What type hiker-backpacker-camper are you?

[GoLight]

I sort of recognize that we each have our own style of hiking and backpack camping and we self-select into sub-groups based on our interests, expertise, available time and money and so forth. I´m in the keep it normal range. My base weight is 24 pounds, I strive for 15 miles day average, I zero every Sunday and I take a bandana bath every night.
Others I´ve met on the trail have a base weight half mine (or less) and they kill 20 or 25 miles (or more) every day.
Some of us are gear geeks, others are gram geeks and yet others are just normal. Me, I´m a gram geek with my Zpack 52L that weighs less than a pound and a half, but I´m a gear geek with my Helinox backpacking chair that weighs almost 2 pounds. I never leave home without it.
So, what type of hiker-backpacker-camper are you?

[DuneElliot]

Depends on what I'm doing...comfort camper with the car and the dogs

But hiking and backpacking, I have a 13lb base weight and carry the essentials. I hike 10-12 miles a day and take lots of breaks to enjoy the views and the weather.

How are you managing a 24lb base weight with an Arc Blast. Those are generally maxed out at 30lbs and you still don't have food or water in that equation!

[Uncle Joe]

Minus water I carry about 23-24lbs. I can pull about 10-11mi per day. I wish I could pull a 20 but not there. Currently, a section hiker. I try to overnight when I can. I will car camp, esp. to explore new trail.

[Sandy of PA]

As light as I can get the pack while including my bearcan/stool. Base down to freezing is 13lbs. warmer weather, or short trips with smaller stool, 9lbs. Distance, whatever I feel like up to 20 miles per day, plan food based on 12 miles per day. Love to stealth camp, now you see me, now you don't!

[hikernutcasey]

This is a good topic because I think so many people come to this site looking for "the" way to do all things backpacking and as we all know there is no one way to do anything associated with backpacking. It's all about finding what works for you and finding what style of hiking works for you.

To answer the OP's question, I am a section hiker who typically gets out a few times a year for anything from a weekend trip to a 100+ mile week long section. I carry around 24 pounds with no water to begin a trip and typically hike around 16-18 miles per day.

[AfterParty]

I will stop and fish when i think i need a break and it looks good and no more then 12 miles in a day working on more but not there.

[cneill13]

My base weight not including food, water or booze is around 12-13 pounds.

But it goes up to 17-18 pounds once I add my Helinox chair and table, frypan, saw, Bluetooth speaker, and three pillows.

My typical daily mileage is between 10-12 miles. I also cache my food and booze along my route a week in advance. It saves a ton of weight.

Just because I'm on a hike doesn't mean I can't have a little luxury.

Carl

[tdoczi]

I´m in the keep it normal range.

and who decided that this way (yours) is normal?

[GoLight]

and who decided that this way (yours) is normal?

Jajajajajaja, Good point. What´s extreme for me might be normal for you.
I was thinking normal is like most of us who are maybe halfway between ultralight and slob heavy.

My base weight for three season gear is 24 pounds. Zpack has a 30 pound capacity. For a seven day section I add both fresh and dehydrated foods that I make up at home ahead of time and I carry average a liter of water. That brings the weight up to 35 or 36 pounds total for the first day out, which includes fresh food for first dinner and first breakfast on trail. But, not all of it is in the backpack.

Some of that food is in a separate dry bag strapped to the top of the pack. After the first day my total weight drops to about 32 pounds and going down each day as I eat through the food supply.

To take the strain off the backpack and my shoulders I spread my load over two belt pouches and a waterproof waist pouch for things like camera, reading glasses, maps, first aid kit, smart phone, compass, folding knife, fire starter kit, space blanket.
Some of these items like the smart phone, maps and compass, folding knife, fire starter kit, space blanket, waterproof wallet with cash and credit card, drivers license for ID, are things I want to have with me if I ever get separated from my backpack.

In my base weight I also include a 1 pound bucksaw, a 1 pound hatchet for batoning firewood and a little wood burning stove for cooking and boiling water for coffee. Like everyone else, I´m in it for the solitude and distance from civilization but I´m also into comfort and pure enjoyment, thus the luxury items.

[jjozgrunt]

Base weight of 14 - 18 lbs depending on the season. The longer the walk the better but usually entails having to cache food as distances are very long between towns on most long walks over here. Base weight all things being the same is going to change depending on the individual. I'm 6' 3" solid build so all my gear is lg - Xlg, long/wide etc. Therefore it will weight more than others.

Consider myself a normal hiker heading lighter, gear wise. I solo walk a lot and will do anywhere from 10 - 20 mile days, depending on terrain and weather.

[Maydog]

I'm basically a day hiker with lots of cool backpacking gear that I hope to start using on a more regular basis.

[map man]

I guess the quickest way to pin down what kind of backpacker I am is to describe the ways I vary from the norm. Those ways are:

I never take a zero day.
I never use trekking poles.
I never get in a motor vehicle during the duration of a hike (when I'm hiking by myself and not with partners).
I am always vegan in my food, clothes and equipment choices.
I always go stoveless.
I always resupply with mail drops (sent to businesses, not post offices).

In other ways like how much weight I carry, how many miles I hike a day, and how frequently I stay in a tent or in a shelter or stay in a hostel/motel, I am within a range most hikers would consider fairly normal, I'm guessing.

[nsherry61]

I try to get a week or two of backpacking in per year with a few weekends or long (3-4 day) weekends. I don't really care what season I go in, any of the four is find and wonderful for me. I missed my week-long ski trip this year for the first time in many.

My winter 5-day ski backpack with food and water and whiskey is about 33-35 pounds depending on whether I use a tent or tarp.
My last 4-day backpack trip was with an 11 lb pack with food, but not water. When solo, non-winter, I generally use my poncho as my rain-gear, pack cover and shelter. I hike in trail running shoes all year round.

So, I guess I lean on the light side of average. I am a minimalist at heart. I'm pretty happy heading into the woods with very little. I am also a psudo-cheepscape in that, although I have way too much nice gear, I often don't use it. I like to backpack on the cheep. I often use cat or pop can stoves instead of one of my canister stoves. I often use a cheep poly tarp instead of one of my ultralight tents - I really don't like tents. I generally eat top ramen, or couscous or potato type dinners more than freezdried meals. I often use a cheep comforter for lightish summer sleep insulation instead of one of my nicer down bags.

I always use trekking poles. I generally go solo, but also have a few friends I regularly go with when we can line up our schedules.
I'm over 50. I grew up backpacking, camping, climbing, paddling, cycling and surely that colors my take on the outdoors.

Sometimes I plan my trips more carefully, sometimes I just head out with a few days of food and a general area I'm interested in exploring and then walk or ski or snowshoe wherever feels good at the time.

Generally I look for areas with fewer people and fewer or less developed trails (or no trails) and more dramatic scenery. Lately, with moving to New England, I spend more time looking for dramatic(ish) scenery regardless of remoteness since the concept of remote is pretty highly populated in this region.

[martinb]

As long as I'm out int he sticks, enjoying mother nature, I'm happy. The rest is just details.

[Dogwood]

Mostly detail oriented solo UL backpacker/hiker that seeks efficiency hiking long hrs 15 or more/day or 30+ hr stretches at a time all over the U.S. during all 12 months on named trails and routes and off trail hikes. Currently enjoying piecing together segments of trails and my own routes to enjoy longer hikes but also like those 60 - 500 mile hikes that can be squeezed into a narrower hiking window. Like to enjoy Nature and be in a Zen Zone on hikes. One of the greatest pleasures is being able to potentially contribute positively to other's evolution as people and backpackers.

Kits are dependent on a wide range of factors so they are always changing as I change becoming more developed as a backpacker.

[Kaptainkriz]

Short sections, in and out over weekends with my wife when we can. I keep a gps file of where I've been and keep filling the sections in. Call me a retro lightweight. A mix of old school white cloud and caldera Ti cone / Zelph starlyte kinda guy, but can pull out the SVEA123 if it suits the mood.

[Another Kevin]

I'm a weekender. I don't know how likely I am ever to do the Big Hike. Maybe in retirement.

Otherwise, I'm content with my style, which is short mileage (I'm never on trail long enough to find my "trail legs", so 8-12 mpd is all I plan), day trips, overnights, 3-4 day long weekends. Backpacking isn't my first love - heresy, I know! I like getting out in the woods and seeing cool places that I haven't been to before, or showing others cool places that I have been to. Some of those cool places are more than a half-day's walk - at least at my short mileage - from the highway, particularly if I'm going to have time for photography, map-making, or writing when I get there. So my backpack comes along for the ride and I spend a night or three Out There.

On the other hand, I go anywhere that they still call 'hiking.' I've bushwhacked Northeast 4000ers in winter. I like remoteness - I've done 40+-mile roadless stretches, with no way out shorter than the trail. I don't mind routefinding in ledges and brush, or rock scrambling, or plooshing through beaver swamp, or wallowing about on snowshoes. If it's generally regarded as 'hikable,' I'm up for trying it!

Unless I'm in a group and we're all socializing at a shelter, I'll tent nearby virtually every time. The mice can have the place to themselves.

I do like having a few toys - smartphone and big heavy brick charger, camera, bucket so that I can have a bath or wash my socks. I feel naked without a topo map of the day's hike, a compass, and a notebook and pencil. (Usually an altimeter as well.) I've never weighed my pack. I can carry it, it can carry my gear, that's what matters. It usually has more water than I need, because I'm often hiking off-trail or on trails with poor or nonexistent guidebooks, sometimes along bone-dry ridges, and so I don't always know where the next water source is, or want to descend a thousand feet of elevation to get to it. A few pounds extra water weight, for my style, is often worth the convenience. Oh, yes, and on overnighters I always bring stove, pot and coffee filter. If I can't have real coffee, I'm not going!

Despite the fact that in the fifty years I've been hiking I've probably racked up more trail miles and bag nights than a lot of AT thru-hikers, often on routes that are harder on the AT, I still feel like an impostor on a site that reveres the Big Hike and scorns the casual "just get out and play in the woods" hiker - hence the Clueless Weekender sobriquet. The longest trail that I've hiked in its entirety is the 138-mile Northville Placid.

One thing that I think would be Really Cool would be to put on my backpack, hike downtown to the train station, ride Amtrak to New York City, and hike home from there. It would be doable, using the New York Long Path, the AT, the Shawangunk Ridge Trail, the Long Path again and the Mohawk and Hudson Bike Path (part of the Erie Canalway), and would total maybe 400 miles. Every time I talk about it I start to plan it, so I think it's a "must-do" if I ever retire. It's not for everyone, but the Hudson Highlands, Shawangunks, Catskills and Helderbergs are my part of the world. I want to see more of them - and revisit the big pieces of the route that I've already done on various day and weekend trips.

[Tipi Walter]

The only important criteria is whether you're indoors or outdoors. Right now I'm indoors.

[MuddyWaters]

Base 7 lbs avg, varies 6-10 depending on season, canister, etc.

I target 100 miles per week in prime seasons with one zero day usually. Makes planning simple. Usually end up higher, around 110-120.

No frills. I dont wash. I dont take off hiking clothes unless damp or muddy. Wear them dry, go to bed. In warmer weather I like predawn starts, and long days. Vast majority of hiking is solo.

In towns I like to relax, and Im most comfortable relaxing by myself in my own space.

I try to spend a month per yr on trails these days. Some years it's a single trip, sometimes it's a mix of 3-7 day trips. It depends on life. For instance I was supposed to have September off this yr, instead I'm typing this from hotel in Amman. Didn't work out as planned. Sometime it do. Sometime it don't. Maybe in 5 more yrs it will always work out....

[Engine]

Base weight between 9-12 pounds

I don't hike particularly fast, maybe a 2 mph overall daily average if you factor in breaks during the day. But I do hike all day, setting up the tent less than an hour before it's really dark. That allows for 16-24 mile days depending on terrain and the time of year. (I'm definitely faster and safer with trekking poles...bad ankle from martial arts...)

I'll take a nero every week and a zero every other. They aren't planned, it just usually works out that way.

I'm not opposed to unplanned stops for an unexpected cool campsite or taking a long lunch and 45-minute nap in the sun. But the long days still make for weeks around 100 miles.