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Before you write

Reporting a wrong weight or price? Please include the page URL, the item, and the figure you believe is correct along with where you saw it. That turns a fix into a five minute job instead of a reconstruction. Corrections are genuinely the most useful mail we get, and gear specifications change without announcement, so we depend on readers noticing.

Asking what to buy? Tell us your base weight, the season, the trip length, the temperatures you expect at night, and what you already own. Without those, any answer is a guess. In most cases the gear list builder, the calculators and the complete kits will get you there faster than we can by email, and the charts hold the figures without an article wrapped around them.

We cannot plan your trip and we cannot vet your kit for safety. Everything here is researched guidance, not professional instruction. We do not know your route, your fitness, the forecast, the snowpack, the water report or the permit conditions, and none of those can be inferred from a base weight. Going ultralight must not mean going unprepared: adequate shelter, insulation for the real conditions, rain protection, navigation, water treatment and a way to call for help are fixed costs, and you are responsible for carrying them. For anything involving avalanche terrain, technical ground or long remote stretches, get instruction from qualified people. See the disclaimer.

We do not test gear in person and we cannot accept product for review on that basis. We research published manufacturer specifications and verified owner reviews, and we say so on every page. If you represent a brand and want to correct a published specification, that is welcome and we will update it.

Brands and agencies: we do accept partnerships and we disclose all of them, as set out in the affiliate disclosure. What we do not do is sell a recommendation. If your pitch requires a specific verdict, please save us both the time.

Things people write in about most often

"My base weight seems too high." It usually is not the gear. Run a shakedown before buying anything: weigh every item individually, put the list into the gear list builder, sort by weight descending, and work top down. The rounds that cost nothing, removing items you did not use on the last three trips and cutting duplicates, routinely take three to four pounds off a traditional kit. That is more than the entire Big Three upgrade will give you for several hundred dollars.

"Which pack should I buy?" Almost always the answer is not yet. A pack is a load carrying structure with a design load, and the load is not final until the shelter and the sleep system are. Frameless and lightly framed packs carry well to roughly 25 lb total and badly above 30, and total means base weight plus food, water and fuel. The buying order guide covers the whole sequence, and buying the pack first is the most expensive ordering mistake in this hobby.

"Is a 20 degree quilt enough for 25 degree nights?" No, and this is the single most common misreading in backpacking. Temperature ratings published to EN 13537 or ISO 23537 are survival ratings, not comfort ratings. The limit figure is roughly where an average sleeper gets through the night curled up and shivering, the comfort rating typically sits 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer, and the extreme rating on the tag must never be used for planning. Check the pad underneath too, because a warm quilt over a cold pad does not work. The temperature rating chart has the detail.

"A weight on your site does not match the manufacturer's page." Please tell us, with both figures and the URL. This happens for two real reasons and one avoidable one. Manufacturers revise specifications between production runs without announcement; tents in particular publish minimum, trail and packaged weights that differ by up to half a pound for the same shelter; and occasionally we have simply got it wrong. All three are worth fixing and we would rather hear about it than not.

"Can I reuse a chart or a table?" Yes, with attribution and a link back. Quote a row, quote a figure, screenshot a table for a forum post, or use the numbers in your own planning spreadsheet. What we ask is that you do not republish whole pages or present the content as your own. See the terms of service for the formal version.