnecessary stress about the next day.

Weigh items

I have 2 scales that I use all the time when I am considering what gear I will use. I have a small food scale like the one in the image at the top of this article and a luggage scale with a hook.

Having these scales helps me figure out if I have things at home that are usable or adequate. I discovered I had a pillow at home that weighs less than some of the expensive backpacking pillows that are sold. 

If you already have gear, you can make evaluations on where you can get the biggest bang for your buck with regard to replacing what you have with lighter gear, or if sticking with what you currently have makes the most sense.

Double duty

If you can make a piece of gear serve more than one purpose for you, you eliminate the need to carry a second item. My tent utilizes the trekking poles I carry to support the tent canopy, so I don't have to carry tent poles. I have a collapsible bowl that can be flattened and used as a cutting board, it can also be used to scoop water to pour into my dirty water bag for filtering. That same collapsible bowl also served to block a hole in the outside pocket in my backpack on a recent trip so gear could still be carried in the outside pocket, but would not fall out.

Some thru hikers eliminate the weight of a pillow by using a stuff sack filled with clothing. I have tried that in the past and did not sleep well.

Money

I'm not going to lie. Good gear that is quality and light weight often costs quite a bit of money. If you have a limited budget, use your money where you can get the biggest bang for your buck. I have a relatively light weight stove. It weighs 2.6 oz. For not much money, I could upgrade and shave about an ounce and a half with the BRS 3000 stove. I could also spend money upgrading my stuff sacks to Dyneema instead of the $15 Chinese bags that come in a 3 pack which I bought at Walmart, but I would be shaving a couple of ounces. Those Dyneema bags cost $40-50 each. That's a pass on my part (...though I am still considering a food bag upgrade). 

There was one item that I upgraded that was a little expensive and shaved a few ounces, but I decided to pay for the upgrade (under $20) because it also packed smaller; poop trowel. I will talk about my poop kit in more detail in a future article, but the upgrade was from a plastic trowel that probably weighed around 3 ounces, to a titanium trowel that weighs less than half an ounce.

Where to draw the line?

Everyone has different limitations with regard to budget and different priorities. For me, I am willing to carry more weight for a comfortable night sleep. I will be bringing some kind of pillow and more than likely 2 pillows. I am not willing to spend a bunch of money to shave off an ounce here and an ounce there.

As I have already indicated, there are also items where I could spend a little money and shave off a few ounces here and there, but at some point, you have diminishing returns on those costs. If my Osprey pack had not failed on me, I was going to try to use that without upgrading. The fact that it ended up with a quality issue, there were other issues with the water bottle accessibility, I got a deal on my ideal pack, and the repairs on the Osprey will take months, pushed me over the edge with that upgrade. Doing so reduced my total weight by around a pound.

I also mentioned stuff sacks and ditty bags to keep gear a little organized. The ones I have from Walmart work fine, upgrading would possibly cost more than $100, and the weight savings would be a few ounces. If I continue backpacking in years to come, that might be something I put on a wish list for family to get me for gifts, but I just can't justify the expense for that small improvement.

Why was I willing to pay $20 to shave a couple of ounces for a poop trowel, but not for a stove? The BRS Stove is lighter weight than my stove, but I have some reservations about reliability. I think my stove will also cook a little more evenly and efficiently because the burner element is larger. The pot supports on my stove are also wider so I believe it will be more stable to cook on.

That said, if I were starting over, I would probably opt for the lighter and less expensive BRS 3000 stove. So many people use it, it's probably reliable enough. And it's so inexpensive and small, you could probably buy two and put one in a resupply box, just in case.

True ultralight backpackers try to get their base weight down to 10 lbs or less. Base weight is everything in your pack except your food, fuel, and water. With my most recent gear options, my base weight has probably dropped to around 15 lbs or less. If I knock off a few comfort items, like an extra pillow, a chair, an extra mat for sitting, etc. 

Well, those are my thoughts for now. As always, thanks for stopping by.

Gavagai