Ultralight backpacking guides

Base weight is the number this whole hobby is organised around. It is the weight of everything in and on your pack minus food, water and fuel, and the pack itself counts toward it. Worn weight is what is on your body at the trailhead. Consumable weight is what gets lighter as you walk. Almost every argument in ultralight backpacking is really an argument about which of those three buckets an item belongs in, so every guide here uses the same definitions.

The order these guides are written in is the order the work should be done in. Weigh what you already own before you buy anything, because manufacturer figures run optimistic often enough to matter. Fix the Big Three next, because shelter, sleep system and pack are a little over half of a typical base weight between them. Only then go after the small items, and buy the pack last of all, because a pack sized and framed for a 30 lb load is the wrong pack once the load is 18 lb.

We do not test gear in person and we will not pretend otherwise. What we do is compare published specifications, cross-check them against verified owner reviews, and flag where two makers are measuring different things and calling them the same thing. Tent weights are the worst offender: a packaged weight and a trail weight can differ by half a pound of stakes, stuff sacks and guyline.

Two safety points run through every guide on this site, because these are the two things that actually hurt people. Sleeping bag and quilt temperature ratings are survival ratings, not comfort ratings. The published limit figure is roughly the temperature an average sleeper survives curled up, and the comfort rating usually sits 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer. Hollow fibre water filters are destroyed by a single freeze with no visible sign, and they remove bacteria and protozoa but not viruses.

Going ultralight must never mean going unprepared. You are responsible for carrying adequate shelter and insulation for the conditions you will actually meet, not the conditions in the forecast. Rain gear, insulation, navigation, water treatment and a way to call for help are fixed costs, not places to save grams.

Pair these guides with the weight calculators, the complete gear lists and the gear list builder, which totals your own kit and tells you which weight class it lands in. We earn a commission if you buy through our links, at no extra cost to you, and that never decides what gets recommended. Plenty of the best answers here cost nothing at all.

The guides are written to be read in the order the work should be done, and that order is not the order most people follow. Almost everyone starts by shopping. The rounds that cost nothing come first, and they usually save more than the first purchase does.

Steps one to three cost almost nothing and routinely take three to six pounds off a traditional kit, which is more than the entire Big Three upgrade in step four and five will give you for several hundred dollars. That is not a trick, it is what happens when nobody has ever weighed the miscellaneous pile. Do them first even if you have already decided what to buy, because the shakedown often changes what you buy.

Step seven is last on the list and largest in effect on any given trip, which is the part that surprises people. Consumables are not base weight, but they are what is actually on your back at the trailhead. Five days of food at 1.5 lb per day is 7 lb 8 oz. Four litres of water is 8 lb 13 oz. Getting the resupply window and the water plan right moves more weight than any purchase in steps four through six, and it costs nothing at all.

Which guide answers which question?

If you know your base weight and want it lower, start with how to cut base weight and the Big Three. If you do not know your base weight, run a shakedown first and put the result into the gear list builder. If you are deciding what to buy and in what sequence, the buying order guide prices every step in grams saved per dollar. If the problem is that your pack is a mess rather than heavy, read how to pack a backpack.

Three guides here are about staying safe rather than staying light, and they are the ones to read even if you have no interest in the weight side of this at all. Water treatment covers what is actually in backcountry water and why a filter alone is a single point of failure. The layering guide covers hypothermia, which does not require winter: it requires wet, wind and a hiker who has stopped moving, and those three arrive together on any 45 degree rainy afternoon. And cold weather ultralight is the one guide on this site that argues for carrying more, because almost every technique that works in summer trades away exactly the margin cold demands.