How are folks getting under 7 lbs base?

Since the only electronics you carry is Inreach, am I right to assume you camp a maximum of 1 or 2 nights?

If that is the case, then I would forego all stove systems and cold soak. I love my hot coffee and tea, but, do not take any stove system. I started cold soaking Via coffee during my last trip. But otherwise no coffee or tea in trail. I cold soak my Mountain House dinner. Try this at home with Teriyaki chicken. I don’t see any difference between cold and hot soaking.

You could also try taking a Zpacks poncho for rain protection and it can serve as a groundsheet as well. I would also take Zpacks pocket tarp.

Since your backpacking trips are going to be 1 or 2 days, you can take more risks. Meaning if a gear item fails….like say your quilt gets wet, you are getting out and heading back to civilization. Though none of what I suggested will put you in danger.

I would also try those thin Gossamer gear foam pads instead of inflatables. Mainly because you can live with perceived discomfort for 1 or 2 days easily. For 1 or 2 days of backpacking, comfort should not be a consideration in my view.

And move some things into fanny pack. That will also reduce load on your shoulders if using frameless pack.

I keep my Inreach, phone, Zpacks wind shirt, small nylon blanket, Nuun tablets/lip balm etc in my pant pockets….Kuhl convertible pants which has like 8 pockets.

I keep my electronics with batteries, stakes, spoon, first aid kit, steripen in fanny pack. This way I can get rid of 2 to 2.5 lbs off of my shoulders.

That CamelBak reservoir is too heavy. I would just use Platy bags and 0.5 liter water bottle pockets attached to shoulder straps for easy access to water.

@mchinnak – thank you for your suggestions!
I didn’t meant to imply I *only* bring the garmin for electronics, I was just trying to see how low the base weight could get. I always bring my headlamp, phone, and a battery charger which is good for lots of purposes (phone, gps, headlamp).

I agree the camelbak is heavy. I’m looking at hydrapak seeker + hydrapak bottle + a sawyer now… not listed in my above gear is my heavy katahdin hiker pro… =) Also love suggestions for this system because what I like about my existing set-up is that I pre-filter all the water I will need for an excursion from camp (like to the top of a mountain), which usually goes in a water bottle + that camelbak…

Like Dan, the kitchen stuff jumped out at me, followed by the 13 ounce rain layer.  Also the paracord.

Kitchen:

0.9 ounce BRS-3000T

3.7 ounce Stanco Grease Pot

0.4 ounce mini-Bic

0.5 ounce long bamboo spoon

5 x 1.2-ounce water bottles (seems like a lot, but you say you need the water storage).  Bottles are more durable than soft water bladders.  And free!

6.1 ounces total, instead of your current 25.4 ounces.  19.3 ounces of savings for $17 (stove) + $10 (pot) + $1 (Bic) + $1 (spoon) + free (at the recycling center) = $29.

Paracord is never the right answer.  I bring a 25-foot length of 130-pound-test halibut line at (from memory) 6 grams.  Hang line, clothes line, extra tent guy lines, emergency shoe lace and, if you bring a glover’s needle, very strong stitches for gear repair.  PM me if you want some (we use thousands of feet).

And move some things into fanny pack. That will also reduce load on your shoulders if using frameless pack.

Yeah this is a good suggestion, particularly if you are using a frameless pack without a hipbelt or with a very minimal hipbelt.

Also agreed on paracord. I prefer 1.5mm line from MLD or Paria. David’s line is a little thin for my taste but it sure is light. I think both Matthew & David’s options are better than paracord, which soaks up too much water, is too heavy and too stretchy in my experience.

Thanks! You have a link to that 1.5mm line?

Thanks for all of those links @annapurna!

Mountain Laurel Designs has 1.5 mm line.  I’d prefer it for frequent bear bagging.  The 130-pound test Dacron line I use is quite thin and would cut through bark with much weight on it.

In between those, I got some high-performance Kevlar kite line (for really large kites) off of Amazon.

If I had a few minutes of warning before stepping into a time machine set for 25,000 years ago, I’d grab braided fishing line, fish hooks, Bic lighters and then trade for everything else once I got there.

I am going to try the following this summer. On paper, it really cut my base weight to levels I never thought I would reach.

• combine a Borah UL Bivy with a Gearswifts DCF poncho/tarp. This is a 10.5 oz modular shelter with bug and draft protection. It weighs 9oz less than my Duplex and negates the need for a 10 oz rain jacket for a total weight savings of 19 oz
• Carry 3 oz Aquamira bottle pair instead of a 10 oz Platypus gravity works kit (and then I don’t need to worry about dropping or leaving my filter out in the cold, or backflishing it!)
• Carry a 2 oz bear hang kit instead of a 10 oz ursack
• Carry a warm jacket, alpha direct hat and socks (roughly 4 to 5 oz) instead of an 18 oz sleeping bag for stretches of trail where the nighttime temps stay above 50 (also factor in that the Borah Bivy is a kind of sleeping bag itself)
• carry a 1.9 oz toaks 550 ml pot with a tin foil lid instead of a 6 to 8 oz 900 ml pot with a frypan lid (all I need to do is boil water to throw in a 4oz silicone stasher bag that has Cous Cous, knorr or some other hydratable food)

so like I said, I need to test these tweaks on trail over the summer, but I’m now at a 7.3 oz base weight without feeling like a sadist. Granted, my camera and nav are my phone while the OP is a professional photographer.

“I didn’t meant to imply I *only* bring the garmin for electronics, I was just trying to see how low the base weight could get. I always bring my headlamp, phone, and a battery charger which is good for lots of purposes (phone, gps, headlamp).”

What would happen to your base weight if you dropped the electronics–except, the headlamp, which is used every night?

Lose the phone, gps and charger. A mere twenty years ago, and throughout all of history before then, folks strode confidently along without a phone in the wilderness. skill sets weigh nothing. Maps only a shade more than nothing.

A mere twenty years ago, and throughout all of history before then, folks strode confidently along without a phone in the wilderness.
Just so, just so.
Cheers

Thanks @11worth – these are good suggestions.

I was considering aquamira for sure… some of the places I backpack have heavy metals in them though.
What bear bag are you going to go with? I like that idea except for instances where I’m above tree-line and there’s no way to hang it – I have liked my Ursack Minor for that reason as it allows me to feel a bit safer in the presence of rodents.

As far as the jacket / sleeping bag goes… I don’t remember a single time in my 20 years of backpacking where this was feasible in the places I like to go, but its a good suggestion nonetheless.

I used Aquamira drops for years, but recently have been trying the BeFree filter as I didn’t like the taste or wait times of Aquamira, but only recently have other lightweight options become available that I liked.  I tried a Steripen years ago, but it failed on my in the field (dead battery on it’s first trip).  I think they fixed the issue but I never could trust it again.  I tried a Sawyer Micro but it clogged too easily.

I used a silnylon bag and later a Z-Packs DCF bag for hanging my food, along with Zing-It throw line.  Of course I’m in the east where good hanging tree’s are everywhere.  Above treeline, or in areas that don’t have good trees something like the UrSack may be a necessity despite the weight.  There are some people that sleep with their food, and in some places that might be OK (I’ve done it a few times myself), but after seeing a few tents shredded due to bears getting food out of them, I’ve decided it’s usually not worth the risk, even if the risk is low because the consequences are so high.

Yeah here in Colorado sleeping with your food means: at best you get to deal with mice; at worst you will be getting a bear in camp.
I’ve seen people camp with their food in the tent and in the morning they wake up to find the tent has been chewed through and the food chewed into by mice. Mice are rampant here.

oh okay, I hear you Matt. I was talking from the perspective of mid Atlantic in the middle of summer, but alpine is a different game. Last summer I settled on a silnylon food bag like Brad (the SealLine 10L green bag). I also was lining it with a 1 oz nylopro odor proof bag from z packs. Sometimes it was hard to get a good hang, so I felt better about having that extra “invisibility” from animal noses.

It’s interesting how different people have such different experiences. In several decades and hundreds of nights, I have never encountered the slightest problem from any animal in the Colorado high country, not rodents, not bears, not coyotes. I do make a concerted effort to avoid frequently traveled areas, and maybe that’s the difference.

>I’ve seen people camp with their food in the tent and in the morning they wake up to find the tent

> has been chewed through and the food chewed into by mice. Mice are rampant here.

On a trip into Algonquin, I forgot in the van a couple individually store wrapped granola bars in a sealed freezer ziploc in my bear hang bag (was using the Ursack on the trip).  From outside a locked van, mice smelled them, crawled in and had a feast, destroying the bear hang bag in the process.

I carry an Ursack Almighty with Lopsack, as the vermin (mice and chipmunks) are a far bigger risk than the bears.  Chipmunks are the worst!

We grew up calling chipmunks “mini bears” because they were so persistent. In some places we have had similar issues with raccoons.  I spent one night having an ongoing tug of war with a raccoon that was trying to pull my (I thought empty) backpack out from under our pyramid tarp.  It was only the following morning that I discovered there was an apple that I somehow missed removing.

@dan-s yes that is interesting!
I remember a couple years ago laying out w/o a tent at tree-line and I had mice climbing all over my sleeping bag lmao.

Almost every autumn on my fall color photo trips we have problems with mice getting into folks’ vehicles and eating food. They managed to eat my entire backpacking supply one autumn.

I find generalists are not realistic when discussing weight.  There is so much variability such as temp, moisture, wind, length of trip, pace, water sources, terrain, etc.  ALL this may have an interaction with the weight of gear that you are bringing, especially when going solo.  A 7lb base weight in Southern Cal  in spring with a good forecast is very much different then a solo trip in the sierras in fall with questionable weather and more distance.

Cheers

Totally agree with that Brian!

Maybe the key to getting under 7 lbs is picking a hike where the weather is good and you either can hang your food or it’s safe to keep it in your tent :)))  That and leaving most things home…. :)))

A critical insight for me was given the duration and conditions of my normal hikes that food and water + a SUL base would put me over 10lb. I found <20lb in a pack with good load transfer to my hips was more comfortable and less fatiguing than >=10lb in a frameless pack that wasn’t effective at transferring load to my hips. I found little advantage trimming weight until I was ovcr 20lbs… so I don’t need to count the grams and enjoy my comfort.

Insightful. What pack do you use now?

Everyone is different, but for me the frameless SUL thing didn’t work. Or, more specifically- it worked in that it was optimized for weight but not comfort, and that ultimately distracted and detracted from the value.

I found the carry of a well packed frameless pack (first Virga 2, then Nero DCF) was uncomfortable even with the light-weight that I was optimizing for (5oz bivvy, CCF pad, 10oz Cumulus bag, etc- it was probably around 7lb base weight.) I’ve changed to using a SWD Long Haul 50 for basically everything except winter pulking and couldn’t be happier. The overall carried weight is heavier but my body doesn’t complain at the end of a day of hiking with a pack that properly transfers weight compared to a lighter setup that’s entirely borne by my shoulders.

I guess what I’m saying is that for me, the literal pain in the neck was greater than the mental high-five I could give myself for having such a light pack. We all have different priorities, but I’d use other peoples’ beta testing SUL at all costs and coming back to heavier but more comfortable as another point of view to view your situation through. Might be able to save yourself some $ and buy what you already own….

We agree with Dan.

I tried to find a light-weight framed pack for my wife Sue for long trips, but none of them worked as well as her old Macpac, which was both big and heavy. Ah, but it fitted her back so well that she did not care about the extra 1 -2 kg. And being so big, she found it wonderfully easy to pack and also to find things in during the day. Insert arm, rummage, extract item – quickly.

In comparison a very narrow Aarn pack we tried was, for us, a compete failure. To get anything out of it we had to empty the pack first. In the rain, finding food in one was impossible. Just not functional.

Cheers