Looking for help breaking the 5lb barrier

It's small, but swapping your Bic for a mini-bic cuts out .4 oz for about $1

Pretty sure you can lose a lot of weight by replacing that tent. Check the reviews to look at some possibilities.

What's in your first aid kit? I think you could get 1.5 – 2.0 oz off of it.

If you're not able to ditch your SPOT, the only way I can see you getting a sub 5 lb base weight is by ditching your pack, tossing all your gear in the footbox of your sleeping bag, and strapping it to your back with twine.

;-P

Best!

You don't say how much cooking you plan to do, but if it is any significant amount, a 3 oz. home made titanium wood stove would eliminate carrying alcohol, fuel bottle, cooking pouch, cone. Recommend you get lots of practice with wood before you hit the trail for any distance though.

I think maybe I would have to with a synthetic fill don't want the down bag getting all wet on my back ><.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but I saw a 5-ounce pack cover and no pack?

Your sleeping bag and shelter are obviously your heaviest items. I think you're probably on the right track for getting to your target on budget, a tarp w/bug bivy or perhaps a bug liner/tent. You might be able to haunt the gear swap for a ~19 oz bundle of warmth for the night. Or I'd imagine you could find a GoLite Ultra 20 on sale somewhere? That's 19oz and relatively inexpensive. Sewing up a basic synthetic quilt is pretty easy, all things considered, and something you could do for ~120 or so? (Depends on options, give or take maybe $30?)

Nathan – you are well on your way!!! Nice start.

If you're under 6'2" a Gatewood Cape & Serenity net tent will give you a double wall tent and pack cover, as well as rain protection down to part of your legs. Keep your Frogg Toggs pants for total leg protection and in-camp warmth. (I love this setup – guy out the sides and I have enough head & foot room – I'm nearly 6'2").

You've saved almost half your shelter weight, all of the pack cover weight, and all of your rain jacket weight. You can still use a trash bag / compactor bag for a pack liner, if desired, for less weight.

You may still want an UL windshirt though. Your Frogg Toggs jacket works well for this, but if weight savings are critical, a Driducks Jacket is lighter but less durable. Both provide you rain protection when you leave your shelter to pee in the rain.

Here would be my strategy. See if you can spend $100 or less each for pack and shelter. This is doable if you shop around a bit. That leaves you plenty of money for a really nice bag or quilt and a few odds and ends.
You can get a light backpack or tarp for as little as $80 but you're not going to get a good 3 season sleeping bag anywere near that cheap.
Good luck. Maybe I'll see you I hang out on the AT a lot.

You didn't look at it wrong, I think I somehow missed copying my pack when I posted the gear, I have a nimbus ozone its around 3lbs. As for cooking I cook very little if at all which is why I was consdering leaving the entire cooking setup at home, however the cone I do have will work with wood.

Loose the down hugger and replace with a quilt
In lieu of the seedhouse use a tarp and bivy
get rid of the SUL pot ang get a Heinekin pot
wouldn't imagine the spot is necessary
driducks instead of frogtogs
ditch the pack cover for a glad bag
lose the nimbus ozone pack look at ULA or gossamer gear
You could sell your recent large purchase items and put the $ towards the new gear.

Comments:

PACKING:
– Replace the Nimbus Ozone (48oz) with Zpacks Blast 26 (4oz) with the optional hipbelt (1.3oz) and save 42.7oz
– Seam seal the cuben Blast 26 pack and ditch the pack liner (5oz).
– 'packing' is a great area to save weight as there is no loss in warmth, sleep comfort, rain protection and likely no significant loss in comfort with a pack this light.
OLD TOTAL: 53 oz
NEW TOTAL: 5.3 oz

SLEEPING:
– Ditch the tent (34oz) for a 4oz MLD poncho tarp and a bivy (7oz) saving 23oz
– Keep the 3/4 Z-Rest (8oz) or replace with a small NeoAir (9oz) if you want more comfort
– Replace Down Hugger (28oz) with GoLite Ultra 20 quilt (19oz) saving 9oz
– Replace Stakes with 6g Ti Stakes (1.5 oz)
OLD TOTAL: 73 oz
NEW TOTAL: 39.5 oz

COOKING:
– Replace matches with TinderQuik Sparker. No weight change.
TOTAL: 11.6 oz

CLOTHING:
– No need for Frogg Toggs as you have poncho tarp
OLD TOTAL: 23oz
NEW TOTAL: 7oz

OTHER:
– Ditch the spot
– Use lighter bear bag cord (about 1/2 weight)
OLD TOTAL: 19 oz
NEW TOTAL: 10.7 oz

OLD GRAND TOTAL: 179.6oz or 10.78 lbs
NEW GRAND TOTAL: 68.1oz or 4.25 lbs

Cost of new gear: About $600-$700 but you can probably get most of that by selling your old tent, bag, Spot, pack etc. You shouldn't be out more than $200-$400.

Here is a SUL gearlist for you, but you are probably missing quite a few things on it. See if you can take care of these items with the 12oz you have to spare:

– Stuff sacks/Dry sacks
– Small Bottles/Dropper Bottles for you food and liquids
– Toothbrush (0.5oz)
– Light gloves (1oz)
– Beanie (1-2oz)
– Mug
– Soap
– Water purification (there is no weight listed for your Aquamira)
– Map
– Compass
– Knife/Scissors
– Bandana
– Camera
– Spare shirt? Socks? Underwear?

"I only very rarely cook when I am hiking for a full day."

Go cold food and save 7.6 oz

Substitute a trash compactor bag for pack cover and save at least 3 more oz.

Consider leaving the pants of the Frog Toggs home and save ? oz.

To start, even for most seasoned ULers, sub 5 on a thru hike is a stretch goal. Weekends its ok, but you will be dealing with lots of varying temperatures, rain, and keeping your mental state satisfied. Your start date will have a lot to do with the gear you carry. Im going to assume a mid April start to keep your weight as low as possible.

Pack- ULA Conduit (~$100-$120), MLD anything. Durable, full feature frameless packs. If your under 6 lbs not including pack, the fanatic fringe thompson peak pack ($80) with a belt may work and be reasonably durable. I used the Conduit thru hiking this year and it was pretty much perfect. For all the rain on the AT, I would use a silnylon pack cover and a pack liner (Gossamer Gear makes a light one), and roll top stuff sacks. Especially if you have down.

Sleeping- A light bivy will be a life saver if you stay in shelters like most people do. Titanium goat, six moon designs, oware, and equinox all have low priced options. The MLD is so light though!
For your bag, Tim Marshall can sew you a synthetic quilt rather inexpensivley ($160 for 5oz XP, recommended) and cut a 1/2 lb. I used a 5 oz XP topbag most of the time and it was great.

Shelter- def. drop the tent. I used a 5×9 sil tarp at 8oz and really cheap. I only used about 12 or 15 times staying in shelters usually. If you plan to camp a lot, a larger tarp would be better. Ti stakes only weigh 1.2 oz for 6, but i sent them home quickly and tied my tarp to rocks sticks and trees almost all campouts

Pad- a new prolite small is 11 oz i think and would add tons of comfort over the z rest. pricey though, but recommended for shelter hopping.

Stove- looks good. I wouldnt opt for a heinekin can for thru hiking, and definitely not for a wood stove. Dry wood will be hard to come by if it was anything like this year. Mini Bic, drop the matches. You should only need 3 liters water capacity tops. The guy i met that went stoveless for a stretch was miserable and we made fun of him (Panama Red).

Of course drop the spot unless someone from home is forcing you to carry it. Cell service isnt reliable, but its not bad. Between someone with verizon and cingular most of the trail is covered.

Clothes- a spare t shirt and light shorts or thermals will be appreciated when you come into camp soaked, as will dry socks. +1 for dri ducks too.

The lightest I ever got was 7 lbs base, and the lightest I saw was 6.5 from a kid not carrying shelter and about 1/4 a foam pad. I was usually around 9-10 lbs and more happy with it than I was at 7. After a while, 2 lbs doesnt feel like anything, but a Big Agnes pad and dry clothes to sleep in feel like heaven.

Purchase a Gatewood Cape + Serenity Net. $255

+18 oz.

Sell your current shelter -34 oz.

Sell your Frog Toggs (Gatewood becomes rain gear) -16 oz.
Sell your pack cover (Gatewood becomes pack cover) – 5 oz.

Buy or find a pack liner (Trash compactor bag) 1.5 oz. ~ $10

Dump a Platy -1.6 oz.
Get a 700ml empty water bottle +1.1 oz.

Dump the Ipod – 1.5 oz.

Buy a pack that weighs 12 oz. or less. A couple options out there + 12 oz. ~ $175

Sell your 3 lb pack – 48 oz.

Go cookless -7.4 oz.

Total weight savings 80.9 ozs. or 5 lbs. Totally doable with your budget and even doable without selling a single item.

Never hiked the AT so maybe 6L of water containers are necessary but my idea only save 0.5 oz anyways so no biggie if you must have 6L of water containers instead of 3.7L of containers.

It seems like a lot of items are missing from your list and you're not counting everything. No hat, no gloves, no insulation for your legs, no socks, no shoes, no lotions, no sprays, no camera, no way to treat water, no map, no compass, etc. Not all these are necessary obviously. Nothing is necessary, but they are typical.

If you are counting everything and you take my suggestions, my prediction is that you will be cold and WET a LOT. But you will be a lot lighter.

In addition to the comments about what you're forgetting – you're forgetting a solar charger for your iPod. without one, it'll be great for one week and along for the ride for the rest of the hike.

n/m

I really appreciate all the advice. I've done a fair amount of backpacking and I've done some research into ultralight but the amount of great feedback I've recieved from users on this site has just blown me away.
All the best, Nathan Stebner

I can see where it'd be tempting to ditch the cook system, but I wonder how practical it would be for a 4 or 5 month trip? I'd sure want a hot drink or meal every now and then. If nothing else, hot fluids are one of the quickest and easiest ways to warm yourself up. Perhaps carry the cook system at the start when it's colder, then send home? Even then, a few months of cookless sounds pretty dreary…

First off, What time of year are you starting and are you going NoBo or SoBo (if it isn’t obvious by your starting date)? I certainly agree with David that going UL/SUL isn’t really all that practical on such a long distance hike with such varied conditions as you will see on the AT.

I agree with most of what is been said here. I think dropping your SL1 and rain gear (at least jacket) for a Gatewood Cape and Serenity Net Tent is a great idea. I do think you will still want rain or wind pants and wind shirt to keep you warm, but they can be found pretty cheap.

3 liters of water is more than enough, but I like to have 2 containers so I can drink out of one and have water being treated in the other.

I would not go with a 12oz or less pack for a thru hike. That would be fine on a week long trip, but for a thru I think something like a Gossamer Gear Mariposa Plus, Granite Gear Vapor Trail, ULA Ohm, or ULA Circuit would be more in line.

I also wouldn’t want to go cookless for that long of a stretch. I have done that for week long trips, and it even starts to get old by then.

You are missing items from your list:

Water Treatment – I’d use Aquamira Drops

Hat – Fleece Beenie

Gloves

Extra Socks

I'll be headed northbound and starting around mid march.

Starting mid march, you will want a 20* bag for sure and keep it until mid VA at least. You will also want a full set of dry clothes in addition to what you hike in, so 1 set of short sleeves/ shorts, and 1 set of mid weight long johns to go along with your rain gear set up and down jacket.

I dont have experience with the Gatewood cape, but unless it is really great at being rain gear (better than a good rain jacket), I would advise against it. I had a stretch where it rained every day for over 2 weeks, and another that rained 30 days straight this year. You will want to be fully prepared for the rain. If you would like, I can send you my gear list from when I left Damascus, which I was prepared for the conditions you will likely be encountering

If you want some inspiration check out Brian Doble’s lists from his 2008 YoYo.

YoYo Gear

Starting in mid March, I agree you will want a 20* bag for sure and warm clothing. I was section hiking in April this year in North Carolina when it got down to around 15* at night with 25 mph winds. It also dumped 10" of snow. I had to posthole my way to Fontana Dam through drifts nearly waist high. I have also been in the Smokies in June with freezing temps and was at Mt. Rogers VA last year when we had temps in the 30's in mid August.

The Gatewood Cape is very good as rainwear – better than a lot of rain jackets in high humdity warm conditions imo.

And the fact is, most thru hikers on the AT stay in shelters when it's raining. So it's not critical that you carry any other rain gear as a backup for when the cape is erected as shelter, as most of the times its raining shelters are an option. Just bring a light windshirt like the Golite Wisp.

You might have some trouble with the cape as rainwear in rugged sections of trail. Having said that, I wore the cape for several days in the 100 mile wilderness and also wore it for many other rainy days in the Whites. (Not on a thru hike though just short trips.)

Although I prefer a rain jacket for rugged areas and own a very light cuben tarp so I can get almost the same combined weight, the cape is a great item for both shelter and rain gear particularly if you're on a tight budget.

Thats hardcore! I'm jealous of the 12 days of rain he had on his NOBO section. Its crazy to think with a small change in shelter (mld cuben monk tarp and bug bivy), he could have dropped another 5 ounces or so. Add 5 oz down to his bag and he could have been really comfy.
I think an extra 3 oz for dri ducks over a wind shirt would be worth the ability to be protected from the rain.
He should get a medal for doing that though, if mad props arent enough.