Adding weight to increase efficiency. Thoughts?

The weight of stuff sacks might be small, but it is not zero. Plus, the more stuff that gets stuffed into stuff sacks, the worse it will all pack together. However, I understand what you mean about efficiency. A few years ago I got a deal on an assortment of cuben fiber stuff sacks in all sizes. So, that means that I have cut down the overhead weight of the sacks (compared to plastic or nylon). Each one is either tagged or marked or color-coded, and I keep the same stuff in the same bags each time. That way I am less likely to forget some small item.

–B.G.–

What backpack do you use? Are there included organizing features? As soon as I know I'll be hiking after dark I run my headlamp strap through a compression strap and slip it into the pack's side pocket. On some trips I have kept a pocketknife on a lanyard in a similar fashion, along with a compass tied into my sternum or hip belt during "map-in-hand" navigation.

What color of plastic bag/liner do you use on the inside of your pack? White will make it a LOT easier to see inside than using black.

What color and material are your assorted carried clothes? I try to avoid having all one color (so many things come in black, again): orange rain jacket OR red wind shell, green and gray long underwear, bright red stocking cap, black(!) gloves, brown warm socks…this way I can open the top of my pack, take the day's food and green or blue shelter off the top, and look into the liner to see everything color-coded. It also makes me eclectic…

Stocking cap, sun cap, and mosquito headnet make okay ad-hoc ditty bags. If you want to go all Mike Clelland crazy you can sew your headlamp into your stocking cap.

Finally, rather than using stuff sacks, you can always just repurpose old plastic shopping bags. That's how I store my cook kit and sometimes food, too.

Edited to add: Most important, just keep your camp routine as close to "routine" as possible. If you practice the most efficient method of unpacking and packing over and over, it will stick. That's something I try to work on, and I notice that my last morning in camp is a few minutes "faster" than my first.

I use the newest GG Gorilla so I have three external, two hip belt,and the zippered lid pocket. I put my ziploc of FA/hygiene/repair in the lid pocket along with my keys, "wallet", and prescription bottle. When I get to camp, I have to remove these items from this pocket or else the lid is annoying to get into because it just flops closed. I may be able to put these items in my stake bag though while in camp. That would solve that issue.

My mini SAK, chap stick, purrell, and snacks go in one hip belt pocket and my phone and more snacks go in the other. I don't really need these in camp. so they aren't a problem.

My shelter system is stored on the outside of the pack along with my rain jacket and water filter. So now that I've come up with an idea for the lid stuff I still need help with this issue. And that is: when I go to pull out my quilt and pad, I have to pull out everything else one item at a time. I'm thinking if I stuff sack these items, I can just pull out maybe 2 or 3 stuff sacks, grab out the quilt and pad, then replace the stuff sacks. I don't like things spread out as you can probably tell.

So maybe yall can help with some multi use items to help with this. The stake bag for the small items should work. I use a USPS tyvek envelope to reduce the risk of puncture so it'll be large enough. So maybe when I carry a head net, I can use it for my clothing, then just carry one other stuff sack for cook kit, head lamp and etc.

Sound reasonable and multi purpose enough?

I mainly go with a big stuff sack for everything bulky and lofty that will be used once I get to camp.
So I put my shelter, mat, quilt, jacket and any camp only cloths in the sack.
I pack it so what ever I'll need first is on top, and so on.

So I have the jacket on top, then the shelter and mat, then the quilt and maybe socks on the bottom.
When I go to pack up everything, it goes in the opposite way.

I don't really have as many items of gear to need other stuff sacks unless I bring my dogs.
Then I have to add a few more.

I use several, most being the S2S Cordura Sil type.
(no not for waterproofing nor for compressing, they do neither)

The small red one is my medical/emergency sack.
The larger one is the Night sack.
In that I have my headlight,night Merino top,spare underpants (longer trips),night socks,leggings in cool weather and puffy pants in winter and sometime an MP3 player)
The blue one is for my sleeping bag (will compress a lot more inside the pack so no it isn't a solid ball/tube)
The other two are some of the spares.
About 3 oz for the three larger ones.
In the morning first thing I do is to open the valve of my mat. As the mat is letting me down (…) I get out of my night clothing and into the day ones putting the night stuff into the red bag.
Then I collect the other night bits and the red bag is done.
I then fold the mat, put that at the bottom of the pack and if bad weather or fast departure I shove the sleeping bag down the pack (otherwise it is out to air as I am having breakfast) and so on.
By doing that the last thing it gets packed is the tent but the rest is done as I prepare breakfast and get ready to go.
No packing and unpacking required because I do it the same way every time.

Thanks for the replies so far. I really don't have a lot of items, I just really dislike being cluttered and not having s spot for everything all the time. You should see my work station. Ha

But I think I've worked out s system in my head. It helped to work it out in writing. I'm still really interested in hearing the organizational/"camp" techniques of others. I've always just dealt with it. But my last day of my trip last week was a 22.2 miler and I had 8 hours to complete it. ( I overslept somehow. I wake up at 4:30 every morning but somehow slept late that morning even though the first two days were low mileage) So as I was packing up I realized just how inefficient I really was. It really bothered me. But now thinking through that morning I realize ways I could have saved time. It's that whole manufacturing thing coming out of me. The Japanese have me brain washed! (I work for a Japanese company)

Anyway, hoping for more replies. If you guys who already replied have the time or patience to write out your routine, I would enjoy it if you would share.

Thanks
Sam (Red Bull)

stuff sacks and knowing where things are and being able to locate them quickly is a good thing… especially if you are tying to make or break camp in a storm… I never did abandon my stuff sacks, but did buy lighter weight ones.

Billy

Organization helps me relax because I can be more efficient.

Red stuff sack – warm stuff: jacket, beanie, gloves,
Blue – rain stuff
Yellow: in the tent, nighttime stuff: sleep shirt/socks, anything else I would only use in my tent.
Clear ziplock – misc essentials

that's about it. everything else is in a pack pocket or my pants pocket.

Must have organization. One bag for things that need to stay dry, one for repair and first aid, another for everything else.

@ Sam. If you think your posts are long, look in Chaff. lol…

I'm all for stuff sacks. You get to choose, so can get ones the size/length to fit your pack, or go oversized to maintain your "stuff factor".
I call the one that came with my Tarptent the "stuff sack of stuff sacks". Shelter rides outside the pack and goes up first. All the other sacks go inside the one for it as I unpack so they're all in one place.

Mine total 5.0oz(shelter, stake bag, quilt, pad, puffy, clothing, rolltop cuben for personal items, and little ones for cook kit and water filtration stuff that stay separate), but would probably be more like 2 if I used all cuben. Often the clothes bag stays out, and the others go in it with rain gear and my pants for a pillow.
I tend to be forgetful and disorganized, so having an orderly system makes everything easier for me by minimizing time spent wandering around going "WTH did I do with xxx?"

For the few things I do use stuff sacks for, I like them plenty big. that way they squish around nicely when mashed into the bottom of the pack, so that you get, to quote a friend of mine, "a lead ingot versus a sack of cannonballs".

del

Thanks for all the replies. They're really helping me to mentally nail down a system. Now that it's warming up here in GA (it will be in the high 80's this week, good lord) I'll be able to take less clothing and such which will help.

One of these days when I can get to a real computer or laptop I'll type out a gear list so I can get some help with cutting the faff and finding multiuse items to help with organization.

Maybe it's not as bad as I make it out to be, but it's just one of those things. I'm really lazy, but at the same time I'm not. I'm to lazy to want to pack up tediously but I'm too anal to just throw everything in the pack. Lol

Oh well. Thanks again guys. You've been a great help.

Sam

Hey Rick,

Thanks for your insight – I'm curious how you feel that system would apply to backpacking vs mountaineering, where there's more rain and in many places you have to keep all food/smelly things separate due to animals. What is your system/experience when not mountaineering?

Practice. A few sacks may or may not help, but the only thing which will be guaranteed to boost efficiency is both going on more trips and thinking about where everything is in a pack and why.

I favor simple top loaders because zippers break. Occasionally I forgot something down towards the bottom. I can always pull everything out, get the item, and repack in well under a minute, because I pack the same every time and I know where everything is. I know a few folks who backpack plenty but never seem to evaluate their stuff, and thus take for frickin' ever to find that chocolate bar/headlamp/etc.

Well, added weight for sake of efficiency is a given. It doesn't stop with just organizing gear.

I use a Sea to Summit (STS) Dry/Compression bag for my bag, long johns, camp jacket, and socks. After emptying my pack, it gets rolled and inserted into the bag (after turning it inside out) for use as a pillow.

My food bag is a dry bag with PU coating. I went through 3-4 sil ones (much lighter) but they did not hold up. Cuben was the same. The abrasion was a bit too much for sil and cuben. So, the 3oz, medium bag is used. When canoeing, I have been known to flip in some cases, usually getting in or out. Some storms I have been hiking in (all day rain storms) have saturated everything except the contents of the drybags (both for my bag and food.) When I get to camp, I pull the supper packet, a couple drink mixes, empty the ditty bag, and hang the bear bag as my water heats. (Here in NY we don't worry about grizzy bears, mostly for black bears & other critters.) I may set up a cloths line under my tarp. and change into sleeping cloths, hanging hiking cloths to dry.

Avoiding water in my "dry" stuff is first. Overall efficiency is increased because I work with what I have to make myself comfortable.

I bring my SVEA. Yup it is heavy. But it gets about .23oz fuel/qt boiled (liter.) Efficient enough not to carry a canister. A 20floz fuel bottle weighs about 16-17oz and will last about two weeks. (Boiling water twice per day, 30oz per boil plus about 15 minutes cooking.) On Thursdays, I make breads/muffins. These last a day or so as snacks. (I should say these are fried dough type breads with about a 1/2oz of olive oil per ball. I make three each time – supper, snack for the next day.) I have plenty of fuel and don't scrimp on it. Sometimes, when it is cold (<35F) I will use this under my tarp to warm up in the morning. The stove packs in three pieces with little fiddling around: cup, stove, fuel. Rugged as hell, my brother dropped a load of firewood on it and it still works.

After I clean up from supper everything gets more or less put away. Some things are left out. Stove, pot, cup, fuel, water, but everything in my pack was used, except maybe my sweater/jacket. I often do not even bring a rain jacket unless the first week is going to show rain for five days. I get wet.

My tarp goes into my pot and onto the top of my pack. Last in/First out. If it is wet, the pot also keeps the water from saturating into my food. My camera is a little Olympus. It is several years old and weighs a lot, about 6.5oz. Sometimes I take pictures as I go.

Overall, I carry about 23-25lbs for two weeks out, depending on the weather. My base weight is around 6-11 pounds depending on saw, stove, camera, rain gear, and sleeping bag, sweater. For two nights, I will be at 15 pounds. So, overall efficiency is pretty good, considering time, weight, what I am doing, comfort, etc for two weeks out, but it looks less than good for two nights out. Depends on what you are doing and what you have optimized your gear for.

I do not try to be the lightest I can be, been there-done that. SUL is often fiddly and takes more time to set up and use. Example: Heximid Solo takes 10 stakes, my tarp uses 5. There is no organization with many frameless packs because gear needs to go into the pack to support the pack on your back, not how it will be used as it is unloaded. I do go with light gear designed to minimize camp chores, has maximum reliability on the trail and maximizes my enjoyment of a trail. I never say "I wish I had…" I am comfortable with being UL after several forays into SUL. Perhaps this is the true value of having the SUL categories?

You realize after a few years that comfort cannot be weighed, nor time, nor reliability. Beyond efficiency, everything needs to work. 100% it needs to work, not just work well 20 times. A leaky tarp is a wet, cold, uncomfortable night that will cost you time to dry your bag out. My SVEA is over 40 years old and is still just chugging along, *every* time. How do you weigh reliability? Throwing a few cut logs on the fire at night is sure comfortable if the temps get a bit below freezing. Most winter campers know the worth of a fire. Is the weight of the saw the weight of comfort? Doesn't really make sense… What are you looking for out of your kit?

I find that organizing with stuff sacks makes it easier for me to be sure I'm not leaving something behind, either when packing to go out or packing up at a campsite – "oh, wait, that sack has all the fire and cooking stuff, where are the two titanium stakes that are supposed to be in it?"

I'm experimenting with switching from a motley collection of older random sacks to Equinox no-see-um mesh bags, which seem like they'll be strong enough, weigh less, and have the added benefit of letting me see what's in them.

Tried netting sacks. Snag on everything and picked stuff up. Also gets wet inside if the grounds wet. Callus or dry skin snags on them too. Didn't like. FWIW

Someone like me definitely benefits from stuff sacks to help me stay organized. More frequent trips would also help with that as David mentioned. The Equinox no-see-um are a great deal. I have made some myself and unlike tulle they don't snag and don't pick up stuff off the ground; seeing what is inside is great but yes, stuff can get wet. I would replace their stock cord and toggles with lighter options.

Mine were some OR ones and the mesh was heavier. But that experience turned me off.

This is a great thread!

Interestingly one of the things that has driven my UL evolution is the desire for less stuff – more simplicity. Instead of trying to organize all my stuff (I'm a TERRIBLE organizer) I just kept getting rid of things so I didn't have so much to keep track of. My gear lists to me are not so much a question of how much everything weighs (well, sort of…) but just the sheer quantity of items.

Anyway…

I use my cuben rain kilt, kept in the front pocket of my pack, as my staging ground.

Shelter is usually in the side pocket.

Inside the pack liner goes my quilt, monkey pillow cover, down booties (if i bring them), puffy, and my exped schnozzle bag that contains dry sleeping clothes and any spare pair of socks or underwear (depending on length of trip). This is also where my ziploc "laundry" bag will go if the trip is long enough. The exped is flattened and folded up along the back of the pack liner.

Then that is cinched closed.

On top goes my cook set (all together in one cuben bag), ditty bag (which will contain my FAK as well), and food bag.

headlamp is usually in my hip belt pocket.
stake bag goes in the front mesh pocket.
windshirt or any rain gear also goes in the front mesh pocket.
camera is in case hooked on my hip belt.

what am I missing?? what needs to be in stuff sacks??

Adding to what Rick mentioned above, I also increased my speed and efficiency by watching AAI guides pack, and made a similar observation — I was definitely too persnickety about how I went about the process.

Packing starts first thing in the morning before you ever get out of the tent, and the primary objective is to do everything you need to do inside the tent so that you don't have to go back inside the tent afterward… when you leave the tent it should be ready to take down.

The very first thing I do is let the air out of the air mat while I'm still on top of it. This deflates the air more quickly and is definitely a signal that the day has begun. Maybe put on a fleece or other mid layer if it's a bit cool. Put on my glasses so that they can warm up and de-fog. Get the water from the foot of my sleeping bag and take my vitamins/meds so that I don't forget, put the headlight in the misc sack and toss it out. Put on gaiters/shoes (Dirty Girl-type OR gaiters called Sparkplug… gotta put 'em on before shoes!) If it's dry outside, toss the quilt out the door, and all other items once I've finished with them. Toss out the pack, which I use with my 3/4 air mat under the quilt. Roll up the sleep mat/pillow once to get most air out and then again to get it down to 0.22%, and toss that out. Unclip the groundsheet, toss it, do a thorough visual inspection to ensure the tent is empty, ready to be struck.

If I have to go back inside the tent for any reason, I've done something wrong!

Outside, I fire up the stove because it takes about 11 minutes to boil my 4 cups of water using alcohol, then get coffee/oats and dehydrated dog food ready for hot water, get trail food for the day and place it in the appropriate pockets, and do other stuff while the water is heating. While the water is heating, perhaps drape the quilt over a branch or bush to air out a bit, and pull stakes and shake out the tent to get rid of some moisture/dirt and maybe air it out a bit as well.

At this point, everything (except food/stove) is near the pack and ready to be stuffed… a place for everything, and everything in its place.

The only things that get a stuff sack are cook pot (with stove, fuel, cup, windscreen, spoon, bic inside), food, personal stuff (FAK, repair, headlight, meds, TP) in separate ziplocs inside), and maybe a small sack for extra gloves, socks and hats, if I'm carrying them, with unused insulation layers around them to fill the voids.

Done this way, I'm up and finished with breakfast and ready to hike in 1/2 hr or less. If I'm hiking with my trad buddies I always have a lot of extra time so I take some photos.

You might like this article Hiking Efficiency: A Day in the Life of an Ultralight Hiker (you must be a member to read it)

I honestly didn't expect to get so many replies. I'm over joyed with all the great advice. And I'm glad some of you like the topic.

And thanks for mentioning those mesh bags. I was thinking about carrying a couple head nets as stuff sacks just because they are so light. Maybe I'll give those a shot if they're cheap enough.

I just invested in an esbit system (I've basically assembled the LiteTrail cook kit) which will help with my kitchen mess. I was using alcohol and not everything could fit in my Toaks 550 so that will help. (I got the esbit stand, a box of 14g and a box of 4g esbit for $25. Pretty good deal. I already had the "pot") so now everything but my spoon will be in one neat little package.

Also, now that yall got me thinking about it, I really just need to make a better camp routine. Thank you to those who shared their routine. It's really helping me visualize my own. I don't really carry that many items, i just need to make a better routine for packing and unpacking the few small items that make up my "mess".

And thanks for that link, Link. I'll sign up and read it once I leave work.

Again, thank you everyone. Yall have been great.

Sam