Hey, I all about equal opportunity -

Anyone who wants to carry all my junk around will get dinner cooked for them.

But I'll make sure I have you carry ALL my old school gear and not all the sweet UL gear I carry when it is on my back.

You can also carry in the fresh taters, steak and corn on the cob. And the cast iron skillet to cook it in

Or we can go lightweight, do a lot of miles and still have a great dinner - just very UL.

Oh, I'll admit I make UL hiking gear !*GASP*!

As for Backcountrygear.com....uh, they sell heavy gear as well. Save your arguments for BPL, which IS run by a company that only sells UL gear. Which is a big whoopie-doo in my eyes. Websites don't run themselves by magic. You either sell products (as BPL does) or you have advertising. Heck, my business website has ads on it and I sell products as well. It doesn't mean I am biased either. But neither do I have magical elves that pay for my server fees!! And at the end of the day, I'd like a house over my head and dinner in front of me. So I run ads - it allows everyone to use my website for free on their end. I am grateful that The light Backpacker is free for me to come use! I can ignore ads. Big deal.

Forums run by companies (BPL and Backpacker.com) are there to as a way for customers to return over and over. It builds "community". Again, no big deal.