Cut Weight and Feel Great

Every backpacker knows a lighter pack equals more enjoyment. However, cutting weight can often mean cutting comfort. Thru-hiking more than 4,800 miles has given me time to experiment with gear and benefit from hauling around less weight. The easiest way I found to cut weight is to hike with a partner and invest in the “big three”.

My first backpacking adventure was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I know what you’re thinking: “way to start small.” I spent one or two nights backpacking prior to hiking the AT, but mostly with borrowed gear. The AT was my first time heading out with a kit I had put together myself. I was just out of college and didn’t have the money to invest in the best and lightest backpacking gear. After piecing together various items from REI garage sales and other discount retailers, I was ready.

I remember hiking through the Georgia mountains with an enormous pack and thinking, “I’m going to die” with every step. The weight of my backpack felt like it was crushing me. I was determined not to quit and go home, so that left me with only one option: drop pack weight. It became my mission to purge items from my pack I no longer deemed necessary at every town stop. As I hiked, I daydreamed of things to get rid of. In one town I bought a properly fitting pack and I got my gear down to something I could manage. It wasn’t perfect, but I was able to finish my hike.

Time to upgrade

When my husband and I decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail for our honeymoon, I resolved to make major gear changes for the adventure. This time I had a better idea of what kind of gear worked for me and we decided to invest in some key pieces together. We started with the “big three”. These are the three items you carry backpacking that are the heaviest (other than food and water) and therefore the easiest place to cut weight: tent, sleeping bag, and backpack. There are so many options to choose from and they all have pros and cons. The trick was to figure out what we needed from each item and what bells and whistles we could live without.

Tent

First, the tent. We determined that the most important features for us were to each have access to our own door and for it to be fully enclosed to keep bugs and critters out. With those two stipulations, we found the perfect tent for us. It was a non-freestanding tent made of a lightweight fabric called Dyneema Composite Fiber that assembles with trekking poles. By using our trekking poles instead of tent poles we were able to cut significant weight from our packs and use a piece of gear we were already carrying for a dual purpose.

Sleeping Bag

Next, we saved major weight with our sleeping bag choice. We decided to go with a two-person sleeping quilt. This is not for everyone and requires a willingness to snuggle up to your stinky hiking partner. The quilt we found is made for two people but weighed the same as my husband’s 20-degree solo sleeping bag. Collectively we lost the weight of an entire sleeping bag. This was huge!

Backpack

The last big thing we invested in was a new backpack for each of us. This swap saved us a lot of weight but it comes with a caveat. You need to make sure you have trimmed enough weight in your overall kit before switching to a lightweight backpack. Lightweight backpacks are not designed to carry over a certain amount of weight. They do not provide the cushion or weight distribution that some heavier packs do. So if your overall pack weight (food and water included) isn’t under the recommended limit, the weight savings from the pack will be negated by an uncomfortable pack.  

Share, Share, Share!

Along with sharing a tent and sleep system, we looked at the remainder of our gear and considered how we could trim weight by sharing additional items. If there was an item, no matter how small, and we could get away with only one, we shared it. The important thing to realize when sharing gear is that your personal risk can go up if you get separated. Since your kit will not have everything you need to be self-sustaining, you will need to take extra precautions to make sure you either don’t get separated or that you divide your gear in a way so you can both make do with the things you each have.

The cook system we chose isn’t the lightest weight option out there. We used a small canister stove with a large pot big enough to cook a meal for us both. A lighter weight option we could have chosen is an alcohol stove. Alcohol stoves, however, are not ideal in the West. The lightweight or homemade versions of these stoves don’t have an on/off switch which creates a higher risk of starting a fire, because of this many forests don’t allow them. The big thing we learned about sharing our cooking system was to bring a separate bowl to eat from. Eating out of the pot is a great dual purpose for one person, but the second person needs their own bowl. If your hiking partner is anything like mine, when you both try to eat out of the pot at the same time, you might not get any food!

The rest of the gear we shared included little things: water treatment, trowel/poop kit, first aid kit, navigation, and camera. These things add up quickly! The key is to think about every item that you each carry and think “will they need to use this at the same time I’m using it?” If the answer is no, then you only need to carry one.

Hike your own hike

There are a lot of specialized brands and lightweight options available, but there isn’t the one perfect item for everyone. At the end of both of my thru-hikes, I could sit down with 20 different hikers, each carrying the perfect gear for them and not one person’s kit would be the same. If you find narrowing down the choices overwhelming, check out the website of one of our amazing Business Members, OutdoorGearLab.com, for side-by-side gear reviews before your next trip.