For loads of outdoorsmen and girls, ultralight backpacking conjures up a very kooky picture. Sawed-off toothbrushes. Dingy plastic water bottles with water filters screwed on prime. Backpacks — with cut-off straps — which can be no larger than a daypack.
And that was as soon as the case. However as I discovered in final 12 months’s take a look at of the best ultralight gear, the provision and vary of backpacks, tents, and extra has exploded lately, with big-name producers getting in on the sport and cottage corporations going mainstream as a rising viewers goes all-in on the ultralight motion. You don’t need to be a thru-hiker anymore to go ultralight — it’s even doable for somebody fully new to backpacking to securely construct out their first package utilizing solely ultralight gear.
I’ve been spending the final couple of months planning this 12 months’s ultralight backpacking take a look at (examine final 12 months’s massive exams right here: the best ultralight backpacks and the best ultralight tents). We’ve bought ultralight tents and backpacks from mainstream manufacturers like Black Diamond, Thriller Ranch, REI, and Osprey in addition to smaller manufacturers like Nashville Packs, Search Exterior, Slingfin and UL mainstays like Gossamer Gear, Zpacks, and Six Moon Designs. We’ve even bought our first worldwide UL model we’ll be testing: Aarn Packs out of New Zealand. Whereas final 12 months we tackled quilts, this 12 months we’ll be testing ultralight sleeping baggage from the likes of Feathered Associates, Stone Glacier, Western Mountaineering, Kuiu, and Rab. We’re additionally testing prepare dinner methods, with pots and stoves from Toaks, Vargo, Snow Peak, Soto, MSR, and extra.
Given the sheer quantity of ultralight gear to check (I’ve no issues about reserving out anoter full testing schedule subsequent 12 months) it’s straightforward to overlook that it’s a development that began comparatively lately.
The place Did Ultralight Backpacking Come From?
Ultralight backpacking bought its begin with the publication of The PCT Hikers Handbook by Ray Jardine in 1991. In it he described a quick (on the time) hike of the Pacific Crest Path along with his spouse, finishing it in 4 and a half months. Whereas the e-book covers a wide range of subjects, together with diet, coaching, and on-trail first assist, essentially the most impactful portion described their gear decisions. Relatively than essentially the most sturdy, hardest supplies, Jardine beneficial reducing as a lot weight as doable by choosing smaller backpacks, trail running shoes as a substitute of mountain climbing boots, and quilts as a substitute of sleeping baggage. On their very own, maybe, these decisions may not make a serious influence on a person’s mountain climbing expertise. However when considered as a system, these strategies might reduce the burden you’re carrying in half — or extra. Jardine’s first thru-hike of the two,650-mile PCT utilizing these new strategies took about 139 days. At the moment, the record for an unsupported PCT thru-hike (i.e., nobody helping you with meals or water) is 55 days, 16 hours, and 54 minutes.
Learn Subsequent: 50 Miles Across the Mojave Without Water
I hike the PCT in 2014, and it is smart to me that ultralight backpacking developed there. In contrast to the frequent highway crossings of the Appalachian Path, PCT hikers spend their first month within the scorching, dry, and surprisingly distant outback of Southern California. Even in good years, there may be as many as 20 miles between water sources and it’s essential to carrying per week’s value of meals in your again.
Adam Tycaster
You might have loads of time to consider what a distinction of two.5 kilos (the burden of 1 liter of water) could make in your again, and the way a lot quicker you’re mountain climbing on the finish of that week than you probably did firstly. By the point PCT backpackers end the desert and hit the foothills of the Sierra Nevada — true distant wilderness there — even those that began out as ultralights skeptics are on the lookout for one thing, something, of their pack that they’ll go away behind.
Learn Subsequent: The Gear a Thru-Hiker Relies on After 11,000 Miles
This creates a tradition amongst thru-hikers that may, from the skin, look pretty excessive. A standard ceremony of passage is the pack shakedown, the place skilled thru-hikers undergo each merchandise in somebody’s pack and inform them what they need to do away with. There may be loads of dialogue of base weights — the burden of your package with out meals or water or gasoline — with the best being below 10 kilos (one thing I’ve but to attain). In the meantime, persons are positively nonetheless reducing extra nylon off their backpacks.
The State of Ultralight Backpacking Gear Now
What will get misplaced generally within the excesses of ultralight tradition is that ultralight gear has gotten actually good lately. Typically, good ultralight gear is extra comfy, extra dependable, and has higher load carrying potential than the ultralight gear of yore. It’s additionally extra comfy and dependable than loads of conventional backpacking gear. And however a number of notable exceptions, it’s sometimes inexpensive.
For OL’s first ultralight backpacking gear take a look at, I invited Diana Helmuth to affix us, writer of How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner’s Guide to Hiking and Backpacking. Her expertise of ultralight gear was rooted within the early aughts, when her mother began making alcohol stoves out of tuna cans and reducing straps off backpacks. This prooved frugal and artistic, however not at all times essentially the most comfy expertise. Helmuth went proper again to the normal backpacking gear she had grown up with.
Whereas many of the manufacturers we examined in 2023 can be well-known to subscribers of Backpacking Light — Six Moon Designs, Gossamer Gear, Durston, TarpTent, Zpacks, and many others. — Diana instructed me the one one she had heard of was Hyperlite. Whereas Diana had already spent a while testing a few of the better of the best backpacking backpacks, together with the Gregory Deva, Mystery Ranch Bridger, and Deuter Aircontact, she was shocked at how comfy the ultralight packs had been, and that they achieved this with out costing an arm and a leg. “The Thriller Ranch backpack weighs like 5 kilos and prices greater than the Six Moons pack I examined with you,” she instructed me.
Diana finally examined three packs — the ULA Circuit, the Six Moon Designs Swift X, and the Mountainsmith Zerk, and got here away feeling that “All of them felt actually good. All of them felt actually comfy.” The expertise left her questioning backpack options which can be commonplace throughout conventional backpacks, together with the necessity for load lifters and even waist belts, that will help you comfortably carry your gear. “I’m beginning to understand that much less could be extra,” she instructed me. “Mountain climbing with much less weight in your again feels nicer, interval.”
The place Ultralight Goes from Right here
What’s most enjoyable about ultralight backpacking gear is the ingenuity concerned. Learn sufficient of the “about” pages on cottage ultralight gear websites and a sample emerges: The founder hiked a protracted path, had A LOT of time to consider how a specific merchandise of their package could possibly be improved upon, and determined to manifest that on the finish of the path. A few of these corporations, like Six Moons Designs and Feathered Associates have been round for many years; others, like Durston Gear and Nashville Pack, are youthful. And there are at all times newcomers to the ultralight scene, together with the youngest firm on this 12 months’s testing schedule: Symbiosis Gear, which has been round since solely 2022.
And ultralight gear producers are supported by a group of backpackers who’re extra concerned about how a brand new tent design might shave a number of ounces off their package, or a backpack might enhance their mobility whereas mountain climbing, than they’re a few specific model identify or tried and true design. And when these concepts work, they begin to percolate. Path runners and trekking-pole tents may need gotten their begin on lengthy trails, however they’re mainstream now. And with massive names like Black Diamond and Mountain Hardwear throwing their hats into the ring, it’s solely a matter of time till we stay in a world dominated by the concepts and ingenuity behind ultralight gear, with conventional backpacking gear being regulated to the low cost bin.
