I haven't seen the direction change since I stumbled on this site in late 2005 and was able to cut my pack weight by more than half. By early 2006 I was ready to go with 19-20 lbs. total pack weight (instead of 40) for a 2-3 day trip. Since then my base weight (pack weight without fuel, food, water) has dropped from 15 lbs. (the goal in the articles on the home page of this site) to 12 lbs. It won't go any farther because there are some creature comforts (such as a nice cushy warm sleeping pad and a 20* sleeping bag) that I refuse to give up.

It appears that this site has always been more about lightweight rather than ultralight backpacking. Folks who are really into the latter (especially those trying to get their base weight under what appears to be a magic number of 5 lbs.) tend to gravitate to the Backpacking Light site. There are a number of us here (including me) who are on that site too, but I far prefer life over here where I don't have people lecturing me that I should eschew toilet paper in favor pine cones and rocks, or that I should always keep hiking until bedtime instead of stopping in late afternoon. There is also a lot of flaming on that site which we try to avoid (and mostly succeed) here.

We have a number of hunters on this site who are also lightweight backpackers. Most of them have been here longer than I have!