OK, a couple of days have passed since my "gear eviction." I got my summer weekend weight, including the pack, food, and a liter of water, down to just over 17 pounds, according to my spreadsheet; I even weighed it, packed, and the spreadsheet load really did weigh 17 pounds! That 3-pound, 60-liter pack is suddenly looking like a lot of dead weight, so I began looking at lighter packs (principally large daypacks, like the Deuter ACT Trail 32 or Osprey Talon 44, and at "frameless" packs like the Golite Jam that still had at least a pad pocket and padded hipbelt.) Most weighed 1 - 2 pounds, and were rated as "comfortable" for 15 - 20 pound loads. No problem - take my current 17 and deduct 2, and I'm at 15. I should leap at this, right?

Then I relearned a lesson that Colin Fletcher talked in Complete Walker IV (or was it III?), on the relative merits of the ultralight rev- or evolution.

The 15 pound load, in the large daypack, is blissful on those summer hikes, with the sun shining through the 70-degree air, as you walk along with a stream always burbling beside the trail. Then you hit the point, just after noon, where the trail veers off from the stream, heads uphill for 2,500 feet, and eventually rejoins the brook about noon the next day. You load up an extra 3 liters of water, and suddenly you're carrying 21 pounds in a frameless daypack rated for 15 - and will be doing so for about 5 hours.

As Fletcher said, water can make a hash of the best-laid ultralight plans.

I'm thinking the two extra pounds of pack, mostly suspension, is not really a frivolous luxury. Overkill at 17 pounds, yes; but then I thought about my last 3 trips, and realized that all of those loads found me carrying extra water, and carrying at least one layer of warmer clothing - all of that had me carrying 25 pounds for at least an afternoon, if not a full day. Another spreadsheet theory shot down by reality.