Is my gear list and weight for 3 day 2 night 3 season through hike average, light (missing things) or heavy (take things out)?

[mik matra]

My friends and I have done a number of through walks and we are in the process of shedding weight off our original 25kilo packs (insert embarrassed smiley here). We do 3 day 2 night through hikes in 3 seasons (so our winter nights are down to maybe freezing). Personally I got down to 15.3kg of pack weight on the last trip and would like to loose another 2 or 3 kilos to not limit where I want to go. To me sleep is important otherwise my cranky ulter ego comes out the next day….not good. And food…I hate being hungry! Here is my list. Can you see/suggest/prod at it? Can you give me ideas what to perhaps change or add in (maybe for safety reasons) or even take out.

Pack-getting the ULA Circuit 1100g

Shelter
-TT Rainbow plus groundsheet 1170g

Sleep
-down bag rated 2deg Celsius comfort wrapped in plastic bag 980g
-Exped Syn UL mat and pump 525g

Clothes
-jumper (windproof front cycling jacket from groundeffects 356g
-short sleeve thermal top 80g
-spare socks 92g
-beanie 34g
-rain jacket with hood 235g
-rain pants 208g
Note;I do not feel the cold through the legs so I left out the thermal pants.

Cooking and water
-jetboil 389g (using my jet boil for boiling water for my dehydrated food and drinking)
-spork 10g
-small lighter <20g
-2 x 1.5L plastic bottles 70g

Essentials, miscellaneous and gear
-first aid kit inc emergancy blanket, aqua tabs and pain killers in a zip lock bag 192g
-wet wipes 120g
-head torch 92g (might leave this out as I have a hat with lights built into it)
-sunscreen 74g (probably leave this out depends where we are going)
-toilet paper fullroll 100g
-toothbrush and paste in small tupper ware container 27g
-pocket knife 67g
-towel (hand towel size) 33g
-Deet in travel aerosol can 74g
-deodorant in travel aerosol can (3/4 empty) 26g
-2 plastic bags for unburnable rubbish 14g
-mobile/cell phone 160g
-license, money credit card 10g
-map and compass 70g?

Consumables (Food and Fuel)
-jetboil fuel 300g?
-2L water 2000g
-food (last 3 day 2 night hike was 3100g) 3100g

Total Weight – 11.728kg

Now I have to add that between the 3 of us we could share a bit of gear and I have identified 1187g of 'communal gear'. Divide that by 3 and I am down to…

NEW TOTAL WEIGHT = 10.937kg

Many thanks.

Mik.

[David Drake]

Hi Mik.

I would replace the jetboil–there are a lot lighter ways to boil water (including the newer Jetboils).

Bag seems heavy for the conditions, and maybe for its temp rating (Not sure–I suspect most of us here are more familiar with using lower temp limits to compare bags than comfort limits). You can always supplement your bag by wearing your warm clothing to bed (which you are carrying anyway.

If you're serious about cutting weight, you might hold off on the backpack purchase until you've cut everything else. You may not need the volume or suspension (or pack weight) as your base weight drops.

The weight of a lot of your little stuff can be cut in half. Forget aerosol cans, for example (and deodorant). Seems like a lot of wet wipes, and will you really need a full roll of TP for 3 days? Pretty soon, 14 grams or so shaved off every item will make a half kilo or more.

Giving the total weight of all your packed gear, minus consumables (your base weight) makes it easy to compare with other gear lists.

What size canister is the jetboil fuel? A full 110 gram (net fuel weight) Snow Peak canister weighs ~200 grams. That would easily get me through 3 days, with plenty left over.

Your food weight seems high, esp. since 3 days hiking is usually only 2.5 days food (no breakfast first day, or dinner last day). Do you usually have food left over? If not, you may want to push your calorie density higher. I shoot for >125 Cal/28 grams (~4.5 Cal/gram) average calorie density, and am perfectly happy with around 600 grams/day for short trips.

Mike Clelland! had a good article about food here:

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/pounds_per_person_per_day_ppppd.html

You will need to be a member to read it–I found it really helpful.

[mik matra]

Ahh thank you for the info, you've given me some things to think about :) especially the food weight.

You mentioned the jetboil, dunny paper, aerosol cans, wet wipes, jet boil fuel, they are all on our communal gear list that gets split between the 3 of us. So even though the individual items seems too heavy or too much for one we are sharing it 3 ways. Jetboil I can understand as it is heavy and there are lighter options from what I have seen.

Thanks for your time.

[Author]

Posts