how much more wt.?

[cupcake]

so far, my pack weighs 16.5 lbs MINUS food, water and fuel. how much more wt. will i end up adding to my pack? let's say for 4 days of food, carrying about 1.5 liters (i will likely have two 1 liter bottles, and i know the amt. of water varies during the day w/consumption and refill), and fuel is denatured alcohol. how much alcohol should one carry on average (for a pepsi stove)? i have a 20 oz. bottle, but i know i don't need that much, and that's pretty heavy. my goal is to keep my total pack wt. under 30 lbs. 25 lbs would be fantastic! (is that wishful thinking?) thank you, d

[JojoSmiley]

hmmm. How much food are you eating per day as that will determine that weight. I found I didn't eat as much as I thought I would when I first started hiking. More tired than hungry I guess. Now I average 1-2 lbs per day depending on weather. Water is about 2lb per liter. Denatured alcohol- we use a soda bottle with a piece of duct tape to differentiate from our water soda bottles. For our one cooked meal a day for the two of us we were using 2oz per day. Thats boiling a liter of water or maybe a little more for supper of Lipton, mashed potatoes or ramens and a hot drink that we split.
Hope that helps, you need to research how much fuel you will be using to determine how much to carry. We usually carried more than we needed last year due to being in Ohio, W. PA and NY on the NCT and not sure of the local supplies.
Hope that helps you.

[chris]

It depends on your stomach, but I'd figure on another 10 pounds. Of course, water is heavy. Water is most everywhere on the AT. So, don't carry much. A pint is usually fine, except for in some areas. This is where maps are helpful.

A helpful rule of thumb is 2 lbs of food per day. Personally, I eat more than this and usually pack 2.5-3.5 lbs of food per day.

[rocket04]

2 pounds a day ought to do it, but in the end it depends a lot on what you're gonna eat. I never planned by weight, I planned by meals, so I could end up with more or less than 2 pounds. Some types of foods a heavier and you're still going to want to carry them for variety.

For water, like Chris said, there are certain parts with less water sources. I remember, starting in Pennsylvania there were less water sources and some springs were dry. But for the most part, there's plenty of water and you can save yourself a lot of weight by not carrying too much. And if you use aquamira for treatment, you can stop often without constantly having to pump.