average trad.pack:5.6lb/71liters

Well, if it's any indication, I see folks carrying traditional gear much, much more often than light weight gear — never mind UL gear. Hiking up Mt. Whitney, it was painful just to watch folks hauling up full size Kelty or Gregory packs! And on a 4-day hike near Vancouver (Canada), I never saw any light weight gear — except my own and my buddy's. At dinner time, folks gathered around, watching our alcohol stoves with great fascination. I saw one person carrying a canister stove, and everybody else were still using liquid fuel stove.

I've also seen young and strong scouts lying horizontally alongside the trail out of sheer exhaustion from their 70-lb pack weight (I asked, and they were doing a two-night trip to an established campsite with plenty of water nearby). They were pretty amazed at my 20-lb pack — geared for a four-night stay.

No official source at all, but my guesses are that most people pack for a weekender, and the "typical" backpack is still a 5,000 cubic inch pack weighing 5-6 lbs.

I've never knowingly passed a lightweight backpacker on a Canadian trail.

Granted I only hike in BC and Alberta (more pragmatic people in general than Ontarians :P) and I don't pay much attention to other peoples' gear.

I get comments every night at every campsite. I use an old Salomon adventure racing pack for weekenders (budget constraints) and nobody can believe that I'm able to pull an entire campsite and kitchen out of it. My old Nunatak Arc Ghost (since sold) got the most attention; scaring every woman who ever saw it!

Lots of outdoor stores here in Vancouver looked at GoLite gear and refused to carry the line. A few carry their shells and softshells.

Lightweight hiking makes me a heretic in my country and my family — thank goodness I have you guys! ;)

I expect 3 primary reasons for the larger and heavier equipment are:

1) Broader availability of heavier, existing equipment marketed by larger volume manufacturers and retailers;

2) Cost: UL may use less materials, but it's typically in lower volumes and more exotic or expensive equipment. Mom isn't going to buy little Johnny a $250 ULA Catalyst to save 2 lbs when the (similar volume) Chinese made Kmart special is on sale for $29. (example only, no political statement intended (;-)

3) Durability: I have a 35 year old heavy canvas pack that has been around the world and bested the toughest baggage gorillas at airports. I don't expect the 1 lb silnylon bags would come even close durability wise. (OK, it does weigh more than many of your base weights)

It's a different market, but is slowly changing: How long ago was it that -0- major retailers couldn't spell lightweight, and carried no gear?

Another possible reason for the continued popularity of heavier gear…

Backpacking itself is retreating from what's considered a mainstream sport or hobby… and as that happens, the increasing unfamiliarity of the outdoors itself breeds a more intense "fear of the unknown" among the general public. This, plus the incessant marketing message for the need to be safe, both serve to draw newbies to buying "bullet proof" everything — like every hike is a trip to Denali!

How many UL hikers today actually took years to shed old gear and old prejudices before they finally converted? Methinks it's pretty unrealistic to expect newbies to gravitate toward UL gear from the first get go… And so, traditional gear is here to stay — and will continue to be the choice of the mainstream for years to come…

When I have my small load with me, and I run into men, there is that look, where you know they are waiting for the man with the pack donkey load to come up over the rise behind me.
I do get a lot of questions "do I have a tent?" "where is my food?", etc, etc.
But out here, while you do see a lot of traditional loads on the PCT and the Wonderland trail, on other trails you do see more light loads, maybe not UL, but lots of 3500 ci packs. Which is a start!

I spend most of my time section hiking on the AT and I have seen bigger day packs than my 3 to 5 day kit.

Sadly I have seen too many scouts accompanied by their leaders with large packs for an overnighter. The one thing I always talked about with groups of teenagers who I took hiking was "small pack, pack less" it made my life as leader and their life much simpler.

I went out for a memorial weekend backpack trip over with my
2500cu in., 2 /1/2# REI lookout daypack. No one could believe I had everything for a long weekend backpack at 13#. And that is just kindalight, not anywhere near ultralight!

I had to sell my 19 oz. GoLite Gust, tho. Not enough hipbelt or suspension for my 110# small framed body.

Thanks for your answers, everyone; even here in Japan where hiking is a sport for well-off retired people; they dont buy gear for its lightness, more for its fashion appeal, durability, color coordination, etc.. And looking at shoes lined up outside lodges, 90% are those heavy unsplit leather rigid boots which haven't changed much since the 50s.

Just got back from a Memorialday weekend trip in the NH Whites. I still get suprised that I only see mabey one other person travelling light- even the younger kids who you would think are more up on the latest greatest trends.
In the past I have even had some people get angry at me, on the VT Long trail I remember someone getting angry and yelling " what do you cut off the handles on your toothbrush!" when they saw my Golite Breeze and someone told them I was thru hiking the trail. Good thing I wasnt staying at that shelter we would have had some problems if he insisted that my gear was his buisness!

Brian,
I was probably the only other guy in the Whites this past weekend with what appeared to be a large day pack for a 3 day outing. Still not many people appear to be thinking about reducing gear weight and wondering if it's because of the short warm weather hiking season in the northeast it seems many people only do a few trips a year so they stick with the gear that they have and shop at our local outfitters that still sell traditional gear. Had a good conversation with an gear outfitter in Lincoln N.H. & owner mentioned that people coming in were usually on a budget and would opt for cheaper sleeping bags and tents as well as other equipment, He mentioned 75% of his business was done between Memorial and Labor day.
Sorry to get a bit off topic, and back to the original post there were a large number of traditional packs in the Pemi wilderness area (90% that I saw) and the only time that seems to change is when the North bound AT thru hikers start arriving in late June through August. Heavy packs could also be a stubborn Yankee thing, like you I have been ridiculed about my gear, but more often when asked I end up giving on the spot gear presentations too eager enthusiast who have lugged heavy loads up our unforgiving piles of granite with many thinking about changing out there kits.

I'd like to see similar numbers about sleeping bags and shelter systems.

As 'mainstream' as the philosophy of ultralight packing has become, the application is no where close to universal. Half the people I see on the trail are casual recreationalists that MAYBE backpack a few weekends a year! This group is never going to invest the time to learn about UL gear or its safe application. Even those who are fairly aware of the gear and principles often find it difficult to apply.

If you've read this far, you have more than a casual interest in backpacking and UL philosophy. You are outside of one or two standard deviations of the average backpacker.

And face it, there's no major retailer where you can walk in and get outfitted with all UL gear.

Hi Jim, By far most people are curious and just want to know how its done- especialy after lugging a large pack all day. I think they belive that light = suffering. When they see that you are perfectly comfortable and well feed ( and are prepared for more nights out then they!)they cant help but wonder how its done! I guess we take UL/SUL backpacking for granted, its hard to break through the marketing and preconceptions of the average Joe.

I don't know about you guys but when I returned to hiking after a fairly long hiatus, I did a small amount of research. It was perfectly logical and immediately apparent to me that I could carry a much smaller load than I was thinking I needed. My first time back on the trail, I was carrying maybe 1/3 of what I did back in my days as a teen. This was after only moderate and casual research. I've since paried down to borderline SUL gear weights, which is the only part of this process that required real digging. I think lightweight backpacking is like most things in life that require a bit of thought: most people aren't willing to do any research on their own. They rely totally on the local outfitter…who are often people knowledgeable in outdoor pursuits other than backpacking or, even worse, just interested in the outdoors with no real experience at all.

On my Memorial Day hike, I too saw nothing but monster pack after monster pack coming down the AT. I can't imagine carrying even close that kind of weight anymore. We sheltered with a young man who told me he was section hiking Harper's Ferry to Maine. His loaded 5000 c.i. Kelty Red Cloud pack (listed at 5lb, 13oz) had to weigh 50 lbs. Granted, he had a 6 day food load but that's still twice the weight of my pack and my wife's pack added together! He was carrying everything under the sun. The funny thing was, he was using an alcohol stove which, at this point, is like slapping a band-aid on a machete wound!

The alky stove tells me he's done at least casual research so how did he miss the point? He told us staright out that he was "totally whipped" at the end of a 14 mile hike so I'm sure he wasn't too attached to everything he was carrying. If he was an isolated individual I guess I could understand but as others have pointed out, this guy is indicative of a vast majority of people on the trail.

O'contrare my friend…you will find lightweight backpacking fringes everywhere from the dawn of man :)

Here's a recent example shown by someone's Japanese blog.

http://ulgoods.exblog.jp/m2007-02-01/ (in Japanese)

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://ulgoods.exblog.jp/m2007-02-01/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=7&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DMountain%2BLaurel%2BDesigns%2BZip%26start%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN (translated)

Check out the MLD Zip midway down..:)

Pretty cool, eh.

I don't even have to visit that site to come to a conclusion. Am I correct in assuming that 'ulgoods' refers to 'ultralight goods'? That's just another fellow fanatical ounce-counter's blog. That's one guy who gets it but I didn't see him, or anyone like him, on the trail this weekend. Or any weekend so far this year.

I think the point of this thread is that the ultralight word doesn't spread to the mainstream…likely becasue ther are no large manufacturers wholly embracing the concept…which is likely due to how they are geared to make profits from what the sell to the public. If you haven't done so, visit Ray Jardine's page and read his "Bowling Balls for Backpacking" rant. Agree with him or not, he's dead on there.

50 – 70 lb packs for overnight trips – the whole idea of that is simply insane !!
Back in the 1970's when at High school, when friends and I would go on 3 or 4 day bushwalks (for the Duke of Edingburgh Award Scheme), we would have an average packweight of around 32 or 33 lbs – and this was for relatively poor teenagers carrying standard weight equipment (and that was in pre 'UL' days – it would be more easy to do the same hikes with sub 20 lb packs these days..) and pretty ordinary clothes, but still coming in at half the weight described in others' observations above..
But then again, this is Australia down here – and maybe the average bushwalker down here is more akin to your 'UL' hikers, rather than those 'typical' scaredy -cat backpackers who carry everything they may ever need, even if they will probably never leave the 'beaten track' ever in their cacooned and over-cautious little lives…

I think you still see a lot of giant packs amoung young scouts for three reasons. The first reason is that "Be prepared" has become "Be over-prepared". And with the mommies of most of these boys, that is pretty hard not to do. The second would be durability. Boys tear things up. An the last would be cost. You just can't go dump a bunch of money in gear for a 12 year old, unless you're one of those yuppie people who don't have any problem spending $500 on a whim. I carry too much when I go with the scouts just because I don't want to explain to some parent why I didn't have any butterflies because I was saving .1 oz. I know I have realized at my age I have to have an edge, and when I stumbled on this site, I think I found it.

What it comes down to often is this:
All the mainstream books on hiking and backpacking have "lists" in the books on what you need to carry. REI has the same thing as well.
And if one were new to hiking, and picked up a book and read it…well, they'd think they needed all the stuff. Most of the lists read like a NOLS gear list from 10 years ago. They have you carrying socks for every day, a full mess kit, full set of pots. And it wasn't that long ago that a 7 lb tent for two people was considered normal. Neither was a 4 lb sleeping bag. One needed a 5600 ci pack to carry it all!
I look at my 3500 ci pack now, and it seems huge, it swallows my gear. But in 2001, I had an overstuffed 5000 ci pack. My solo tent weighed nearly 5 lbs!

I've never seen another ultralight hiker here in Nova Scotia. Everyone I see has huge 60-70L cordura packs that probably weight about 5 pounds empty. Meanwhile… I can do a 5 day trip with a Goassamer Gear Whisper. People don't know what to think… it blows their minds… and they think I don't have a sleeping bag or shelter.

Why? Simple… no one sells ultralight gear… no one knows about ultralight gear… and no one recommends ultralight gear. You have to do all the research yourself and buy it online. No one does that… they just drive to the camping store. Go to any store anywhere and you are greeted with an array of bomb-proof packs and tents and salepeople who think you need a 5 pound 70 liter pack.

I like Ray Jardine's analogy… that people think of mother nature as something that's gonna get yah… and you have to be prepared. People have this mindset of going into the woods is like going to war. I had someone say to me… "that light stuff is all well and good until the sh*t hits the fan". But he was carrying an ENTIRE huge bottle of sunscreen… an entire full roll of duct tape… and an espresso maker?!?! How is a pound of sunscreen and an espresso maker gonna help you when the "sh*t" hits the fan?!?!?!?! I guess the duct tape might help… he probably had enough to make an entire tarp shelter out of tape… LOL.

p.s. I disagree about cost being a factor… in some cases. Yes… an UL down bag / quilt will set you back a LOT… but you can't beat $60 for the GG Whisper pack… or $3 for a Heniken Beer can… etc.

Ahh, David, you paid too much for the Heineken can—unless you actually drink the swill :-)>—I just go to my local recycling center for my Foster's and Heine needs and get them free.

Well… those are Canadian dollars… and I do drink it… but I wouldn't buy it by choice :) I'm more of a dark beer fan.

Actually, the loonie has appreciated quite nicely against our not-so-almighty-anymore dollar…

My last trip to Europe, the 'lowly' euro was worth a mere 87 cents…

I KNOW?!?! It's crazy?! It's like 95 cents or something now. So why hasn't the cost of beer gone down :P