The whole idea of getting out & backpacking to me was something awesome. I bought alot of gear, alot of things I thought I needed, & just last summer took my first backpacking trip. It could have been much better if my bag wasnt so heavy, but it hasnt strayed me.

I'm looking at all these people talking about how their bag is 20-ish pounds and I would LOVE my bag to be 20 pounds!!! I decided after the first trip I wanted to try to cut it down to 35 pounds...but that sounds like heavy talk here?

So I have to ask, what is it your packing? How are you saving all that weight? With a tent, sleeping bag, pad, water, food, spare clothing, mess kit.... How can you possibly have a bag thats anywhere near 20-30#? & theres many of you considering that heavy :s

help out a newbie here lol... I'd love to go on more trips & hope to enjoy them more than the first. I'm certain that the first wouldve been more enjoyable if I wasnt carrying such a heavy load. Its kind of depressing I wasted so much money on the things I bought...& I'm beginning to find out that I'm going to have to buy alot of new things because I was buying out of inexperience

Well, I took all my gears and put them on a diet.

In all seriousness, you should start making a list of things you carried on first trip and make note whether you used it or not. Sometimes people carry things that aren't needed. Then you take your needed gears such as tent, sleeping bag, pad, clothes, stove, etc., then start comparing them to other products whose weights are less than what you have. There are tents out there that weights under 2 pounds and you can sleep in it comfortably while staying protected from the element. You can get 15 degrees sleeping bag for 1-2 pounds and sleep pads that under a pound! You may have to spend more money than the original gears you bought, but a lot of these mid to high end gears, price wise, are well worth it and will last if properly taking care of.

I usually carry about 28 pounds for 3 days depending on what food, clothes, and shelter I take. I can go lighter if I had some currency. I have both a hammock shelter and a tent. My tent weights about 2.15 pounds my hammock is at 2.8 pounds. I can ditch the tent body and use my tent rainfly with ground cloth and I'm looking at an entire pound being saved. I can get a lighter hammock by making my own and have the entire hammock weighting roughly 12oz base on calculation. I just haven't acquire the currency to do so. eBay and geartrade.com have some used gears that would be cheaper than purchasing retail. Also, combing this forum and other outdoors' forum, attending gear swap meet, etc., all have lightweight and quality gears being sold cheaper than retail.

That's really the best place to start. Before I found this group I used to carry what felt like a ton of stuff I really didn't need, and very seldom or never used.

For me, I realized pretty fast was carrying way too much food, and way too many clothes. So, I started carrying more freeze dried or dehydrated food, and gave up bringing steaks and potatoes. As for clothes, I quit bringing a wardrobe full of stuff and just let what I'm wearing get dirty, and I started wearing lighter clothes, like nylon pants and jackets, wool sweaters, and fleece pants for layering clothes.

I gave up my fuel canister stove and made a "SuperCat" stove.

I switched from using heavy water containers, like Nalgene bottles or Aluminum/Stainless bottles, to disposable plastic water bottles.

I quit carrying my big knife, which I didn't need or use, and I left the multi-tool at home too.

I stopped bringing my binoculars, which I didn't need or use very often, and started using the camera in my phone instead of the bigger, better camera I have.

I had a habit of carrying a lot of extra stuff that I only brought because I was worried those with me might need it. Stuff like extra clothes, first-aid items, food, etc. Now, if I'm worried about that, I offer to let them carry it, and if they refuse, well then they might get a little cold, hungry, thirsty and sore, and hopefully they will learn a lesson from that. I won't let them die out there, but I'm not going to suffer under the weight of gear and supplies they refused to carry even though I knew they needed it and told them so.

To be honest, it took me several years to wean myself off bringing all that and a lot of other stuff. For me, it was way too easy to toss a couple extra pounds of little "Just in Case" items, like an extra knife, extra rope, clothes, food, snacks, etc, just before I headed out the door. I've learned to resist that a lot better since hanging out around here.

I also quit believing that a longer trip was a better trip. It's pretty easy to carry 35-40lbs three miles. Not so easy to carry it twelve or fifteen.

We all bring our little "Luxuries", stuff we really don't need, but really like to have. You have to figure out what yours are, and are not.

You'll get there. I'll recommend you take a few short trips with less gear to find your comfort level, then figure out the distances you can do, and what you want to do, because they are probably not the same distance. Backpacking does not have to be about more miles, it's perfectly fine for it to be all about enjoying yourself.

Being able to taylor your load to your trip takes experience. So...its lucky you came to this site, cause there's loads of that (experience that is) here. This page is related to this forum (or vise versa...I don't really know )

Backcountry Index page

Now the amount of info available is overwhelming so I suggest you check out the left hand side to the 18lb 3-day, and the 27lb 7-day backpacking lists. This is an excellent place to start learning how to pack. As you gain experience, you WILL put your own twist on these lists.

Chris

Start by looking this over http://www.backpacking.net/18-pound.html This describes what is in an 18 pound, 3-day pack for use in rainy Washington. Then look here http://www.backpacking.net/27-pound.html Next, have an honest conversation with yourself about what you really need to carry and then compare that with what you may want to carry. In my experience, beginning backpackers tend to carry too much in the way of cooking stuff, extra clothing, way too much knife and other pioneering tools and, often, too much firepower.

You should be able to easily, and fairly cheaply, get your pack base-weight below 15 pounds. To do this you need to be able to eliminate unneeded gear ruthlessly and to search used gear listings faithfully. But before you can eliminate and search, you need to know what you need. Your pack purchase (or sewing job) should follow your decisions of what other gear you will carry and this follows on the heels of a lot of research and thought. Moreover, use of light weight gear takes a certain amount of learning to use correctly and safely.

Finally, remember that the reason for the gear is to get you out there. Your goal is not the gear, the gear is the means to an end. If what you have now is heavy, go ahead and use it until you can find and afford lighter stuff. If my experience is any guide, you will, over time, get together a light weight kit and will then add a few items back in for comfort and convenience. At one time, I would head into the Sierra with a 9.5 pound base weight, 3-season pack; now I carry a bit over 12 pounds. But, I can still be out for a week or more with a pack that weighs less than 30 pounds the first day. You will too but you need to work at it.

You are not alone! Many folks go to an outdoor store and, at the advice of the salesperson, max out their credit cards on a bunch of heavy "bomber" gear, much of which they don't need and based on "standards" of 30 years ago which often ignore the excellent gear developed since then.

This attitude, in addition to furthering the career of the salesperson, also promotes the very dangerous idea that gear items (especially heavy ones) can substitute for the critically important skills that all backpackers need to acquire. Those skills include such things as coping with inclement weather, keeping critical gear dry, thermoregulation (regulating your body temperature during various levels of activity so you neither get too hot nor too cold), navigation skills (not just map and compass skills but developing a "feel" for the terrain and landmarks) and learning how to prevent emergencies. Most of those depend on the "gear" between your ears!

In the 1980's, with my children grown, I did a lot of backpacking, staggering through Washington's North Cascades under a 50-pound pack. That pack included gear items which were too heavy (5 pound pack, 5 pound tent, 4 1/2 pound sleeping bag), and a lot of redundant items which were unnecessary, some of which I never used during half a dozen longish trips. Some parts of those trips were downright scary because the heavy pack kept pulling me off balance. I had a number of falls, very luckily none involving injuries to anything but my dignity. After I nearly ripped apart a knee (x-c skiing, not backpacking), requiring extensive reconstructive surgery, I couldn't carry that sort of weight any more. My backpacks were limited to short overnighters (only a mile or two from the trailhead) until I found this site almost 8 years ago.

Read through the articles on the home page of this site, left-hand column. They will give you lots of ideas on the "how."

I "lightened up" with my model the "27-pound, 7-day gear list" on the home page. My total pack weight for a week is now a bit less, but the weights in the list are an excellent goal to aim for. I take everything I need for my comfort (I'm an old lady with arthritic joints who gets cold easily, so I need more comfort than some) and safety. I have a fully enclosed tent (1 3/4 lbs.), supportive pack (a few ounces under 2 lbs.), warm 20*F sleeping bag (1 1/2 lbs.) and a nice thick cushy insulated air pad (3/4 lb.). Some of the gear items on the list in that article are not currently available, but look at the weights of the individual items rather than the brands--that will give you something to aim for. To start, concentrate on your "base weight"--the fixed weight of stuff you take on every trip--rather than full pack weight which includes the consumables (which vary by length of trip or the environment) of food, fuel, water.

Those home page articles will tell you a lot about how to lighten up, some of which won't even require new gear. IMHO, go easy on things like cutting off labels (a lot of work for something that doesn't register even 0.01 oz. on the scale, loses important information like laundry instructions and lowers the value if you decide to sell it) and shortening the toothbrush (restorative dentistry costs thousands of dollars that could be more profitably spent elsewhere--apologies to any dentists reading this!). Eliminating redundant and unused items, assessing the weight of each item and using multipurpose gear lead to more significant weight savings. So will thinking of your gear in terms of systems (shelter, sleeping, cooking, etc.) instead of as individual items. Don't consider replacing anything until you've thoroughly evaluated your current gear and looked at many possibilities. Otherwise you may make the same expensive mistakes all over again, possibly in the other direction. I'm sure that quite a bit of your current gear (with perhaps some modifications, such as leaving home the tent footprint and using lighter stakes, or trimming some unneeded gewgaws off your backpack) will work just fine as part of a lighter style. Unfortunately, there is really no way to avoid the chore of making a list of your gear that includes the weight of each item. (The first additional item you should buy is an accurate scale that weighs to the nearest 0.1 ounce.) However, such a list is multipurpose, because it acts as a check list for each future trip.

Once you've gone through that process, here are some other excellent information sources:

Mark Verber's encyclopedic website I don't necessarily agree with his recommendations, but you'll learn a lot about various gear items and how they perform. You'll also learn about a bunch of "cottage" manufacturers which is where much of the true innovative gear is found. At the end of each section, you'll find inexpensive options for each category.

Trail Cooking Using the "freezer bag cooking" method described here will save you weight in cooking gear (you only boil water, so you need only 1 pot and no cups or bowls) and fuel, and you won't have to wash any dishes except your spoon. "Sarbar," the owner and a contributor to this site, is my heroine! (Can you tell that I hate washing dishes?) Her site will also save you money as it uses a lot of ingredients that can be bought at your local grocery stores instead of from Mountain House.

Lightweight Backpacking 101 This book-length article is one of the few on that site that doesn't require paying for a subscription. Some of it goes beyond my personal comfort level, but it will give you a lot of ideas. It's another "oldie" in which the gear models mentioned may be outdated or discontinued, but it will give you lots of general ideas. The last chapter describes how you can lighten up on a low budget.

Backpackgeartest.org An excellent, objective source for thorough gear reviews.

Do note one thing--what works for one person may not work for another. We're all individuals with different comfort levels. You'll have to figure out yours through trial and error, which is why I suggest going slowly in the lightening process. It's also important from a safety standpoint to try out any new gear and to practice the skills mentioned in the first paragraph in the backyard (yours or a friend's) or while car camping (check out nearby state parks). That way, if things go wrong (and they probably will!), you can easily bail out to your warm house or car.

Individual differences are especially critical with packs and footwear. For those two, the most important things are fit, fit and fit, so the "best" item will be different for each one of us. That's why two favorite acronyms in the lightweight backpacking world are HYOH (Hike Your Own Hike) and YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Feel free to come back with questions after you've digested this material!

All good suggestions here. We've got a packing list on our site as well, that get's us on the trail at well under 20 pounds before food...

Think light. Think multiple use. Think.

Yes thank you all for the replies!! They've been helpful! Now I just need to absorb & read all the info you've given me.

Some things I like too much to pass up, as the 2 person tent that weighs 5#...but I've seen some tents as u all have posted replies, that weigh less than 2#!?!? I didn't know they existed! But man they are expensive too...

with the sleeping pad, sleeping bag, tent, wood stove (large aluminum can), mess kit, water bladder, & the telescoping fishing pole I like to pack, it will b hard to cut weight, but as mentioned in ur replies I'll just have to find the lightest weight of each of those things.

But it brings about a few more questions: how big of a bag (cu) would u suggest for a say, 20# base pack? Also, I just boiled my water & strained it thru a bandana to make it drinkable. Is this the safest method? R there water filters that r just as safe as this method that don't require the work of boiling?

Thanks again for all the help guys!

Search Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter. In the Light section of this forum, someone did a personal review. The entire filter weights 3oz..

Here's how I do. This is what I took on my last 5 day hike thru the Golden Trout Wilderness (elevations 9,000 - 10,500ft)

The Sleep System (3 lbs 4 oz) - I dropped 10oz off of my sleep system by upgrading my quilt. I replaced my heavier Golite Ultralite 3-season Quilt (24 oz) for a sleek new Zpacks 30deg Quilt (14oz). This quilt was amazing. Very light weight and it kept me warm during the coldest nights (~33-34 degs) we faced. I was also happy to find out that my Gossamer Gear The One tent kept me dry when the rain fell. This was the first time I've had this tent out in the rain and it worked great. Also, I left the stuff sacks at home to trim an additional little bit of weight. Every ounce (or is it grams) counts.

• Sleeping Bag - Zpacks 30deg Quilt (14oz)
• Sleeping Pad - Exced Synmat UL 7(14oz)
• Pillow - Montbell UL Comfort System Pillow (2 oz)
• Shelter - Gossamer Gear The One (17 oz)
• Ground Cloth/Stakes - Polycro ground cloth and Ti stakes (3oz)
• Pee Bottle - Nalegene Softside Canteen 1L (2oz)

Cooking and Water (3 lbs 5oz) - this trip I went exclusively with a light weight alcohol stove. I only ended up heating water on two nights eating cold dinners the other two nights along with a cold breakfast and lunch each day. Only used 1.5oz of fuel in total. I've got my cookset (stove, fuel bottle and windscreen) entirely nested inside the small Ti pot. Very small and compact cook sytem that fits my needs perfectly. The heaviest item by far was my BareBoxer Contender 101. It's as small a bear canister that is still legal and I could cram everything but the first day's meals into it. Still allowed me to pack a bit too much food. I doubled up on my water treatment options and enjoyed both the gravity filter system while in camp and the quick flexible Steripen when refilling weater bottles while on the trail.

• Stove - Fancee Feest Alcohol Stove (1oz)
• Windscreen - custom Ti Cone (1oz)
• Fuel bottle - Plastic Fliptop Bottle (0.75oz)
• Pot - Evernew 900ml Ultralight Ti pot w/lid (3.75oz)
• Pot Cozy - Cozy (1oz)
• Matches - I small box waterproof matches (0.4oz)
• Utensil - Sea to Summit Al Spork (0.25oz)
• Measuring Cup - plastic 1cup (0.75oz)
• Gravity Filter system - Sawyer Squeeze Filter w/Platypus bags (11.5oz)
• Alternative Water Treatment - Steripen w/Platypus 1L (4oz)
• Water Bottles - Gatorade 500ml bottles (2) (2.5oz)
• Food Protection - BareBoxer Contender 101 (26oz)

Clothing Packed Away (1 lb 10oz) - notice that there are no spare clothes, except for an extra pair of thin coolmax socks. I can layer up or down to match the weather but I left the clean spare set of clothes back in the truck where it belongs. I was a bit chilly each morning but once I started hiking I warmed up quickly.

• Rain Jacket - Outdoor Research Helium (7oz)
• Down Jacket - Montbell EX Light Down jacket (6oz)
• Wool Baselayer - Icebreaker BodyFit 200 (8oz)
• Sleeping Socks - PossomDown Socks (2oz)
• Warm Hat - PossumDown Beanie (1oz)
• Warm Gloves - PossumDown gloves (1oz)
• Spare Socks - Thinny thin Coolmax (1oz)

Essentials (16oz) - I've got this section pared down quite a bit except for the luxury of a GPS unit. I brought that to record each day's hike and it was cool to down load my daily tracks once I got back home.

• Camera - Pentax Optio W60 (5oz)
• Insect Repellant - Coleman 100 Max Spray Pen (1oz)
• Towel - MSR ultralight Pack Towel (0.5oz)
• Toilet Kit - Toothbrush/toothpaste/Pocket Tissues (2oz)
• First Aid Kit - Adventure Medical Kit Ultralight 0.3 (1.25oz)
• Knife - Single Edge Razor Blade (0.01oz)
• Light - Photon X-Micro LED Light (0.3oz)
• GPS - Garmin eTrex 20 (5oz)
• Topo - Custom printed Topo map (0.1oz)
• Compass - Brunton 7DNL (1oz)

Packing (1 lb 4oz) - I love my pack. It's small enough so I'm not tempted to bring along extra stuff but I still could fit every thing in it comfortably. I wouldn't want to stuff more than 20lbs in it since it's a frameless pack but i found it very comfortable with the light load I carried.

• Backpack - ULA CDT frameless pack (17oz)
• Pack Liner - Trash compactor bag (2oz)
• Stuff Sack - for cooking set (0.5oz)

Fishing gear (1 lb)

• Fly Rod - Winston Boron IIt 8ft 3wt (4oz)
• Rod Case - Fluorescent Light Tube protector (2oz)
• Fly Reel - Lamson Lightspeed 1 with Rio Gold WF3F line (4oz)
• Chest pack - Trico Ultralight Fishing Pack with/flies & tools (6oz)

That's what I carried. It adds up to 11 lbs and 7oz base pack weight. Pretty darn light base weight considering I was carrying fly fishing gear and a bear cannister. I go pretty simple with my food budgeting 1.5lbs of fairly calorie dense food per day. For the five day trip that worked out to be 7 lbs 8oz of food. Add it up and it totals 18lbs and 15oz. Pretty sweet light load that allowed this old body to get up and over a high pass and into the high country hiking about 10 miles per day.

What size of bag does everyone use for a 2 day hike?

The term "bag" among backpackers generally refers to the sleeping bag. I can't tell if you are referring to sleeping bag or backpack!

Sleeping bag--mine is a 20*F bag; it gets cold at night at higher altitudes in the Pacific NW mountains, and I'm a "cold sleeper." The sleeping bag you get depends entirely on the environment in which you backpack and on your personal physiology. If you live where summer nights are hot and winters really cold, you may need two of them.

Backpack--mine is approximately 2400 cubic inches/40 liters, plus side and front pockets. I use the same pack whether going out for 2 or 10 days. I have to scrunch the compression straps down a bit for short trips, but it works. Backpack capacity depends entirely on the volume/bulk of your gear, and everyone's will be different. That is why those articles on the home page (and most of us here) recommend buying your backpack last, whether starting out or "lightening up."

As mentioned, there are a number of techniques for "lightening up" that don't involve replacing gear--read those articles! I suggest doing that first before spending any money.

For backpack, I'm using 60 liter. If I got lot extra room, I just compress the pack. My next pack will be 24-30 liter and it primarily for dayhiking and trail work, but may be used in summer for overnights when I don't need a fluffy sleeping bag.

I was referring to a backpack, my bad heh

Pack size depends on if you want to get everything inside the bag or are willing to strap stuff to the outside. I do off-trail travel and want everything to be inside the pack so dangling stuff does not catch on brush. Also, two bags of the same capacity can pack quite differently depending on the shape of the bag and how many pockets, etc. If you backpack where a bear cannister is required, you will need a bigger pack. Your size also matters - a 6 ft 6 inch 250 pound guy will have more volume of clothing than a 5 ft 100 pound woman. Also, add a little bit of volume for leeway- when packing up in the field, when weather is poor or you are in a hurry, you will not want to fuss too much to get it all to fit.

The best way to see what size you need is to take everything to the store and pack it in several different bags. Do this when the store is not busy, go into a corner and play with packs. Be sure all your stuff is obviously yours - if not used or old label it with your name. I have done this at REI and as long as you let the floor staff know what you are doing, they had no problem with it. Or, buy three bags, and take them home, play with packing, return the ones you do not want.

In the long run, you will probably end up like most of us - owning several packs of several different sizes. I have yet to find the pack that does everything.

Here, on the other hand, is an opposing view!

http://www.gocomics.com/mcarroni/2012/11/05

McArroni is a pidgeon, hence the strange appearance, and nobody speaks in this strip, blessed silence!

And, yes, this day's strip is kind of sexist...