Thanks Bluefish and Blazacomm for the comments very helpful.

I agree, some of my questions are based on comfort but I also was hoping to hear from someone who hiked the TMB if they needed a cookset, puffy coat, or if there were frequent enough refuges to eat at for meals (even if you didn't stay there for the night).

I'm shocked that my bag has ballooned to 18lbs base weight! (I forgot to include my backpack weight and a few other things before).

Any other thoughts on how I could reduce weight; is there an item(s) on here that are much higher than the industry standard or other ways I could cut down weight? There's a few comfort items i'm considering taking off including the speaker and cord (about 11oz) and the camp shoes (12 oz because i have trail runners), and maybe the long sleeve camping shirt (7.8oz), and the inflatable light (3 oz) to get down to about 16lbs. Any other thoughts?