new low base weight

i really got into backpacking last summer and light weight backpacking wasnt something i thought about. i was just trying to buy all the gear i would need at an affordable price. when i went on my first trip last summer with my own gear, my pack weighed almost 50lbs even tho my girlfriend carried a portion of the "community gear".

i am now preparing for my first solo trip, which is may 14th. i packed my pack a few minutes ago with my base gear (no food included, but fuel is) and my pack is only at 20lbs!

i know to many of you 20lbs is probably extremely high, but compared to my 50lb pack (with help from the gf), this is really exciting for me.

even with the added food and water, im gonna be flying down the trails.
thanks everyone

Nice, getting rid of 30lbs is huge. Have fun on the trails.

That's what I call progress!!!!!!

Good job!

Enjoy the change and have a great time!

Jake
what is the actual difference? How much more weight is your girl friend taking this year than when you carried the 50 pound pack? Are you comparing apples to apples? Lets assume that what you said is what you meant. A 60% drop in weight implies that you are carrying fewer things, and you are carrying some
lighter things. How much of the drop is from replacing heavier items with lighter items, and which is from leaving out stuff like 2 bottles of wine, or replacing the canvas tent with a tarp? Does 20 pounds include food? Not if that's your base weight. Did 50 pounds include food, or was that your base weight?
Anyway welcome to the group, you've had your strokes, now tell us some useful information.
Jim

Take your time to enjoy the scenery and take lots of pictures.

I've found that a lighter pack allows me to do that. With a heavy pack, I'm trudging along just thinking about getting to the next campsite.

Useful information? Oh, heck, Jim. What you gonnna use that information for, anyway?

Congrats! That's a big difference. You're going to love it.

Aimless
I've been pondering the fifty pound pack thing and the 60% weight loss without spending $5,000. It just happened that Jake made such a claim so I was thinking to learn from him what his opinion is about what changed.
I'll start another thread instead.
Jim

His girlfriend isn't taking any weight. He said he's going solo. His point was to show that his pack is now lighter even without someone else to share the load as before.

Jim,
When i first went backpacking i was using some very heavy gear. i have an REI 4 person tent that i took for just my gf and i. it is a tent made for BPing but so its 5-6. ive replaced that with a nemo gogo. i cut the weight of my cookset in half. i cut my first aid kit down a bit, for instance instead of 10-15 bandages im taking around 5 (which still seems high). the main way i cut weight was leaving behind the things i dont need.

my gf is not carrying anything, as i am going on a solo trip. so i was trying to stress that, really my pack has dropped more than that but im not sure how much she was carrying.

this 20 lb weight doesnt include food, but my trip is a two nighter so i doubt ill have more than 5lbs of food.

Good for you! You got out there and started backpacking in spite of the cheap but heavy gear and a bit of over-kill (OK to be safe rather than sorry when you are a newbie). Now you have upgraded and found out what you do not need. I bet in another year you will be 2-3 pounds lighter as you gain experience. As for girlfriend- I am really a bit annoyed about all you old farts on this forum who act like women are not able to carry their share or need extra "comfort" items. There are a lot of tough young gals out there who would kick your behind! Times are changing.

Hi Jake, nice work! Are you happy with that base weight or do you want to try to take it down a few more pounds?

daisy, not sure if you took something i posted in the wrong way or if you are talking to someone else, but i never meant to say my gf couldnt pull her own, she did wondeful.

jason, i do want to lower pack weight as i continue backpacking but i dont really wanna keep buying new gear ever season to keep getting lighter. i also dont want to sacrafice the comfort i have.... i know i could probably have a 10lb pack but id have to take a lot of stuff off my base list. i know a lot of you are comfortable with a next to nothing with you but i like my campsite to feel like home(wait isnt that what im trying to escape from?). maybe someday ill be a minimalist

You are right. You did not indicate anything about your girlfriend not being totally competent. Over time, there have been many comments in all sorts of posts on this forum, that guys imply their girlfriends (or spouses) are fragile and high maintenance. I certainly have seen this myself, say, 30 years ago. Now when I see the younger generations, I see so many more women who are top notch backpackers and climbers.

"I've been pondering the fifty pound pack thing and the 60% weight loss without spending $5,000." JimShaw

LMAO No $%^#@!

Hi David, hope youre having a good time.
Jim

Wandering Daisy. My wife is not able to carry much weight. her knees have been bad since before I met her and occasionally will fail to support her, much less her and a backpack. Therefore I do carry most of the stuff. I'd rather have her be able to go out and enjoy it than to not go out at all. No implications here about women in general, just a specific circumstance.

Heck my wife loves to backpack, as long as she doesn't have to carry a pack. So sometimes I take her and her pack a couple miles in and then hike back for my pack. what a guy huh?

But anyway I've been thinking about the 50 to 20 pounds concept and decided to write about it. So first off, people with a lot of heavy mission hardware, like climbing gear, cameras, food etc, are gonna have heavy packs regardless of their baseweight.

So I'm thinking I've carried a 54 pound pack and I'm wondering what the baseweight was, I'm thinking 24 pounds as this was 32 years ago. We were out for ten days and I think we had 18 pounds of food each. We were in Kings Canyon heading up to Ray lakes making a slow loop. So 36 pounds without food. I wonder if it included water, sure lets say 2 pounds, which is now 30 pounds. I had Kletter boots, an ice axe and crampons and cold weather gear. I'm guessing that theres about 3 plus pounds of ice axe and crampons. I probably had 2 x 24 ounce white gas bottles and a whisperlite and my Warmlight down airmattress, but alas, I've always had about a 3 pound pack. My tents have gone from 8.5 to 3-4 pounds, some lighter.

Anyway I wanted to show how a 50 pound pack can suddenly become 20, don't put any food, fuel, water, crampons, iceaxes or climbing gear in it.

Food, Fuel and water are consumables and not included in a person's baseweight.

FWIW, I could go out with 4/5 days worth of food (1.5lbs of food per day) and 2L of water (4.4Lbs) and with my 9lb baseweight, still come in at around 20lbs and then when I take some "heavy mission" flyfishing hardware, I am still under 25lbs, thus I am failing to see the logic of your post.

If I need an iceaxe or crampons, then obviously I am doing something a little different than general three-season backpacking. So your post is a little confusing to say the least.

Jim,

A 45 pound pack might be lightweight. Going into the Grand Canyon for six nights. Food at 2 pounds per day = 12 pounds. We will not reach a reliable water source until the evening of the second day so 7 quarts of water = 14 pounds. You need a robust pack to carry that weight so 15 pound base weight.

It is possible to sherpa and sometimes carrying a heavy pack is OK.

Chris, what you call general 3 season backpacking and what I call general 3 season backpacking are very different things. It happened that the July trip with an ice axe and crampons was in the high Sierras. Not an unusual trip for a Californinan, and now I live in the snow capped Cascades, or Oregon, further north.

I know what baseweight is. But when people say I went from 50 pounds to 20 pounds, I wonder what they mean. I don't think they meant that their base weight went from 50 to 20 without also saying "I spent a ton of money".