3-season gear list review

First of all, I would say this doesn’t seem like an excess of stuff, but you are looking for ways to save weight, so here goes…

The first thing I would do is taylor it to more specific conditions than: “Not winter.  But cool mountains yes, or 3-season“.

Spring in Big Bend is very different from fall in the North Cascades. If your trip is less than a week, you can also look at the long term forecast and get an even more detailed picture of conditions.

Once you have narrowed down gear lists for specific conditions, you might be able to substitute more specialized equipment, rather than do it all stuff. This really applies to shelters a lot, but also clothing and packing. If you are doing a warm weather trip with less clothing, insulation and fuel you might also be able to use a smaller, lighter backpack.

You might even be able to lose clothing weight in colder weather, especially from your pack. For example, for tops, you currently have a tank top,  a woven, long sleeve ‘bug’ shirt and a wind shirt, for 9 oz,in addition to a long sleeve base layer.. If you knew it would be cool all the time, you could go down to a long sleeve base layer and to a nano air light hoody, for the same weight but more warmth, better breathability and much better moisture management under a rain jacket. For bottoms, replacing the long underwear with down pants(same weight) would give you much more warmth.

For warm weather a lighter quilt seems like a good option to save some weight.

In dry conditions do you need dry sleep clothes? Base layers(especially wool) are heavy for their low warmth. For example mountain summer weather: warm days and cool nights. Swap the long sleeve wool shirt and windshirt (12.6 oz) for a MB Plasma down vest (2.8 oz). Swap the long underpants for down pants(same weight). Hike in your Ex Officio shirt, add the tank top underneath if breezy, rain jacket if very windy. In camp, the down vest will add much more warmth over your shirt and under your down jacket than the windshirt and long sleeve wool shirt, and be much more comfortable. The down pants will be MUCH warmer, than the long undies.

If your total pack weights are usually under 25 lbs, consider the Zpack Arcblast pack. Full frame and hip belt for about 22oz, depending on options.

A Neoair Xlite would offer more comfort and more warmth for the same weight as your Ridgerest.

A Zpacks Duplex “tarp only” would be about 11oz, plus the DCF soaks up less water the silnylon, so wet weight will be an even bigger improvement.

Hi Mina:  I’m wondering how you’re weighing individual items, because this is something that can affect the totals on your spreadsheet.

For instance, there is a safety pin and a Fisher space pen, each listed as 0.1oz, which is 2.35g, and I would hazard a guess that the safety pin weighs less than 0.1oz and that the pen weighs a bit more.

In the running total, all of these little overages and deficits might average out to produce an accurate figure, or they might not; I have not done an experiment to test this theory. However, it could be that listing a bunch of small items with slight overages is somewhat inflating your base weight, which means it isn’t quite as heavy as the spreadsheet suggests.

Two approaches that might address this (perhaps imagined!) issue are to 1) get a more accurate scale with at least 1g resolution, or preferably 0.1g resolution if you want to include a lot of very small items on your list, or 2) to measure “sub-units” of assembled items that you might carry together, such as I do with medicines/toilitries/FAK/repair that all go into one ditty bag that gets weighed and put on the list as one item. By doing this, a 0.1oz error would not affect the total nearly as much. If you use your spreadsheet as a packing list, it might be advisable to keep a separate, more detailed, list for that purpose. Personally, I don’t use a packing list at all and simply replenish consumables such as medicine, toothpaste and foot care tapes, etc, as part of the packing process.

To me it seems that you have your kit pretty well dialed in for your and your husband’s personal needs and as far as any improvements I can only chime in with previous comments about tuning the clothing system for actual conditions.

“It seems like so many folks show lower base weights including things I wouldn’t need like fat air pads or chairs.  Looking for why, I come up with:

—They can carry frameless packs at much higher pack weights and no hip belt

—They go no-stove

—They don’t get cold.”

Which is why trying to use someone else’s list is not a good idea!

“My clothing setup wasn’t really on my radar screen, though, so it is helpful that you draw attention to that.  I guess that is where I “pack my fears” as we all typically do.  I never heard of down pants for hiking in cool conditions.  Hardly heard of them at all except maybe for something skiers and mountaineers use.   But would it be too warm for hiking?  I don’t have any other long pants on my current list (except for the rain pants)—just the skirt that I wear the wool leggings underneath if it’s too chilly or windy.”

No, sorry, not down pants for hiking. I had assumed the long underwear was for sleeping/campwear. Many people do use them for backpacking, but almost never while moving. Andrew Skurka suggest bringing down pants if temps are going to be below 35 F or so.

“Think in terms of how many people just bring shorts and leggings, except that shorts and pants give me seam chafe so I switched to the skirt.  Then if it rains or gets too cold even for that, on go the rain pants”

If that is the case, also interesting to check out knee warmers for warmer weather where you just want something to keep the knees warm in a breeze or under rain pants:

https://www.specialized.com/us/en/therminal20kneewarmers/104619

“Even with no rain in the forecast I never trust it not to rain.”

Absolutely agree. I was not suggesting to leave the rain gear behind(especially since you have a super light option). But there is a difference between expecting it to rain a lot and be damp and cool the rest of the time versus expecting it  to rain briefly or not at all  and be warm and dry the rest of the time. In the  latter case, a lightweight rain jacket might be sufficient, for the former you’d want a full suit with good coverage and materials, a fleece/nano air layer for under the rain jacket, long underwear or pants under the rain pants, rainmits and dry sleep clothes.

“But yes, if the forecast is warm and dry I would probably leave the long sleeve wool baselayer shirt out”

The reasons to bring sleep clothes are either for prolonged wet, damp weather, or as extra warmth for camp and sleeping. In case of the latter, wool base layers are simply heavy for the amount of warmth they provide, so leaving them behind and adding (some of) that weight back as down fill, will get you more bang for your ounce.

“I do have a couple of somewhat lighter sleeping bags I could substitute  I have to add 10-15 degrees at least, to any bag rating.”

Agreed, sleeping bag ratings are only an idea. You need to bring what’s warm enough for YOU. I simply meant that with warmer clothes, you might be able to get away with a lighter bag. Also, that in warmer weather you certainly would. I sleep cold too, but when it’s 60F inside my tent I don’t need a warm bag ;-)

“The MB vest looks interesting” I have never used it, and there are many other ultralight down vests too. It was just a quick example. As far as “If it works better than the wool shirt” I was assuming you wore the wool shirt in camp and to sleep, to add extra warmth to your down jacket or windshirt. A down vest certainly “works better” in as much as, it’s warmer than a shirt.

“Whether I want both the wind shirt and the rain jacket is a perennial dilemma, and the subject of many debates over the years on this forum.  I do take both, and often wear the windshirt during rest breaks or if a chill wind picks up, when the big ballooney rain jacket feels like overkill” I almost always bring both as well (but it’s an XL, with hood at only 2.5 oz), and Ryan Jordan has made a compelling case for one too. I meant that if conditions were specific, you might not need to bring it. My thought was there was more overlap in use between a woven hiking shirt and a windshirt.

“ So the suggestion here is to replace the tank, the woven shirt, the windshirt, and the Puffy, with a Nano Air Light Hoody to go with the midweight wool shirt?” Yes. If it was consistently cold, the midweight shirt would be your minimum to hike in. Cool windy mornings you would hike in the shirt + Hoody. Still bring the down jacket for camp.

“That is lighter but would worry that the wool shirt would still be too warm to hike in.  Maybe I don’t trust that it will stay that cool all the time.”

Well it depends on your definition of cold, and indeed how stable the weather remains. But in that case, simply replace the midweight shirt with a lightweight zip neck base layer. Those are comfy even in quite warm weather. Andrew Skurka put’s it this way: Select a base layer that will be comfortable during your highest exertion in the warmest weather you expect.

“In women’s they don’t seem to offer a hoody.” Sorry,not the ‘regular” Nano-Air, the Nano Air light:

http://www.patagonia.com/product/womens-nano-air-light-hoody/84290.html

https://backpackinglight.com/patagonia-nano-air-light-hoody-review-first-look/

https://bedrockandparadox.com/2017/09/22/patagonia-nano-air-light-hoody-the-fleece-killer/

The regular  Nano Air would be far to warm to hike in, even in cold (not frigid) weather.

Maybe you cold give description of how you use the clothing you have listed, that would help clarify it for yourself as well as us? (And avoid assumptions like mine about the long johns)

“On switching to a quilt” 

Only for warmer weather. In an open shelter like yours for a cold sleeper, a mummy bag is a warmer option.

“The Arc Blast is the only framed pack I’ve seen that is lighter than the 2014 Mariposa.  And with the ridgerest I don’t have any other use for the GG sit pad other than its structural role in the pack.  (Even the smaller framed GG packs—the current ones—don’t weight any less than the pack I have.)   –  I should probably have bought the DCF Haven 2 back when it was offered, but even though yes I could come up with the price it kind of made me hyperventilate.  The Zpacks looks like the closest equivalent currently.”

Again, the only reason I suggested  those is that you have specific needs to go super low with weight. It’s a lot of money for a small weight savings and no functional increase really. But that’s the point you are at: diminishing returns and high hanging fruit ;-)

@Mina- the one thing that’s really struck me about this discussion so far is that what you’re carrying definitely seems to work very well for you, and it really seems like most of the stuff you’re carrying is getting used, and, more importantly, is benefiting your trips.

In thinking about things a bit more, one possibility that might be worth considering, in light of your stated goals above (which seem to be thinking forward to a time when you’ll need to carry either significantly more food weight or some similar portion of your husband’s pack) is possibly actually looking into a pack which is more suited to carrying the heavier loads you’re contemplating. The weight increase of, say, a ULA Catalyst or something with a serious suspension wouldn’t be huge, and the increase in carrying comfort with heavier loads could be dramatic. Depending on how much extra weight you ultimately wind up taking on, you might ultimately find that the better-carrying pack gives you better comfort than trying to offset an extra 6 pounds of food (just throwing a number out here) with dropping a pound or two off of your kit, especially if the lighter pack doesn’t carry the weight as well.

By way of example, on the PCT in 2015, I was stunned to find that I’d been carrying 35 pounds in my ULA Circuit at one point in the Sierra- it felt like nothing when I was carrying it. In contrast, on the PCT in 2017, when I very temporarily had maybe 22-25 pounds in my MLD Burn during a long water carry, I felt like I was dragging a sack of bricks around. Obviously it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison to the packs you’re contemplating (and I was loading a frameless pack beyond spec), but my general point is that, at a certain total pack weight, the support of a more supportive pack is very much worth the weight penalty.