The vast majority of hikers don’t overpack out of carelessness or ignorance. They overpack because they’re scared. Scared of being cold, scared of being wet, scared of going hungry, scared of getting lost after dark… fear is a bigger motivator in packing than any list or logic. Fear of discomfort, fear of failure. Fearing the gear is just as counterproductive as fearing the mountain lions. They’re both out there, but they’re not the enemy. The enemy is your pack. And your brain.
The post-trip pile method
The most effective method for checking your camping equipment is not before the trip, but after. When you arrive home, do not just put everything back in the bins. Instead, sort it into three piles: the gear you used daily, the gear you touched once or kept just in case, and the gear you never used.
That third pile is your dead weight. Not figuratively. It’s the physical mass you carried for miles and received nothing in return. Most people are shocked by how many items end up in that pile – a backup stove tool, a second rain layer, a camp towel. The “what if” each of those items was kept for never happened.
Repeat this process for three trips, and trends will appear. If something continuously hits pile three, it’s outta here.
Start with the big three
If you want to lose serious weight, deal with the big stuff before anything else. Your shelter, sleep system, and pack – the “big three” – will likely make up over half of your total base weight. Cutting back the end of a toothbrush when your 5-pound sleeping bag takes up half your pack isn’t the right approach.
Your base weight is the number you should care about – it’s your pack minus any consumables like food, water, and fuel. Try to aim somewhere in the 20-25 pound range. Unsuccessful hikers often walk off the trail shouldering over 35 pounds. It’s not because they packed too many granola bars; it’s the shelter and sleep system you decided on before the hike even began.
Ultralight backpackers chase a sub-10 pound base weight, and that is going to cost you. But whether you want to go that far or not, the logic still holds. Tackle the heaviest categories first.
Volume is the other problem
Weight and volume are not interchangeable concepts and when you treat them as such you make packing decisions that will leave you suffering. A dense, heavy bag being pushed into a small volume won’t save you any weight, but it will save you a LOT of space. A loose, bulky synthetic layer can make a bag feel unmanageably heavy.
It’s not just that you’re a whiner. When you’re packing, try to put the heaviest stuff as close as possible to your spine, and as centered vertically. This isn’t some ergonomic preference of some super-long-distance obsessed hiker, this universally applies. It shifts your center of gravity in a way that also massively reduces strain on your lower back over long distances. Then put most of it on your hips, not your shoulders. Adjust your load lifters to suit after loading up. And seriously, color-coded dry bags by category mean you’re not unpacking everything to find your headlamp at 6am. Organization prevents the full gear explosion that adds ten minutes to every camp setup and makes you feel like your pack is harder to manage than it actually is.
Evaluating electronics honestly
Electronics are the category where the “ounce-to-utility” ratio breaks down first and fastest. You’ll haul a heavy external battery bank for your phone and often additional batteries because said phone and tablet function as maps, entertainment, work, and encyclopedias. You’ll carry them even though you might only check them out of compulsion, because checking your work email from a tent on the Arctic ocean coast is a terrible old joke you can’t seem to drop, and because you need a camera, even though the phone is right there. You throw in a separate headlamp and a lantern, nevermind that one multi-mode tool could perform both those functions.
Flashlights, for example, are not optional gear — but not just any flashlight will do. A high-lumen, multi-mode light that functions as both a handheld torch and a headlamp (meaning you can go hands-free while still illuminating wherever your focus is pointed) can cover both your camp and trekking light needs without doubling up on weight. Add the fact that unlike headlamps, it’s much harder for something hanging off your pocket to slip off in a high wind, or to get knocked off and sink into a snowdrift on your back when you don’t notice the loss, and you’ve found an option that is safety-and-wallet-efficient for any trek.
The way to determine this with electronics is to take the total lumen output of the flashlight and divide it by the total battery lifespan to get an indication of how many lumens you get per hour of battery life. A good flashlight will have the brightness for the situations where you need it but will run on very low output for tasks like reading to prolong that battery life when you don’t.
Calories per ounce: the underrated metric
Planning your meals is as important as choosing your gear carefully. If you aim for 125 to 150 calories per ounce, you’ll have a better chance of keeping your pack light without running out of gas on that last push up a mesa. Nuts and nut butters, for example, land solidly within that zone, but a good peanut butter wrap can hardly be called gourmet dining.
Fresh fruit and veg, and canned goods, on the other hand, are much less efficient energy sources on the trail. They are filled with water – and water is heavy and not energy-dense. For a backpack trip, keep that sort of stuff limited.
The shakedown hike
Before you embark on any kind of trip, plan a warm-up hike first. That can be a short overnight hike or just a day trip where you carry all your gear. The items you believe will be useful and the items you actually find yourself using are usually completely different.
These short trips can also help you identify which gear can serve multiple purposes. If you find that an item can be used effectively in more than one way, then it is worth carrying. But if an item can only perform one task and it doesn’t do it exceptionally well, maybe rethink bringing it along.
Finally, pack for the trip you are actually going on. Not the hardest, most remote, most dangerous version your imagination can come up with. Embrace the difference between “in case” and “if”. A survival kit for a day hike will be very small indeed.