Gear - A Hot Take
We in the backpacking community spend a lot of time talking about gear.
Gear is important, but must always be understood as a means to an end. Gear is there to support a successful, safe and happy hike. It is not the end-all-be-all of your backcountry experience and truly it does not define who you are or what you can do.
Here is my philosophy around gear:
Research only from credible sources
Spend a proportional amount of time researching a piece of gear to how critical it is for your adventure.
It it passes the above, then buy it and try it.
If it works, keep it, if it doesn’t, try something else. Learn from iterating.
Find the piece that fits your need.
Only talk about it when asked about it.
Ultralight & the Tradeoff Equation
Yes, I am an ultralight backpacker, classically defined as having a base weight under ten pounds. I like to keep my pack light because it contributes significantly to the quality of adventure I have. The consequence of a heavy pack is constant sore shoulders and tired knees. When I am making big miles, this is a significant cost and whatever benefit that could come from the gear that is causing the extra weight would have to be mighty to be justified.
You don’t have to hike ultralight, you can hike with whatever pack weight you want. I am not an advocate for ultralight hiking unless it is best for a certain individual.
What I am an advocate of:
The Weight Tradeoff Equation
The Weight-Tradeoff Equation states that: With each pound added to your pack, the marginal benefit of that pound will shrink.
Or reversely stated: With each pound removed from your pack, there will be an increasingly significant decrease in benefit of that pound.
Basically, as you add things to your pack, each additional item will be less useful for its weight than the previous item. We each have an individual point on this curve where we stop adding items because they aren’t worth the weight.
What Ultralighters Get Wrong
For every point on this curve there is a relationship been value added and weight required. Traditional backpacking was far to the right of the curve, where too many unuseful things were packed. The past 30 years have brought lighter and better gear, but also for many it has brought a more critical eye to what is actually needed, this is a movement toward the center of the curve.
Some ultralighters have progressed now to the extreme left of the curve, getting rid of items that sometimes could truly be considered essential. Andrew Skurka has a term for this, “stupid light”.
There is no right place to be on this curve, not even at the apex. Because each person has a different tolerance for weight carried vs. benefit from that weight. But it is important to recognize the cost and benefit of every item and know that you can’t have one without the other. Yes, an extra shirt might be nice to sleep in, but you have five more ounces you have to carry for the whole trip. OR, yes, you could save five ounces by getting a skimpier sleeping pad, but that could be at the massive expense of perpetually restless sleep.
Next time you are prepping a gear list, think of the Weight-Tradeoff equation and remember both the upside and downside of that gear.
Gear Reviews
There are some core pieces of gear that I’ve used for 1000+ miles:
My 2020 Kit
Well 2020 didn’t see a ton of hiking. But this is how my kit is looking at the moment. It changes ever so slightly but this is the gist.
You can check out gearlists from almost any previous hike on that respective page.