I weighed my pack today fully loaded minus food

and I was a little disappointed. It came out to 16 lbs. Right now my base weight is 8 lbs ( tent, pad, pack, sleeping bag). Fully loaded I mean thermal underwear, cook set, water purifier, first aid kit, etc. My cook set which is a jetboil zip and an added Optimus Terra HE cooking pot so I can actually cook. I was expecting my pack weight to be around 12 lbs. So now with food for a 3 day trip I am going to be looking at around 20lbs which really bums me out. Just curious what other UL backpackers Fully loaded 3 packs weigh so I can get an idea of what i need to work on

Fully loaded, mine weighs about 20 pounds for a 3-day summer weekend, and about 22 for colder weather (down jacket, sleeping bag instead of quilt, long johns, etc.)

I've got to ask - why a Jetboil and a separate pot? I know, so you can do real cooking - but I'm wondering why the Jetboil? It seems like you could just carry the Terra pot and a 3-ounce canister stove, and save a pound - I'm thinking that you can do anything in the Terra pot that you can do with a Jetboil.

I'm not trying to say, "You're doing it wrong" - there is no true right or wrong - and if you do need both pots, by all means take them; we all have different food preferences, and therefore need different cooking gear. (Mine runs toward the barbarian: boil up some water, dump it in the food packet, wait 10 minutes, and eat. So, the half-pound kitchen I carry - .8L titanium mug/pot and canister stove - works for me. It may not work for others.)

Also, we all spend our weight differently - my kitchen is half a pound, versus yours at a pound and a half (?); my pack (an Atmost 50AG) weighs 4 pounds, but I'm guessing yours is more like two or three?

I don't think that 20 pounds for three days is too bad, myself. (I remember being criticized as "crazy-light" back in the 90's when I carried a 28 pound pack while others carried 40 - everyone was sure I was going to die out there because I didn't have enough stuff.) In the groups I help lead, most folks carry 25-30 pounds on a 3-day trip, so you're definitely on the light end of the spectrum.

Yeh, the stove thing is a little over kill. Was just going to use the jetboil pot for coffee. I have this press pot thingy but I am going to ditch the jet boil and just do instant coffee. Everything I have is light except my kitchen. I need to work on that

This trip is Mid Oct in southern Utah. Night time temps will be around 30

My pack is 3lbs

Take a look at the 27 lb., 7 day pack list on the home page of this site. When I started trying to cut weight 11 years ago, I originally used this list as a model. I recommend it to you! There are also a couple of gear lists in phat's "sticky" post in the Beginners section.

I have cut my weight further since. I bought a $$$ expensive 16 oz. cuben fiber tent, which I frankly don't recommend (it's a nice tent but too much $$ per ounce saved), saved more ounces here and there by getting lighter items as my stuff needed replacement, eliminated redundant or unused items (that can be a biggie!), and dropped my base weight to 12 lbs. That means I can go out for 9-10 days with 23-24 lbs. including food and a liter of water. Unfortunately, I can't carry that much any more, but I can still go out for several days with well under 20 lbs. (OK, part of the secret is that I can get by on a pound of food a day, because my appetite doesn't kick in until the time I get home and no longer need the extra food.)

Also on the home page, you'll find other articles with ideas on saving weight. Most are good, although I don't recommend cutting labels out of clothing (you'll want the laundry instructions, and, when I did it, all the labels together did not weigh the 0.1 oz. minimum weight on my scale). I also don't recommend cutting off the toothbrush handle; restorative dentistry is too expensive to cut corners on dental hygiene!

If you want to work up and post a gear list, we'll be happy to critique it for you!

A lot of the cold weather clothing is a little on the budget side. army surplus polypro insulated underwear. I ditched the jetboil and just ordered a pocket rocket stove so that should be minus 1 lb in my pack