When someone asks me how I started to lighten my pack and change my backpacking game, the very first thing I tell them is…
go and buy this book found at this blog: Ultralight Backpacking Tips. You can also get it on Amazon (or go to the library like I did, read it ferociously, glean as much as possible and then copy select pages you want for later). Check out the blog itself, it has lots of great tips. He even has You Tube videos like this: The Lightweight Revolution.
In the book, Mike McCelland talks about how everything weighs something, except for the things you leave at home (or carry in your head). Then he tells you to go buy a postal scale, so I did. It was one of the best investments ever!
He also says, “Don’t bother cutting your toothbrush in half until you have made an effort to lighten your Big 3.” Your Big 3 are your shelter system, sleep system (sleeping bag, pad, etc.) and backpack. Here is a great post on this by one of my favorite bloggers at sectionhiker.com: Lighten Up Your Backpack: The Big 3.
My very first pack I bought was an REI Venus 70, big enough for all my stuff. Well, back when I thought the idea was to buy a pack big enough to carry all my stuff. It was mammoth. I can’t believe what I used to fit in there!
After reading Mike’s book, I was determined to cut my weight despite the fact I cringed at the idea of doing it to a pack I had spent a lot of money on only the year before (before that I was using my brother’s REI 70l pack, and he’s 6’3″!). But my knees and feet were sending messages to my brain egging me on, so I had no choice. With postal scale and scissors in hand, I started cautiously at first and then with gusto to hack and cut away at poor Venus.
I cut every superfluous strap, daisy chain, pocket, buckle, zipper, zipper pull and string I could. I took out all the padding and frame. I took off the shoulder straps and reattached them to fit better (sewing machine comes in handy for this). As you can see, it was a shell of its former self. Even REI would not take this back!
I managed to reduce the weight of the pack to less than 36oz; not bad. Without a frame, I added a piece of blue foam pad cut to fit the pack (that also doubled as my sit pad) for extra support. Here are some of the pieces I cut off my pack. I have saved them and over the last few years been able to use some of the pieces (buckles, straps, etc.) for other things.
The white cloth is my tent footprint made from used compactor trash bags. One of the things Mike talks about is using these to line your pack and keep things dry. The white makes it SO much easier to find things in your pack. After a while the bags get kind of beat up and because keeping my sleeping bag and warm clothes dry is very important to me, I trade in new ones and use the old ones for other things like groundcovers and rain skirts (something I will cover in a future post). I simply cut them open and tape them into one big sheet, then cut it fit my tent.
Sure, it didn’t look pretty but it was functional and was a great way to figure out what I needed and didn’t need when I went to buy my next pack. I was able to use this bag for all of my Washington PCT trek and into the next year until I bought this pack: Gossamer Gear G4 which is smaller but even more functional.
I’ll cover some of the other tips I have used from Mike’s book in future posts; there are a lot of things I have learned from both his book and videos. Don’t be afraid to experiment and find what works for you!
Here is another website with good information on lightening your pack: hikelight.com.
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