Four day trip gear list – 4.3kg base weight

[Dave B]

I posted this gear list as part of my post-trip report, but I thought I'd add here too. This is what I took on a 4 day hike along the Timberline Trail around Mount Hood in Oregon in August. Gear: (apologies for the metric weights) Click the image for the original Google Sheet. Feel free to take a copy and use it to organise your own gear. The categories in the last column are: p – in the pack – the base weight. f – food, fuel and water. c – clothes or carried. o – optional clothes that end up stuffed in the top of you pack if it's hot. My girlfriend came with me, but she lacks my enthusiasm for weighing her underpants, so what went in her pack was a bit of a mystery until the day before we left. However, her pack weighed around 6kg. I was extremely happy with my 8kg. Most of the hikers we met on the trail looked like they were carrying at least twice that. Findings: Here's my brain-dump of what we did wrong, and what I'll do differently next time.

• In 4 days, we didn't even get through one torch battery – I'll only take 1 spare next time – 75g saving.
• I only got through one and a half phone batteries. Perhaps taking five was overkill? I'll take 2 spares next time – 95g saving.
• Didn't use my gaiters – not really sure why I took them. Won't take them on a summer hike next time – 220g saving.
• My new ZPacks Arc Blast pack was great, but on the last day it started chafing my shoulder a little. I'll have to sit down with it and work out exactly why.
• The pillow dry bags weren't really that useful. It was more comfortable to sleep with my face on my fleece jacket. Maybe remove pillow material – 20g saving.
• Would probably be a good idea to take a spare lighter – would have been awful to not have a way to light the esbit tablets – 20g extra.
• My only big mistake was leaving buying water bottles until the last minute. Then we ran out of time and I had to grab what we had in the apartment before setting off in a rush. We ended up with 3 x 1L bottles and 2 x 500ml bottles. I wanted 4 x 1.5L bottles. I'll make sure to prepare well in advance next time.
• Having said that, having two smaller bottles proved useful when we found a silty stream. We had to leave the water to sit for a couple of minutes to let the sand settle out, then decant it. Having a spare small bottle meant this was a lot quicker.
• Thankfully we didn't have any problems, but the Esbit tablets would have be completely useless in high wind. Next time I'll make a wind-break out of aluminium foil. ~20g extra.
• I didn't use my softshell gloves and they're much too heavy. ZPacks do a nice set of ultra light fleece mittens that are designed to work under their Cuban Rain Mitts – I'll take a pair of them next time – 100g saving.
• I was rather worried about my phone getting wet, too dusty, etc. Generally being in the backcountry probably isn't so good for non specialist electronics. I'll look for a lightweight waterproof case next. Either that or just put it in a ziploc bag?
• This will be controversial, but I didn't use my knife. Also, I couldn't think of a use for it. Could I contemplate going hiking knifeless?

Looks like these changes could save almost half a kilo for next time. Every gram counts!

[Eric Hine]

Nice list. With that base weight and relatively small/packable items, do you really need all of that 60L? Could save some weight by switching to a zero or something comparable.

[Arne L.]

Nice list indeed. About going knifeless: personally I always take a SAK Classic. I rarely use the knife though (sometimes I cut salami, but yeah…), but make good use of the tweezers and scissors. 21 grams on my scale. It's all you need, really. About your phone: I put mine in a Loksak (7 grams). More durable then a ziploc and if you happen to have a touchscreen, it's still usable. Instead of taking spare batteries, maybe you could take a powerpack? If I use my iPhone correctly (lots of info to be found about this), I can use it for over four days. Thus, for a 4-day-trip i'll pack a 2600 mah Powerpack which is 75 grams on my scale. And that might even be overkill. About gloves: softshell-gloves, never liked those. Maybe for deep winter… For shoulder-season, I use 100 weight-fleece liner gloves and waterproof mitts (depending on the weather forecast and the length of the trip). For summer, I get by with just the waterproof mitts. That are some HEAVY gaiters by the way :) much lighter alternatives around. Do you use them to keep water out or primarily for keeping dust out?

[Dave B]

The Arc Blast is perhaps my favourite pack of all time. It was pretty full with all that gear, so I wouldn't want anything smaller… and I like to isolate the weight on my hips so the suspension system is great. Also it's pretty easy to slide the carbon fibre inserts out to make it airline carry-on sized. My one slight problem is with the shock cord that holds it all together… Seems a couple of the critical interfaces are just attached with knots which I'm not too keen on. Oh, I worked out where the chafing was coming from – just needed to tighten the suspension system up a bit so the 'arc' becomes more of an arc. The Loksak looks great – I'll order one. I'm pretty sure you'll always get the best energy density with a spare battery. With an external battery, you lose a good percentage of the energy in the actual charge cycle, plus the weight of the plastic case and cables. The spare batteries for my LG are 3000mAh, and weigh 45g… all that 3,000 mAh goes in the phone instantly with no losses, and no messing around with charging. Of course with an iPhone an external battery is the only option – and with the way Android manufacturers are going, it won't be long before I'm in the same boat too :( I guess the gaiters were in my pack because of a disastrous attempt on Mount Tallac, Lake Tahoe last year. We didn't expect snow but we spent most of the day knee deep in it. Should have turned round earlier really, but our feet were soaked in ice cold water for most of the day. I swore I'd always take gaiters with me in future. Tried some ultralight ones but they just didn't do the job. They definitely weren't needed at all on this trip though.

[Arne L.]

Glad I could help with the Loksak. They're great for other purposes too: I use the smallest one as an UL-wallet, and another one as an EHBO-kit.

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