Ultralight Heresies

1. 10 pounds is a ridiculous and arbitrary limit chosen entirely on the basis of how “nice” the number 10 sounds. If the US was on the metric system, would it have been 10 kilograms instead? If we used a base 16 number system would it be 16 pounds?

   A slightly better target would be a percentage of body weight, but …

2. The original “point” of the ultralight ethos is that experience can substitute for gear. A ultralight tarp weighs much less than a tent, but you have to know how to pitch it, select a site that’ll help shelter you from rain and wind, etc. The experience needs to come first, then the gear.

3. There’s no single point below which you are “really” ultralight, that’s just gatekeeping. There are instead two important inflection points:

   1. The weight below which your hiking speed is more or less unaffected by the pack.
   2. The weight above which your pack is noticeably heavy and uncomfortable.

   Importantly, these inflection points differ for each person and for each pack — the comfort zone for a flimsy frameless pack is quite different from that of a full suspension load hauler.

4. Adding weight as long as you don’t cross an inflection point is basically free. Cutting out luxuries or spending money to get lighter when doing so doesn’t change your subjective experience of backpacking is an exercise in gear hoarding or showing off online, not something that actually matters.

5. “Base weight” is a ridiculous concept. What matters is the weight on your back. A better metric than base weight is “average pack weight”: how much are you carrying, including food and water, at the midpoint of your trip? (Or the midpoint between resupplies.)

6. Making gear lists and weighing individual items can be fun (I love me a good spreadsheet), and is a useful exercise to figure out where the weight is coming from. But it’s totally useless if you don’t weigh your actual pack — with food and water.

7. For any trip longer than a couple-three days, efficient food weight matters more than gear weight. Seven days worth of food at 100 calories per ounce weighs over 15 pounds; at 125 calories per ounce you save 3 pounds. Or you could spend $800 on a Dyneema tent and save 6 ounces.

8. SmartWater bottles suck. They don’t last, contributing to plastic waste; the caps are easy to lose rending them useless; the narrow mouth makes the hard to fill from shallow water sources and hard to add drink mixes too; and they melt if you put boiling water in them, so they can’t be used as a hot water bottle in cold conditions, narrowing your safety margin. The Nalgene has been the right answer all along.

9. The point of a trip is to have fun. Maybe Type 2 fun, but fun all the same. Generally speaking you’ll have a better time with a lighter pack, but that’s not a law of the universe. Once you’ve reached the point where cutting out gear is leading to a much worse experience, stop and add back some luxurious.

10. Stay off r/ultralight. Bring the gear that’s appropriate to your trip objectives and conditions.