Big 3 vs. Big 4?

Semantics. FSO weight is the only truth.

When I first showed up here, I got plenty of valuable advice on the big three, and the other couple of dozen things I carrying. I thought that worked out well.

I agree that most pack weight is concentrated in the big 3. The 4th is less obvious and in many cases can be a pad, cookset, or even water.

These are just sementics. The biggest single weight savings, without changing gear and spending money and/or time to MYOG is a single system approach to hiking. This changes how you view every item you pack. For example:
I pack a 32 degree bag for 32 degree weather.
I have a pad, and shelter.
If I expect 25F weather, my choice would be another bag, possibly another pad. The manufacturors would love me.

Instead, I buy a set of Merino Wool long johns, a down sweater and a wool cap. I know I can easliy push the bag I have to 25F using clothing. Since, the day time temps will require a warmer base layer, too. The sweater around camp works when I stop hiking at 40F.

So, using my poor example, I saved a lot of dollars over a new 20F bag, saved likely no weight, though. I added several items to my clothing that double as day wearable. All and kept my existing gear running. But, I also extended my safe temperature range from 32F to 22F with a minor investment in weight, space and money. Perhaps this counts as that elusive fourth item?

Here is another diagramatic explanation:

By examining every item I am carrying, I can asses the lightest and best way to solve each camping problem for every camping trip. Probably some stuff I am missing…but I am sure you can follow this.

it all depends on yr current gear

you have to do a spreadsheet to figure out both yr greatest savings and the most cost effective purchases … often a lot of weight is saved by not bringing stuff you dont need rather than replacing things

as you can see i got the OR helium because saving 17oz or so is much greater than any stove, or even a lighter down bag … and at a lower per weight cost

Jace, I agree with you. A Big Four is a good approach, particularly for the new person, in terms of where to begin to focus one's attention on lightening up. Adding your cooking set up to the Big Three gives you a lot of bang for the buck: easy to experiment with homemade alcohol stoves without taking out a mortgage on the house, and quite a bit of weight savings over things like the Whisperheavy and the JetBrick.

Ultimately though, it is about skin out weight, and I think the advice, "weigh everything," is the right advice. The spreadsheet approach makes sense to me. At a minimum, list the item and its weight, and get a total. A lot of things I hadn't really given much thought too have significant weight. Boxer shorts: quarter pound. Nalgene bottle, more than a quarter pound. A lot of gear that is pretty standard with the average hiker is pretty weighty. A scale can be a real eye opener.

So, sure, focus on the Big Four, particularly at first, but know the weight of every single item you're carrying. Get the data, and the answer will appear.

HJ

Jace,

Check out this thread and pay particular attention to Dale Wambaugh’s take on this topic .

I have just about as much trouble keeping the weight of my clothes in my pack down as I do losing weight. :-(

Looking at your picture in your avatar though I can see that you don’t seem to share my particular dilema. ;-)

Happy New Year!

Party On,

Newton

Jace:

For many, shelter, pack, bag and pad are the four heavy items. If cookset qualifies as well, then methinks it should be considered as "Big 5" — rather than kicking out the sleep pad.

Methinks that for most 3-season hikes, many UL hikers have embraced alcky stoves and personal-size ti pot/mug. For them, the cookset no longer qualifies among the "big heavy" items. Of course, when melting snow is required for winter trips, the stove can absolutely quality.

Hi, Ben,

I don't think Jace was proposing that the pad be done away with. Rather, I think Jace was suggesting that the bag & pad be considered as one category, sleep system, which actually is how I have heard it described. His "Big Four" includes the pad.
1. Shelter
2. Sleep System
3. Pack
4. Cooking System

HJ

With regard to ultralight backpacking, forget the Big 3 or Big 4. The concept of The Big 3 has been around since people starting taking about ultralight gear. Go to any website claiming to know something about ultralight and sure enough they’ll have a page on the Big 3.

Personally when I give discussions on ultralight gear, I don’t even bring up the topic of the Big 3 and haven’t done so for years. And I make my living by making and selling two of the Big 3 items.

What’s good about discussing the “Big 3”.
1) It’s easy and simple to define.

What’s bad about discussing the “Big 3”.
1) Virtually all Big 3 discussions completely miss the point of teaching anything useful about ultralight backpacking.
2) It’s a way too expensive a way to learn ultralight backpacking.

The problem is that the Big 3 is basically a substitution system of replacing a heavier piece of gear with a lighter version. For example a 5 pound tent vs. an 8 ounce tarp. It’s almost as if the two were functionally equivalents. However, the discussion rarely gets much beyond the simple replacement of tents, sleeping bags and packs with lighter equivalents.

Over the years, I’ve encountered too many hopeful ultralight hikers who took this advice to heart. Bought “the right” gear, and headed out in the wilds and into a world of hurt. Their main problem stems from only replacing their big three items while ignoring the rest of their gear. As a result they too often headed out of town with way too much gear crammed into a pack poorly designed to carry it.

Today when I talk to people about thinking about backpacking systems, I start by looking at everything in the pack beside the Big 3. Why, because is easier and cheaper for people to learn about the systems approach by concentrating on more manageable systems. We’ll discuss lighter approaches to cooking, clothes, first aid, and miscellaneous gear. All with the intent of trying to make gear both work together and also examining the potential for multiple uses.

One can work their way through several different cook systems without spending as much money as for a single shelter. All the while, they are training their minds to start taking a different look at how they conceive of their gear.

You can buy several outfits of clothes looking to find what works for you. If you decide that something you’ve bought for the trail isn’t as light as you’d like. You can always wear it around town. Tents, packs and sleeping bags don’t have much use in our normal day to day world.

Only when you’ve started to master the smaller items of gear in your pack should you look to replacing the Big 3. It is true that weight saving of replacing this gear is often not as dramatic as dropping several pounds on a single piece of gear. However, when you reflect on the total weight savings, it can be as significant as 10 to 15 pounds for some people.

Plus this can be accomplished at a fraction of the cost of replacing even one item of the Big 3.

Just another way to think about leaning ultralight hiking.

ron's comments bring up a good point

IMO going lighter after a certain point (after getting all that fancy gear) become a matter of risk assessments … same as anyone heading into dangerous terrain, or how much protection to bring on a long climb

i think once you do a spreadsheet you'll be surprised that yr greatest weight savings is simply not bringing stuff … you just have to weight the probability of using the gear vs the possibility of being effed without it should you need it

Fortunately the majority of the gear the average beginner wants to bring can be thrown out with little to no risk by simply learning to utilize other items they're going to have to bring to accomplish the same task.

These are examples, nothing more, and I'm fully aware their may be better ones and this is probably over simplified. You should get the point.

Take the bushcraft community for example. While this isn't necessarily relevant (in the sense that most of us here will start doing this) it is interesting to note. Besides being a bit finicky over knives and hatchets their gear lists are simple (and generally cheap!) and they seem to be heavily focused around technique. Many of them can reduce the weight of their shelter, sleep system, and cook system into the weight of something as cheap and simple as a Mora if they have to. This is all done with knowledge. They understand the unobtainium-mehrunes-964920cm-razor isn't going to make a bit of difference if they can't effectively wield it.

In similar fashion lightening up is really all about technique.

Yes you can ditch the french press and still enjoy great coffee. If you know how.

And you can amaze all your friends and make them wonder at your vast knowledge by talking about site selection for tents just like you would a tarp because that bathtub floor isn't going to be useful at all in the flat of that little depression if the storm gets as bad as it looks like it will. You'd better pitch on that slight rise and have a *gasp* uneven floor.

Ponder this – how often do experienced traditional backpackers cowboy camp and not even set up the tent they packed in? Being able to do that is derived from knowledge.

As was mentioned, those clothes you plan on lounging around camp in can be used to extend your sleeping bag instead of buying another one.

If we focus on technique and knowledge the inevitable result will be a lighter pack as people discover better ways to do more with less gear. At the same time, if this became the focus of lightweight backpacking, we'd be known as the smart ones instead of the lunatic fringe. Neither would people see it as dangerous because the emphasis would be on creating better backpackers instead of better gear.

Personally I enjoy reading gear lists and tweaking them but how often does someone respond to Roger with confusion at the thought of not bringing TP (or something similar)? Obviously these people jumped on the gear bandwagon and failed to read the articles or the rest of the boards (and then that discussion is started all over again). Instead they expect to cut their pack weight purely with money instead of technique and thus "going ultralight" is perceived as being all about how much money a person has to throw at their gear when a lot of weight can be cut for free or with little to no monetary investment since one of the easiest ways to cut a pound is still shaving an ounce in 16 places.

I guess what it all boils down to is people need to learn how to read.

And, yes, I fully agree that, once a person is there, it needs to be the big 4 as it relates to systems. However, at that point the term big anything should be outdated and it'll just be the sleep system, the shelter system, the packing system, etc. So throw that old piece of terminology out. In my experience it just makes it harder to explain things to people because of the tunnel vision they end up with.

Well said!

Knowledge is the cornerstone of everything we do as backpackers.

"And, yes, I fully agree that, once a person is there, it needs to be the big 4 as it relates to systems. However, at that point the term big anything should be outdated and it'll just be the sleep system, the shelter system, the packing system, etc. So throw that old piece of terminology out. In my experience it just makes it harder to explain things to people because of the tunnel vision they end up with."

Absolutly!!!!!

I would point out that the Big 3 or the Big 4 are simply terms used to describe parts of a pack system used in the learning process for backpacking. The next step is to teach spread sheets and weights leading to teaching systems and system approaches. Once we start reaching beyond the old concepts, it is clear there are a lot of ways to do things. But, as in physics, you start with a simple model. Then you explain why it doesn't work all that well. Then you can present a new and improved version. Maybe you can present the better model?

nm

+1 for the BIG 4

I have always thought along these lines that it should be be the BIG 4..They are your heaviest items in your system: Pack, Shelter, Sleeping Bag and Sleeping Pad. Some of my friends sleeping pads are THE heaviest things in there entire pack system. Sometimes I do not bring a cooking system but that depends on the trip..But I will always bring the Big 4 no matter what trip…
Big 4: Pack,Shelter, Sleeping Bag and Sleeping Pad

Thanks for the credit, John :)

I agree that you can get the Big 3 right and still have a lot of "junk in the trunk" and end up at the top of the hill with a load of stuff you don't use or need. You must weigh everything to get a real grip on pack weight.

As John and I both have mentioned, clothing represents at least as much volume, weight and cost as any of the Big 3, as well as comfort and safety. A good clothing system can be the hardest to understand and takes some trial and error to suit the user and the season/climate it will be used in. It means coordinating a number of items to work together efficiently, and there isn't much else in the UL gear universe that has as many components.

There are a lot of packs out there, but there are just a couple concepts to grasp: the weight and volume of the gear to be carried and the actual weight of the pack. Your gear fits and it is comfortable, or not.

Sleeping bags are warm enough and light enough or they aren't. You like quilts or you don't, and there are no rocket science concepts to grasp. You can argue over down vs. synthetic forever. Most of what you need to know can be gleaned from reviews; accurate weights and temperature ratings are much of the issue.

There are really just a few types of sleeping pads, and it comes down to user comfort and acceptability– long or short, more or less padding, Spartan light or cushy and heavier.

Same thing with shelters: they keep you protected from the weather and are acceptably light, or not. You can handle Spartan tarps with no bug protection, or you want something more complex for the features you demand.

Cooking gear comes down to pots of appropriate size and a stove/fuel system that suits the altitude, temperature, and fuel availability. Lots of models, but all-in-all, the differences between the whole range of alcohol stoves is fairly small, and much the same with propane canister rigs. Take all the acceptable models and you won't have much more than a 25-30% difference. For a canister stove we're talking a couple ounces at most. The difference between a 600ml titanium pot and a 900ml one is really quite small; you need the volume or you don't.

Throw clothing in and you have seasonal variations, climate (hot/sun, cold/rain), and the metabolism of the user. You need shoes, socks, briefs, pants/shorts, rain protection, insulation, base layers, etc, etc. The biggest conceptual break for a lot of newbies is not having fresh underwear or socks every day– wanting to have 3 of everything. From there it is more attachment to a particular garment that is already owned or an inefficient layering system. Windshirts and base layers can be a strange concept, with users still stuck on commuter/city-style wardrobe of button-down shirt and a mono-layer of insulated jacket, etc. At any rate, you can have something like a dozen items that need to layer and work as a system and not weigh more than 3 pounds or so.

And as many have said, there is the sneaky-weight that creeps up on you and that is where a good little scale can save you headaches. It is also a place to save a lot of money. Weight saved on extras is the cheapest area to control pack weight. UL insulation in sleeping systems and clothing is by far the most expensive item on your gear list, but shaving weight on stuff like toiletries and small consumables is comparatively cheap. I was surprised to check my spreadsheet and see what soap, bug repellent, sunscreen, ointments, and other personal hygiene items weighed in aggregate, even after decanting to smaller containers; "stuff" adds up. This is the place where people start sawing the handles off their toothbrushes. It costs nothing, where an upgrade to a truly light down sleeping bag will cost hundreds. Ad infinitum.

Finally, there is the snowball effect, where less and lighter gear with smaller volume allows smaller, lighter packs, lighter shoes, etc.

What is really important is that you know that you have control over what goes in your pack. It really comes down to what your acceptable comfort level is, and you make choices on it with every turn. The main thing is that you *choose* to carry a 20 pound load or a 50 pounder– there is no "must." Ray Jardine points out that much of what we carry with heavier loads is based on a fear of nature and the outdoors. Once you get over that hump, you start leaving a lot of junk at home.

Awesome post Dale! Really sums it all up.

Dale said, "Finally, there is the snowball effect, where less and lighter gear with smaller volume allows smaller, lighter packs, lighter shoes, etc."

This is something I've had trouble getting across to people in the past. The "snowball effect" is a pretty good way to describe it but sometimes I know it's not my explanation that's completely at fault. Sometimes they just can't seem to get it. I guess it's throwing to many norms out the window for them or something.

Larry, I left out "Rambo-itis," which is particularly a male trait, where carrying a big heavy load is more manly. Just plain stupid to me, but then you know, sometimes a backpack is just a backpack :)

There may be some Luddite factor too. Like in "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," some folk hit the technical wall and just ram their head rather than to stand back and try to analyze and understand the issue.

It's that old adage, "you can take a horse to the hiking store, but you can't make him ultralight!"

So the big 3 won't change.
How about using the "OTHER 3"

In the other 3 you have, Clothing, Cooking, and ?????, (I guess first aid)

Good Post, Dale!
jdm

I like to go with what I call the Seven Holy Nylons:
**Shelter—wide variation here, from shower curtain or trash bags to bivy sac to poncho tarp to TarpTent to hammock to tent, etc.

**Pack—something to carry everything in, whether a buttpack or a hobo bindle stick or a paper sack or a Kelty or whatever else.

**Sleeping bag—something to stay warm in at night during sleep. This could be a blanket or a quilt or a down bag or a space blanket, etc.

**Pad—something to sleep on and keep the cold and bumps of the ground away.

**Clothing—no one backpacks nude much so everyone wears this item and in the winter there's a wide variety of it.

**Water containers—most everyone has to have a water bottle or bladder of some kind for travel drinking and in-camp fluids.

**Food—everyone eats on a trip and so food is essential.

All these seven are humped by 99% of all backpackers, the rest of the stuff like a stove or boots or first aid or a knife etc etc are not mandatory.

The biggest consideration is trip length and food weight. A backpacking trip of 20 days without resupply is a whole other challenge that would put ultralight concerns away from the Big 3 or Big 4 and revolve around the Big One: Food.

Jace / Lisa / whoever you are :)

What a great thread to read! Usually it's the MYOG threads that makes me think deep nowadays. This one, though, has been a good one.

Larry (technique) & Dale (the little sneaky things), I especially appreciate what you guys had to offer.

Todd

"The biggest consideration is trip length and food weight. A backpacking trip of 20 days without resupply is a whole other challenge that would put ultralight concerns away from the Big 3 or Big 4 and revolve around the Big One: Food."

Walter: Ha ha, yes, I well understand *that* sentiment. But, after two or three weeks out I find myself looking for the proverbial *beer*, too. At any rate, the logic of what you use for when becomes more apparent when you do canoe hiking. It makes little sense to have food if you are shivering in wet cloths in the dark. You create a kit that will warm you up and is dry no matter what happens over the course of the day. You have a waterproof flashlight rather than a simple photon that fails in wet weather.
The logic of systems is that they borrow from each other. Lets use your example of 20 days out.
Food, well, we need to bring it. (Discounting fishing and hunting.)
How Much? What Kind? I will need about 1.5# per day for that time out. I will probably go with high fat content, high protein, carbohydrate rich foods. Soo, for nutritional needs I will also need some vitamins. Since I am diabetic, I need my other meds, too. I can plan on less since I will be hiking. So, I reduce my meds by about half. I like a bit of variety in my meals and I like to cook & eat, so, I can finilaize choices to:

3# Jerkey
2# Pepperoni
2# Salami
2# dry Dried Beef (spread and dried in the fridge)
1# dried eggs
Parafied butter (8oz)
Olive oil (8oz)
Cheese (1lb)
2# instant rice
8oz dried carrots
8oz dried peas
1# dried mixed vegies
2# dried beans
1# dried potatoes
1# bisquit mix
3# instant oatmeal
2# instant cocoa
1# dark chocolate bar
8oz freeze dried coffee (crushed.)
About 8oz in spices and salt.

Also needed are about 30oz of fuel, a stove, cup, spoon and pot.
5 baggies large enough to begin rehydration of the veggies.
Some sort of water treatment drops to save fuel in the morning.
I will use my hat as a cozy if I cannot kick up a pile of forest duff.
I will pack 20 vitamin/mineral pills.
I am sure you know the drill….

The point is, everything on a hiking trip is on you or in your pack. If you do not account for it, then you didn't bring it. Knowledge and technique is a bit more difficult. These are not objects. But they will cost as much as a heavier item. Of course, if you do not know about it, you cannot plan on it.
But, using the example above, I saved fuel in two places. The first was by adding the baggie. Negative on weight. But, by rehydrating in a pouch, I save 10 minutes of fuel…about 1 oz. Soo, I say that bit saved about .9oz. By treating water while supper cooks, I save another .4oz of fuel in the morning. The drops cost about .02oz(averaging in the cost of the bottle, too.)But, I no longer need to boil water, just warm it up. The cozy is an unknown. I never really tested it to see if it actually saved anything. But, it DOES cook a stew or pot pie after it comes to a boil. Of course, as an unknown, I am not adding in the fuel weight…just not sure. I will put the extra stuff in a bear bag and hang it. In the morning, I will take a vitamin/mineral pill, since, I am getting old and hate to be sick.

By the systems used directly by the day:
Consumables (food & fuel)
Cooking (cooking)
Clothing (hat)
First aid (pills)
Planning (knowing what bring)
Technique (knowing how to use it)
Critter proofing (Bear bag)

Only by combining these systems was any weight savings realized. A more traditional hiker would have skipped the baggies. He would have cooked the food far longer because he would not have used a cozy. And he would have again used his fuel to boil water in the morning, rather than simply warm treated water up. And, he probably would have doubled what I brought for food and skipped the vitamins.

You are correct, but, you could have gone a bit further.

long before i started thinking about weight i realized my Coleman Exponent wasn't a very smart choice. i was using a nested 2 pot and the entire system weighed in at about 4 tons. i put a few trips in with it and then picked up a Gigastove and 700mL Ti pot. the weight reduction, including a weekend's worth of fuel was sobering. it was eye opener that got me looking at the other items in my pack and then the pack itself. my pack weight is now under 13 pounds and i'm cool with that…

i do have my eye on several items i can reduce, but until they need replaced, i will trudge happily along with them.