Quick ways to reduce backpack weight

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Quick ways to reduce backpack weight

Moving fast and light along the spectacular ridge line of the GR20 in Corsica. A minimal pack (and good pre-trip training) enabled Alison and I to do a 16 day trip in under 8 days. Pictured – the award winning Hyperlite Mountain Gear 2400 Southwest Pack

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Quick ways to reduce backpack weight. A few may surprise you…

  1. Look at The Big Three: Backpack, Tent/shelter, and Sleep System (sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and ground cloth). You stand to lose a bunch of weight from these: as much as 10 to 12 pounds.
    1. Take a Backpack that weighs less than two pounds. See our: Best Backpacks for Backpacking and Hiking
    2. Take a Tent that weighs less than two pounds. See our: Best Backpacking Tents | Lightweight & Ultralight
    3. Take a Sleeping bag that that weighs less than 1.5 pounds. See our: Buyers Guide to Lightweight Backpacking Quilts & Sleeping Bags
    4. Look at our 9 Pound Full Comfort Lightweight Backpacking Gear List for more ideas for gear to save weight.
      Nine pounds of backpacking gear is all a hiker needs to be safe and warm. Or simply put, this list has better backpacking gear. For over a decade it’s been tested, refined, and updated to reflect only the best and most current backpacking gear now available in 2019. So, if you want to reduce pack weight without reducing comfort, look no further! The hiking gear in this guide is suitable for all 3-season conditions on trips around the world, from Alaska, to Patagonia, to Utah.
  2. Look on The Backpacking Food Page to save a ton of weight at zero cost
  3. Get a weather report (the NOAA hourly weather graph is among the most informative and accurate)—then pack for those conditions! Since 90% of backpackers take 90% their trips for 3 days or or less, this weather report should be quite accurate for the short time you are out. This will let you pack a tent, clothing, and sleeping bag appropriate for actual conditions. It will also deter you from taking inappropriate, “what-if-the-worst-happens!” gear, e.g. 6 pound tent, and a +10F sleeping bag for a balmy weather trip on the Appalachian Trail.
  4. Don’t take extra clothing. e.g. don’t take any more clothing than you can wear at one time.
  5. Take less: Be disciplined and leave a few items at home that you haven’t used in the last three trips. Put stuff like sunscreen and trail soap in smaller containers.
  6. Extra Credit: Browse The Gear Lists Page for other ideas and examples to save weight. This will give you a good examples of what type of gear is available and what is a reasonable weight for that type of gear, e.g. around 6-8 ounces for a rain jacket, or around 1.0 ounce for a pocket knife. Think hard if your gear is 2 to 3x heavier than the examples on these lists.
  7. Read my The Best Hydration — Drink When Thirsty. Use a Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter to drink at the source (lake, stream, etc.). Then only carry a sensible amount to get to your next known water source. I.e. it makes no sense to carry 3 liters of water, almost 7 pounds, when your next water source is only two hours away.
  8. Remember to have fun! That will at least, lighten your spirit and mood.

How Do I Start?

  • Ground yourself in reality: Get all your stuff together and weigh it. If you’re like most conventional hikers, your equipment will weigh around 30 pounds, possibly higher.
  • Get individual weights for your heavier items like tents and backpacks. For stuff in the range of a few pounds or less you’ll want to buy an inexpensive digital scale that weighs up to 10 pounds.
  • See what you can leave at home. Anything you don’t bring is free weight reduction. Think hard about this one. Do you really need it?
  • Put together a spreadsheet (or at least a list) with all your equipment weights. This is an indispensable analysis tool.
  • Try to figure out where you’ll get the most “bang for the buck.” e.g. figure out how much a new item costs and divide that by the amount of weight it will save you over your old equipment. Target the items that give you the most weight loss for the fewest dollars.
  • Buy on Sale: Don’t try to purchase all your new equipment right away. Many items regularly go on sale or are closed out. Watch carefully over the course of a year and you could save 30 to 70 percent on your equipment.
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Backpacking Food List – Simple and Nutritious for 7 days

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NEW June 2016 – Meal Recipes are Posted. See Nutritious Backpacking Meal Recipes here

This list is packed with nutritious backpacking food for a “week long” trip of 7 days

  • 6 nights of dinners and breakfasts
  • 7 days of lunches and daytime snacks

That is you don’t eat breakfast on the day your go in. And you don’t eat dinner on the day you come out. This is equivalent to around 6.6 full days hiking. I’ve organized the food so that it should be easy to scale to more or fewer hiking days.

Note: any entry with a blank in “qty” means the food item is an alternative that may be a) added and/or b) substituted for another item on the list. For example if you are veggie, you could substitute one of the soy jerkies (Primal & Stonewall) the meat jerky. And to easily add vegetables to my homemade dinners I use freeze dried vegetables from Just Tomatoes. I like the “Hot Just Veggies.”

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A Simple and Nutritious Backpacking Food List for 7 days

Breakfasts (6 mornings) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Familia Breakfast (with Bob’s Red Mill Muesli) 2 5.5 11.0 125 see Recipe Page
Grape Nuts/Kashi Seven Nuggets (my recipe) 2 5.0 10.0 124 see Recipe Page
Oatmeal Breakfast (my recipe) 2 5.4 10.8 115 see Recipe Page
Coffee, Starbuck’s VIA ($0.72/cup @Amazon) 6 0.1 0.8 4g pkt  = 130-140 mg caffeine
Coffee for gold filter brewing 25g per 12 fl-oz 0.9  alternative to instant coffee, less $
Tea – bag or loose leaf (4-6g per 12 fl-oz) 0.1 if using bags, sealed packets are best
Lunches (7 days) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Dense whole grain bread (lunch serving) 3 2.0 6.0 80
Almond Butter (2 oz serv) 3 2.0 6.0 155 pers fave – eat w bread/crackers
Tuna in olive oil 2.6 oz pkt (2.9 oz incl packet) 2.9 65 eat w bread, oil adds cal’s & healthy fat
Crackers, Dr Kracker (lunch serving) 2 1.5 3.0 125 Awesome, high calorie & indestructible
Cheese (lunch serving) 2 2.5 5.0 115 eat with crackers
TJ’s whole wheat tortillas 2 2.0 4.0 80
Dry salami (without nitrates) 2 2.5 5.0 105 eat with tortillas
Mustard packets n/a to eat with cheese or salami
Bison Jerkey (3.5 oz bag) 3.5 60  online, or TJs and Whole Foods
Turkey Jerky 4.0 90  online, or TJs and Whole Foods
Primal Strips Meatless Vegan Jerkey (teriyaki) 1.0 100 vegan protein option – up to 11g prot.
Stonewall’s Jerquee (soy based) 1.5 110 veggie protein option – up to 14g prot.
Dinners (6 nights) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Black Beans & Rice w Cheese & Corn Chips (yum!) 2 5.5 11.0 115 see Recipe Page
Chili Mac Dinner 2 5.5 11.0 120 see Recipe Page
Curry Cous Cous Dinner 2 6.0 12.0 135 see Recipe Page
Desserts (6 nights) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Snickers Bar or MilkyWay Midnight 2 2.1 4.2 135 daytime snack or dessert
Chocolate (dark) 4 2.0 8.0 153 great when eaten with dried fruit
Cocoa Nibs 1.0 150 tasty when added to dark chocolate
Snakwell Cookie Packet 2 1.7 3.4 123 great with hot chocolate
Hot Chocolate (make your own with Nido) 2 2.2 4.4 130 see Dessert recipe Page
Snack Bars (for ~7 days) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Kind Bars 4 1.4 5.6 150
Lara Bar 1.8 130
Pro Bar Meal Bar 2 3.0 6.0 125 healthy, easy to eat
ProBar’s Base Protein Bars 2 2.5 4.9 114 adds 20g of soy protein
Cliff Builder’s Protein Bar 2 2.5 4.9 115 adds 20g of soy protein
Snacks (for ~7 days) qty oz tot c/oz Comments
Gorp (50% walnuts, 50% dried fruit – raisins?) 7 2.0 14.0 150  usually mix my own
Honey sesame sticks 7 1.8 12.6 150  online or at Whole Foods
Candied nuts (TJs has a ton of varieties) 3 1.5 4.5 150
Almonds, raw 4 2.0 8.0 165
Walnuts, raw 185
Dried mango un-sweetened/sulfered 3 2.0 6.0 90 also great dessert with dark chocolate!
Apricots (dried, un-sweetened, un-sulfered) 4 1.5 6.0 87 also great dessert with dark chocolate!
Papaya (dried, un-sweetened, un-sulfered) 100  at Whole Foods
Raisins, organic (Thompson, TJs) 95
Generic dried fruit 85
Jelly Bellies 93
Tic-Tacs 0 mindless fun to eat on trail
Pringles 150 tasty, high in calories
Totals
Lb of food for trip 11.5
Lb food per day 1.7
Calories/day 3,530
Calories/oz of food 127
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Cooking and Lightweight Backpacking Stoves

[fusion_text]Most ultralight backpackers take stoves. Just small light ones. When I hike with others, I take a stove and do civilized stuff like make coffee & tea and hot dinners. Sometimes, especially when I solo, I go ultra simple with no-cook food.

 

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Backcountry Tea – loose leaf, connoisseur style

Most hikers are used to caffeine in the morning. Interrupting that habit makes for grumpy hikers who are not the best trail company. Caffeine pills help, but do not provide the same emotional (some would say spiritual) comfort of wrapping your hands around a cup of soothingly warm liquid.

Coffee has the disadvantage of oily, hard-to-clean residues in your cup and pot. Ground coffee only keeps fresh for a few days at most (some believe it is only minutes or hours after grinding).

I make tea. Loose leaf teas like Assam, Darjeeling (black tea) or Sencha (green tea) keep for months in the backcountry and are a cinch to clean up after. Here’s a five minute tutorial video about making loose leaf tea in the backcountry (about 19 MB)

Backcountry Tea using the Trail Designs Caldera Cone Stove cooking system

 

 

 

 

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