Big 4 weight March on the AT

[gbolt]

Wow, have times changed. I thought getting the Big there under 10lbs was awesome. Now, I can see how you could get it down to 6 or 7 lbs. However, being a Hammock Hiker, comfort is my key at my age. My total winter base weight is right around 19 lbs for a Mid March start. Here is the google gear list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...OH2LaV44ecUFuA

Also posted a Gear List video on You Tube Channel if interested.

[fluffkitten]

Does everyone with zpacks tents count the weight of their hiking poles in their base weight since they need them to put the tent up

I do, as useful as poles are I loath walking with anything in my hands my poles spend a lot of time on my pack so I count them in base weight.

[connolm]

I just bought the SMD Lunar Solo. SMD offers a carbon pole for users without hiking poles. It costs $30 and weighs less than 2 oz.

https://www.sixmoondesigns.com/colle...e-carbon-fiber

I made one myself out of carbon arrow shafts. It weighs 1.1 oz or about 31 grams.

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[Venchka]

Does everyone with zpacks tents count the weight of their hiking poles in their base weight since they need them to put the tent up

Must we all buy ZPacks shelters in order for us to use our hiking sticks to support our shelters? Or is any brand of shelter okay?
Wayne

[wordstew]

Do you guys have any items that you never compromise for weight savings IE: a particular sleep pad or jacket that you would not substitute for anything else or perhaps an item you consider essential to safety.

[AllDownhillFromHere]

Beyond knife and compass, all my gear is essentially replaceable; I don't because I own it already, and am not going to go out and buy a new tent because there's one an ounce lighter.

[Venchka]

Do you guys have any items that you never compromise for weight savings IE: a particular sleep pad or jacket that you would not substitute for anything else or perhaps an item you consider essential to safety.

Within the context of Big 4 & the AT in March, I'm good to a personally proven 15 Degrees F and less than 8 pounds with the following:
WM Alpinlite Long / Xtherm Large / Exped Air Pillow Medium
TarpTent Shelter
Rivendell Mountain Works Jensen Pack
I'm good with all of my other gear. I'm not going chasing Magic Bullets.
Wayne

[egilbe]

^^^^^ what he said

once you get to a certain point, you’re comfortable and can stay warm and dry, why spend $600 to save a pound?

[Venchka]

$600 will get my gear and I on a really nice section of the CDT or the TCT or a really obscure trail that I will keep to myself.
Wayne

[Shrewd]

Wow, have times changed. I thought getting the Big there under 10lbs was awesome. Now, I can see how you could get it down to 6 or 7 lbs. However, being a Hammock Hiker, comfort is my key at my age. My total winter base weight is right around 19 lbs for a Mid March start. Here is the google gear list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...OH2LaV44ecUFuA

Also posted a Gear List video on You Tube Channel if interested.

I’m going to go over this when I get home and get back to you.

I had a similar setup for mid March but had a 15 pound baseweight.


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[swisscross]

Wow, have times changed. I thought getting the Big there under 10lbs was awesome. Now, I can see how you could get it down to 6 or 7 lbs. However, being a Hammock Hiker, comfort is my key at my age. My total winter base weight is right around 19 lbs for a Mid March start. Here is the google gear list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...OH2LaV44ecUFuA

Also posted a Gear List video on You Tube Channel if interested.

I counted 5 pieces of headgear alone. See if you can get by with less.

[gbolt]

I counted 5 pieces of headgear alone. See if you can get by with less.

So true. Prep hikes in the cold is showing me the value of the key pieces. Beanie, OR Swift Hat and The Buff. I still am a little nervous of insuring I have Dry headwear for sleeping in a Top Quilt/ Hammock. Right now, the Balacava may be staying home. Same holds true for glove liners vs warmer wool mittens. However, the extra items are low weight, 1 oz. each.

[LAF]

So true. Prep hikes in the cold is showing me the value of the key pieces. Beanie, OR Swift Hat and The Buff. I still am a little nervous of insuring I have Dry headwear for sleeping in a Top Quilt/ Hammock. Right now, the Balacava may be staying home. Same holds true for glove liners vs warmer wool mittens. However, the extra items are low weight, 1 oz. each.

"...save the ounces and the pounds will follow..."

[Shrewd]

So true. Prep hikes in the cold is showing me the value of the key pieces. Beanie, OR Swift Hat and The Buff. I still am a little nervous of insuring I have Dry headwear for sleeping in a Top Quilt/ Hammock. Right now, the Balacava may be staying home. Same holds true for glove liners vs warmer wool mittens. However, the extra items are low weight, 1 oz. each.

Oh boy oh boy

Things to lose

The firesteel bundl - it’s pretty much worthless. Bring a mini bic: bring two actually. There will not be a time where you’ll need an emergency firesteel where one of those much handier lighters will work better (and lighter)

Pack hanger - also useless. You’ll be keeping it under your tarp when it’s raining so why not when it’s not raining? You’ll quickly stop caring about bugs or animals (not that hanging it helps much with that)

Pack towel - eh... I brought one but hardly used it. I’d have to hang it from my pack if I ever used it to clean my pot and after awhile abandoned doing that anyway. It never really served a purpose

Thermometer - helpful I guess? Mostly to know how low you went so you can brag about it with friends. You’re not going to be actually gauging your clothing decisions for the day by what your thermometer says, trust me.

Stuff sack for tree straps - pretty unnecessary. Just roll them up and keep them in the outer mesh of your ohm, they’ll dry faster and you won’t have a nasty wet stuff sack

Am I reading this right? You have your tarp in a skin and then in a sack? Why?
Skin it, fold it, strap it outside your pack so it dries

Why 8 stakes?

You’re not bringing both top quilts I’m assuming, just switching one for the other at some point?

A UQ, a z seat AND a full pad? You’re killing me bud. Mail it to Fontana and carry it through the Smokies. Then mail it home. It’s almost a whole POUND. For what, the one or two times in six months you may have to go to ground?

Cook kit looks good to me but why bandanas? I’d say leave them. Especially if you’re bringing that camp towel. And a buff.
Accept that whatever concept of cleanliness that you hold to now will be completely abandoned. You’re going to turn into a savage by week 3.

You’ve got a lot going on for your water filtering. I never bothered with gravity feeds so I don’t know enough to comment on their handiness. But most people didn’t by the time I was up north either. if you like it rock it. How much water can you actually carry? Might be nice to have more if the water source is far from camp so you don’t have to make the trip a few times (****ing vandaventner shelter)

Your emergency bag seems a bit much. If you carry matches AND lighters....you probably won’t use them and you definitely won’t need the firesteel. I hope the multi tool is a tiny one. Either way if it has a blade on it leave the Gerber at home. Blades are really for opening mail and cutting cheese (that said I had a medium sized fixed blade....I’m a hypocrite)
Zip ties? A SPARE cap? More than 1? Dude, no.

Wet wipes all the way! Don’t forget gold bond, that’ll help quite a bit if your butt or Crotch feels a bit chaffed after a long day.

Ditch the Dr Bronners. I know it seems like a perfect product for a thru but it’s kinda useless. I pictured myself washing my pot, then washing my clothes with it in a sink......nah. The few times I needed to do that I just used a bar of soap already there (think hotels that don’t offer laundry, or the clothes I was wearing while doing my laundry). I squeezed out half the bottle when I hadn’t used it in weeks. Then I stayed at a house and they ran out of detergent so I squirted what was left into the washing machine and never replaced it and never missed it
Hand sanitizer was enough (and also helps a bit starting a fire)


Clothes look ok
Use only the one beanie and only one pair of gloves. I’d keep the warmer ones you made yourself. If it’s cold enough to bother with gloves you’ll want warm ones. Camp gloves seem unnecessary to me; you’ll be holding a warm pot or have your hands in my jacket pockets or you’ll be in your hammock. Or not, but your one set of gloves is enough either way.
Why two dry sacks? You’ve got stuff sacks for days, man


You don’t really need a wallet: the thing that hangs inside your ULA works well enough, but that’s up to you.
You’ll ditch a lot of your clothing along the way due to warmer weather and you laughing at what you thought seemed essential initially.

I’m pretty sure I just cut two pounds of stuff from your pack and made life easier when it comes to packing up. I know you probably won’t listen, because I probably wouldn’t have either. Just don’t quit hiking and you’ll work it all out. I promise ya.

[D2maine]

base weight is too high for an ohm, needs to be 10lb or so. either ditch weight or go with a different pack.

[D2maine]

Wow, have times changed. I thought getting the Big there under 10lbs was awesome. Now, I can see how you could get it down to 6 or 7 lbs. However, being a Hammock Hiker, comfort is my key at my age. My total winter base weight is right around 19 lbs for a Mid March start. Here is the google gear list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...OH2LaV44ecUFuA

Also posted a Gear List video on You Tube Channel if interested.

i was talking about this base weight

[DownEaster]

Thermometer - helpful I guess? Mostly to know how low you went so you can brag about it with friends. You’re not going to be actually gauging your clothing decisions for the day by what your thermometer says, trust me.

It's not clothing decisions for the day that matter, but clothing decisions for the night. You don't want to wake up either shivering or soaked in sweat. How warm/cold you feel at the start of the night is more a function of how much and how recently you ate. The thermometer takes out most of the guesswork.

Wet wipes all the way!
...
Ditch the Dr Bronners.

You've got that exactly backwards. Wet wipes are useless weight. If you're going to wash up with soap (which is what these things are: towels with soap and water), disposable wipes are ridiculous burdens you have to pack out. You can use your bandana for cleaning over and over, as well as holding hot pots, wiping condensation from your tent, being an emergency bandage or sling, ...

[Shrewd]

It's not clothing decisions for the day that matter, but clothing decisions for the night. You don't want to wake up either shivering or soaked in sweat. How warm/cold you feel at the start of the night is more a function of how much and how recently you ate. The thermometer takes out most of the guesswork.


You've got that exactly backwards. Wet wipes are useless weight. If you're going to wash up with soap (which is what these things are: towels with soap and water), disposable wipes are ridiculous burdens you have to pack out. You can use your bandana for cleaning over and over, as well as holding hot pots, wiping condensation from your tent, being an emergency bandage or sling, ...

I love wet wipes!

I don’t use them to clean anything so much as I use them to wipe my butt and maybe give the ol’ Crotch a quick cleaning.
I don’t care how much tp you use to wipe your butt, if you follow up with a wipe your butt will be cleaner.

Not to suggest you should replace your tp. Every other day or so, or if I powdered up the night before, I’d use a wipe or two after my morning constitutional. It really helped with issues of monkey butt or Crotch rot.

That said I also went long stretches without them.

I advise against Dr Bronners because it’s use, ostensibly to clean things, isn’t really critical.

I never took a woods bath before town like I thought I might, I only once used it for my clothes, never needed it to clean my pot.

Regarding the clothing/thermometer thing; I usually just went to bed in undies and a shirt. If I felt like it was going to be colder I’d put my thermal on first just in case. That was that; a few times I woke up cold and added a layer, that’s pretty much it.

This is all for a thru hike, of course, which is pretty far removed from the recreational camping most of us are used to.

[Shrewd]

To clarify;
I liked wet wipes because I didn’t want to use my hands or a towel I carried on me for such purposes.... better to toss the wet wipe into my trash ziploc then keep on my pack.

And the thermometer thing:
You just get so used to being out there you get a feel for the weather.
In the beginning I remember wishing I’d had one just to know how the ratings of my gear did against what the temperature actually was.
After awhile I stopped caring. Just just kinda know.

Like when you pick up camp and it’s cold but you KNOW it’s not cold enough for that extra layer because you’ll be sweating in 10 minutes when you start climbing and you whimper to yourself because it’s still chilly....
Ugh


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[DownEaster]

Butt wiping is the biggest reason many hikers cite to justify packing disposable cleaning cloths with them, but they're simply not necessary. A well-aimed jet or two onto the backside from my water bottle after pooping rinses off most everything that the toilet paper didn't remove. (If you do it right, the squirted water will drop onto the toilet paper in your hole, which dousing speeds along the decomposition process.) Then I wash with soap and water using my bandana, and fill in the cathole with my trowel. (Note: the trowel shouldn't touch anything but plain dirt.) Finally I scrub and rinse the bandana twice (just to be safe), cleaning my hands thoroughly in the process, and I'm good to go. I use the same soap, water, and bandana washup procedure for my cooking/eating gear. I've been practicing this cleaning routine for decades now, since long before hand sanitizer existed, and I can attest that it works well for me; I've never had any intestinal illness while hiking, so certainly none from contamination due to inadequate hygiene.