I spend most of my day walking, so I optimize my pack for on-trail ecstasy by keeping it light. However, I don’t go “stupid light” by sacrificing too much functionality, durability, comfort etc. for the sake of saving a few grams. Here are seven tips to lighten up:
1. Create a gear list. In a spreadsheet list the gear you may take on an upcoming trip, and weigh each item with a postal scale. Never guess the weight or trust the manufacturer’s specs. The gear list allows you to compare options, identify excessively heavy items, and track your progress over successive trips.
2. Take less stuff. Research the conditions (e.g. temps, precip, remoteness, and natural hazards) you will encounter so that you do not justify items on the baseless “what if” and “just in case” scenarios or on unfounded personal insecurities. Be realistic about your true needs and wants; if want to take a luxury item, make sure that it has a high luxury-to-weight ratio. After a trip, identify items you did not use or need and consider leaving them at home next time.
3. Take lighter gear. Consider a tarp or tarptent instead of a double-wall tent. Make an ultralight alcohol stove from a cat food can. Take one high-loft insulated jacket instead of multiple fleece layers. And learn to use a map and compass so you can ditch your GPS. These decisions have a multiplier effect: a lighter load allows you to wear trail shoes instead of boots, to carry a lighter and smaller backpack, and to carry less food and water because you will cover distances between resupply points and water sources more quickly.
4. Use versatile gear and eliminate redundancies. Pitch your shelter with your trekking poles. Wear your clothing at night and carry a lighter sleeping bag. Use a sleeping pad as a “virtual frame” in your frameless pack. Replace your raingear, shelter and pack cover with a poncho/tarp. And put soft-sided Platypus water bottles and extra clothing inside a stuff sack to make a pillow.
5. Increase the caloric density of your food. One ounce of fat contains 240 calories; one ounce of protein or carbohydrates, just 100. The most weight-efficient diet, then, would consist solely of butter or some other pure fat. Of course, that would be gross – instead, bulk up on chocolate, nuts, Fritos, peanut butter and similarly fatty foods. Aim for a caloric density of 125-150 calories/ounce.
6. Optimize your hydration. Learn how much water you need per hour under certain conditions (e.g. temperatures, elevation gain/loss, shade, etc.), and only take enough to reach your next water source.
7. Eliminate all extraneousness. Remove ice axe loops, daisy chains, extra webbing and/or hydration sleeves from your pack. Ditto for shirt tags, guidebook margins, and pot handles. And chop toothbrushes, foam sleeping pads, and lexan utensils to make them lighter and more packable. This step is intentionally listed last – the weight savings are negligible compared to the steps above.
The Ultimate Hiker’s Gear Guide: Tools & Techniques to Hit the Trail 
i like it
As always, Andrew, your experience and insight are illuminating.
Go easy on the recommendations for a full-fat diet, though. You are entirely correct that fat is packed with calories like no other food. A diet consisting wholly of fat, however, quite apart from being yuck, would be physically damaging for a simple reason; as all students of biochemistry learn in school, “fats burn in the flame of carbohydrates”. Think of the carbs as the firelighter that’re always needed
A diet with an excess fat/carbohydrate balance will (a) have you wake up with real bad breath – that’s from ketosis, which results from fat breakdown in the absence of adequate carbohydrate levels and (b) have your body chew itself up to provide the next best thing to dietary carbohydrate. There are few ways your body can do this and the number one way is probably the last thing you want when you’re on a long trek … it chews up your skeletal muscle to provide the firelighter for burning the fats. ouch.
As aways, a balance is good to have.
Keep trekking
Mat
Great tips! I disagree though about wearing more clothes at night in favor of a lighter bag. The biggest mistake people make is wearing too much at night. You want just one layer, but that has to be a thin, soft and most importantly DRY layer! I keep a set of thin merino wool long underwear, a wool beanie and thin liner gloves, along with extra dry socks in a waterproof bag with my sleeping bag. Nothing wet goes in the sleeping bag – that includes body, exhaled breaths, sweaty clothes. My cold weather routine before bed: I first change into my long underwear bottoms, then massage feet for a couple of minutes with a tiny bit of shea butter – that warms them up and stimulates circulation then they go into the sleeping bag and the warm air inside the bag insulates them. I.e. no socks, letting my feet breathe. Then I take off all upper layers and change into the dry wool top. Any wet clothes go between sleeping bad and ground sheet to dry out during the night without the moisture getting inside the sleeping bag. Outer layer can be added on top of the sleeping bag for reinforcement. Now I am tucked into a sleeping bag in a thin layer of “pajamas” and the heat from my body with the air inside the sleeping bag insulates for a very warm and comfortable night. Keeping head covered is important, and optionally gloves for exposed hands bc I sleep on my side.
I believe that your argument that wearing just a single thin layer at night is warmer than wearing multiple layers is flawed. Quite simply, more insulation is warmer than less insulation.
Suppose we assign insulation scores to the pieces of a sleep system:
* Base layers = 1
* Insulated layers = 3
* Sleeping bag or quilt = 6
In my system, 1 + 3 + 6 = 10
In your system, 1 + 6 = 7. So my system is warmer by 3 points.
The only consideration in wearing multiple layers to bed is that your sleeping bag or quilt must be wide enough for you and your insulation. If it’s too narrow, it’ll be restricting and it’ll squish your insulating layers, thus preventing the layers from providing their maximum insulation.
It is the air around your body that forms the insulation, not the clothing. Multiple layers of clothing serves many purposes while active: the base layer to transport moisture away from the skin, a wind- and waterproof shell layer to prevent heat loss and a reinforcement layer to provide extra protection as needed when activity levels change relative to the weather conditions. But during sleep you are not moving and therefor you need only a light perspiration-wicking layer and a (very) thick reinforcement layer (sleeping bag). In between is a nice warm insulating layer of air. Not only do you stay warmer but you sleep more comfortably than in you are wearing lots of layers. I just returned from a four-day trip 200 km north of the arctic circle where I slept in one layer of Aclima light wool top and long leggins and a very thick wonderful sleeping bag with a comfort level of -30. I was totally comfortable – and I am very averse to cold! By the way: same principle as in reindeer hide. Each hair is like a hollow straw, making reindeer one of the best insulating materials. It is the air, not the fur itself. that keeps the reindeer warm.
It’s not simply “air around your body” that keeps you warm. It’s air that’s been trapped by insulation. More insulation traps more air, and when you are surrounded by more insulation (be it in the form of base layers, insulating layers, or a sleeping bag) you will be warmer. Your system — and your argument behind it — contradicts itself.
I don’t see any contradictions but be that as it may. I don’t want to argue about arguments or contradictions. If my advice doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. Maybe it will make sense to one of your readers, or not. I’m happy to discuss it or answer questions – or to just let it drop. I agree with you that it is air that is trapped by insulation. The insulation is the sleeping bag and the pad between you and the ground. The air inside that “trap” is what needs to be heated up by your body – so your sleeping bag mustn’t be too big or you can’t heat it up. If it is too small (made smaller by wearing even one layer of clothes) then you get cold. The air must be dry (so no breathing into your sleeping bag and no introducing wet clothes. If you want to dry out your clothes from the day, then put them under your sleeping bag and not inside it!) The one layer is actually only for comfort. It is best is to wear nothing at all, from a warmth perspective. I usually wear no socks to let my feet breath, but like to wear a top for comfort. Head a must to keep body heat in and hands optional – for me. I have frozen night after night in all kinds of weather until I learned to take OFF all those layers and wear less in the sleeping bag instead of more. I can only encourage you to try it in practice. The key of course is having a sleeping bag that is up to the job.
You might enjoy this video that explains and expands on this. The man is Johan Skullman and the one who taught me so I can vouch for the effectiveness of his advice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb7j15DaurA&feature=g-user-u
I just watched this video. I’m NOT sold on this theory, at all. Why would you think that removing a wonderfully warm puffy jacket would be warmer than keeping it on? His concern is compressing the insulation in his sleeping bag, which is valid since compressed insulation is less warm than uncompressed insulation. However, if he just used a wider sleeping bag or a standard quilt (which has a variable girth), he could wear his puffy jacket and avoid compressing his sleeping bag.
Well, it works. That’s all I can say.
Actually, I can add that main reasons not to wear the warm parka to bed are that a) it is more effective to be used to apply topical reinforcement as shown in the video and b) for most people it is more comfortable to sleep in fewer clothes and c) most importantly, wearing a coat is likely to make you sweat which causes heat loss. There are those five properties of heat loss to consider (conductive, convection, respiration, perspiration and radiation) and messing up any one of them will get you in trouble, at least in the extreme conditions I have been in. I suppose in more moderate circumstances, when you sleep in a hammock where there is always some degree of convection, wearing a lot of clothes may be your only option. But lying on the ground, even on a thin foam pad directly on ice with a good bag is enough to protect from convection. You don’t want a bigger bag to fit a parka you don’t need. You simply allow your body to radiate the heat to warm up the air and you get the best night’s sleep of your life, even in minus 30 degree temperatures. But don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself sometime. All the best.
Great tips! I would only suggest that you should entirely remove the last part of number 6: “only carry enough water to reach your next water source”…..
To be blunt, that is terrible advice. If there is 1 thing you should always have extra of, it’s water. Shit happens on the trail, people get stuck, and dehydration will kill you faster than just about anything else. You can go for quite a long time without food or shelter if you have decent gear, but water? Dead in days or less.
So many people get stuck in the thought process of “I have to shave absolutely every last ounce” these days or does that hearing someone as well respected as you saying to minimize the amount of water might encourage people to skimp where they really shouldn’t.
just my 2 cents. great site, and I will be ordering a set of your sierra high route maps soon
Dave – I think your opinion is misguided here. You are really pointing out the need for Tip #8, which should go without saying: “Be smart out there!” This tip would include such things as:
If you follow this bit of advice, you probably will never be in a situation where you need “extra” water. It’s worked out pretty well for me, and for others too.
I have made a similar judgement about other “essential” items like a map, compass, fire starter, light, knife, whistle, or water purification — I left them behind because based on my past experience I was confident that I would not absolutely need them. Each person must be responsible for themselves, and they must understand the risks of their actions. I’m not in a place to say what’s best for each reader of this blog — I can only offer suggestions about what may work for them, based on what has worked for me.