30 Pound Weight Savings for Lightweight Backpacking
Food and food storage: 6.5 lbs (5.2 lbs food, 1.3 lbs bear cans)
The biggest weight savings of the trip and nobody went hungry.
Again the greatest weight savings was in food. See below.
Clothing:Â 5.5 pounds
Less clothes, no Polarfleece, no camp shoes, lighter rainwear
Packs: 5.2 pounds
Heavy frame packs vs. ultralight frameless packs
Shelter: 2.4 pounds
Freestanding dome tent and Space Blankets vs. tarps and lightweight ground cloths
Sleeping: 2.2 pounds
Polarguard bags and Thermarests vs. ultralight down bags and foam pads
Stove and Fuel: 1.8 pounds.
MSR stove, full MSR XGK cook set and two bottles of fuel vs. Snowpeak Giga, one titanium pot and one Primus fuel canister.
Misc. Odd and Ends: 2.3 pounds
Including but not limited to: Leaving a 1.9 lb first aid kit & 14 oz of sunscreen, Platypus reservoirs instead of rigid Nalgene bottles, Photon micro lights instead of incandescent headlamps, fewer and lighter maps, etc. (see detailed list)
The Rest of the stuff: ? pounds
Including but not limited to weight reductions in: Additional food carried for other party members, fishing equipment, water treatment, repair kits, straps, soap, bug juice, dental stuff, TP, compasses, emergency Space Blankets, notepaper and pencils, ditty bags, etc., etc.
DETAILS ON FOOD AND FOOD STORAGE
Logistics (saved us one days food and started the trip right)
First we stayed locally the night before the trip. This put us at trailhead early the first day, feeling chipper and raring to go. This and lighter packs allowed us to easily travel in the fist day some difficult cross country that took us two days on the previous trip. We arrived in camp with plenty of time to fish the evening hatch. It saved us a day’s worth of food as well.
Every other trip I’ve taken has started at 4 AM with a long drive to the Sierras, getting a permit and bear cans, frantic packing of the food etc. Tired and cranky we’d be lucky to get to trail head with enough time to stagger down the trail a few miles before dusk. Starting like this puts a trip, quite literally, off on a bad foot. I don’t think I will do it again if I can help it. Nothing like starting fresh and positive with a big lodge breakfast in your belly!
Food per Person
We carried 1.6 lbs/per/day on this trip vs. 2.0+ lbs/per/day of the last trip. By going for one less day (but the same trip with the same number of layover days) we reduced our food even more — 9.6 pounds (7 days – 6 nights) vs. 15 pounds (8 days – 7 nights). We were never hungry and came back with extra food. In the final calculation we ate 1.47 lbs of food per person per day. In addition, we packed denser (calories per cu/in) food that would more easily fit into bear cans. Lots of good high calorie GORP is great for this.
3,100 vs. 3,700 calories per day
We packed food that was higher in calories, 130 cal/oz vs. 110 cal/oz of the previous trip. Even so, we consumed fewer calories per day than on the previous trip. One explanation is that with lighter packs and feeling less stressed you need less food.
Food Storage (Bear Cans saved 1.3 lb/person)
We rented 3 Bearikade Bear Cans from Wild Ideas. We used two Weekender cans and one Expedition for four people and 7 hiking days — a weight savings of 1.3 lb/person. But renting bear cans ahead of time did more than reduce weight. We were able to pack our bear cans at home before the trip. We could be sure that our food would fit and that we could start hiking as soon as we hit trail head. (Last trip we had a rude shock at trail head when all our food didn’t fit into the 3 Garcia Bear Cans. This was partially a problem of too much food and partially a problem of choosing bulky food that did not pack well into a bear can. We had to hang our freeze dried dinners for the first few days, figuring that they had no scent, had the highest volume and fewest calories, and that we could continue the trip if we lost them. There is also the question of backcountry regulations… Fortunately we were off trail in areas not frequented by bears on those first nights. I wasn’t happy about this and went to some effort not to repeat it on the this trip.)
Fish for Appetizer
Finally we did eat a fish twice during the trip. We didn’t eat all that much fish. It probably only qualified as an appetizer and didn’t add more than a few hundred calories per person for the trip. But it was delicious!
