One of the most frequent questions we receive is: How much should my backpack weigh? Many factors influence the determination of the weight of the backpack, which makes it difficult to give an exact weight recommendation for each person. To answer this question we are going to talk to you from our personal experience and our professional training.
Backpack for trekking and hiking
To define the weight of a trekking or hiking backpack, we can use these basic and very general guidelines:
- A loaded backpack should not weigh more than 20% of your body weight.
- A day hiking backpack should weigh no more than 10% of your body weight.
Using body weight percentages as a guide will help you keep your pack at a manageable weight adapted to your own capacity. But it doesn’t work in all situations, small people often end up carrying more than 20% of their weight, and activities that require technical equipment can significantly influence the equation. Now, there are factors external to our body that play an important role in the total weight of the mochi:
- Trip length: the longer your trip, the more food, water and fuel you will need to carry, which of course adds weight to your pack. Even on multi-day itineraries, you’ll want your pack to be close to 20% of your body weight, so we need to be careful with the gear and clothing we carry to compensate for all that extra weight.
- Season / weather: if you are going out in cold temperatures, you will need warmer and heavier clothing and equipment than if you were trekking in sunny summer weather.
- Personal preferences: Some people value comfort in camp and are willing to accept the inherent weight that comes with carrying“luxuries” such as a hammock, extra clothing, or an inflatable mattress. Others are fine with wearing the same clothes for days and sleeping on an ultra-light insulator.
It is not easy, especially when we are just taking our first steps, to know how to reduce the weight of our backpack.
Y… How do we reduce weight?
Most adventurers find value in carrying less weight: it helps to travel faster, farther and more comfortably. When choosing what to carry in the backpack it is essential not to compromise our well-being, a first aid kit is a good example of an item that we do not have to leave at home to reduce weight. Certainly, we can choose lighter versions of these items, but do not omit them altogether. It is also important to think about our adventure partners and not rely on them for extra food or an extra layer of warmth. Having said that, here are some suggestions: Know your base weight: Base weight is how much your loaded pack weighs, minus “consumables” such as food, water and fuel. Those amounts vary from trip to trip and will decrease throughout the trip as we eat, drink and cook. But everything else that goes in the backpack, such as the tent, sleeping bag, heater and kettle, clothing…, will not change much from trip to trip. Knowing our base weight provides us with a constant number to work on to reduce weight. “Generally” you are considered ultralight ($$$) if your base weight is less than 4.5 kg and light ($$$) if your base weight is less than 9 kg. Most of us mortals ($$) have a base weight of less than 13 kg. Weigh your equipment (for obsessives only): Use a kitchen scale and/or luggage scale to weigh all your current gear – this includes everything from your thermal interiors to the tent separated by poles, body and over-roof. Recording weights on a spreadsheet is useful for comparing items when planning, it even allows us to try different base weight configurations depending on the needs of each outing, a backpack for a high altitude expedition may involve a very different base weight to the trekking and hiking backpacks described above. Over the years you’ll probably have a handful of items for similar uses, such as two down jackets, and knowing the exact weight of each thing can help you decide which to take and which to leave behind. The Big 3: Most of the base weight of the pack is in: the pack itself, the sleeping bag, and the tent. These three fundamental pieces of our equipment are usually expensive, paying special attention to the features offered by each brand and model will help us to find the best equation between weight, our needs and our budget.
A great resource for comparing and reading reliable equipment reviews that I frequently use is www.outdoorgearlab.com.
Plan your meals: Who hasn’t run off to the mountains and grabbed a pile of food before heading out the door? It’s the best way to end up with back pain. Taking the time to plan your menu will prevent an unreasonable amount of food from ending up in your backpack. A reasonable target is 700 gr to 1.1 kg of food (or 2500 to 4500 calories) per person per day, depending on your size, weight and the level of effort to be made. It is advisable to carry a little extra food. Re-pack: Do we need a giant tube of toothpaste for a weekend trip? What about the cardboard box of ready rice we eat upstairs? Repacking is an easy way to save weight. Small reusable travel packs can be used for toothpaste and sunscreen. As for food, instead of carrying the original packaging with all the contents, it can be divided according to what we need in Ziploc-type bags, they are small, simple, lightweight and reusable. Freeze-dried food should not be repackaged and should be transported as it comes. Finally, we can dispense with individual packs or complementary items of our equipment that add unnecessary weight to the backpack. These objects are, for example, the bag to store the tent or the stakes, if we know beforehand that we are not going to use them. Create the equipment list for your trip: C
aving a gear list when you are setting up your mochi helps you to take only what you really need and not forget anything. We should avoid carrying single-use items, for example an inflatable pillow. We can easily use our warm jacket to achieve the same comfort without increasing the weight.
To assemble the mochi!
No matter how light your gear is, cramming things into your pack haphazardly or leaving items “dangling” on the outside is likely to result in an awkward and unstable load. There is a method for keeping your pack balanced and secure, but that’s the subject of another article: Assembling your backpack.
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