How to lighten the weight of your mountaineering backpack

Carrying a ultra light backpack for hiking or camping has many advantages, here are some of the best ways to get the most out of it. tips to lighten your backpackThe new technology will make your journey more comfortable, faster, and may even take you further, as well as helping to reduce the risk of aches and pains or other discomforts.

Today we are going to talk about, explain and give you some tips on how to reduce the weight of our backpacks, especially for hiking.

Why reduce weight (cons of a heavy backpack)

When we are talking about a trip lasting several days, the weight of our backpack is very important, as is wearing comfortable footwear and good planning.

If our backpack is too heavy, it will be more difficult for us to move, we will be less agile, faster, and we will be more likely to suffer injuries. All this can be an impediment to achieving our goal.

It is therefore very important to take this into account.

Before I explain and give you specific tips on how to carry a lighter backpack, here are a few things to keep in mind.

Percentages: weight of the rucksack based on body weight

Regarding the weight of our backpack, there are some percentages that are recommended based on our body weight.

• 10% of our body weight would be ideal. If we weigh 70kg, 7kg backpack would be ideal).
• 30% of our body weight would be the maximum we should carry. If we weigh 70kg, we should carry a maximum of 21kg backpack.

This is important to keep in mind in order to know what is our weight limit that we should not exceed.

Depends on the style and autonomy more or less weight

Depending on the style and philosophy we carry will affect the weight of our backpack.

It's not the same if we do a crossing that we go passing through guarded shelters where we are going to sleep. In this case, it is not necessary to bring equipment for the night (tent, mattress, or cooking (cooker, canister, cooking kit).

Otherwise, if we go as far as possible in autonomy (personally the way I like it best). We have to carry everything, we have to be totally self-sufficient. From shelter (tent, tarp); to spend the night (bag, mat); kitchen and food.

If we don't mind the style, we can afford it and the most important thing is to carry little weight, the first option is the ideal one.

Otherwise, if we want to be more self-sufficient and not depend on anything, we have to include it and manage that weight.

Base weight vs. actual or modified weight

In order to control the weight of your backpack, the following should be taken into account:

• Base weight: The weight of the backpack will always be the same, our material that we will carry all the route and will weigh the same (bag, tent, clothes, kitchen kit...) will be the minimum weight that we will always carry.
• Final weight/modifying: There are things that increase the weight, but they will vary along the route. Mainly food, water, gas from the canister, etc.

Reduce weight

We now move on to the section on how to reduce weight

Lightweight backpack

First of all the backpack. Make sure it is light without sacrificing comfort.

My example/experience:

I have two backpacks

• Mountaineering. Very light. To carry more or less 10kg or a little more (too much weight hurts due to lack of padding).
• Crossing. Heavier. Comfortable. For carrying a lot of weight (not so agile).

There are backpacks that are lighter but still very well padded and quite comfortable.

We won't go into too much detail about backpack choice, but it's important to keep it in mind. It is often overlooked, but the backpack itself is also a weight.

Weight per mm - Lighterpack

The biggest recommendation I can give you is to carry the weight to the mm.

Every single thing, every single gram, count it.

A tool that a colleague taught me and helped me a lot is the "lighterpack". It's a website where you can put all your material separated by categories and it helps you to control everything a lot more.

In addition, you can see in which category you are gaining the most weight (food, night, clothes...).

Packaging (food, toiletry bag)

Packaging, wrapping and sleeves add up to a weight, which even if it is minimal, it all counts.

For example, instead of carrying everything in a case, she carried her toothbrush, toothpaste and soap in a plastic bag in a small pocket in her backpack.

Food, cardboard and plastic wrappings are best disposed of at home (or when recharging just after leaving the supermarket). 

Tuna cans that come in cardboard... pasta, sausages and so on, I take the wrapping off and put them in separate zip bags. You can say that I change one bag for another but at least we don't generate waste when we are in the mountains because we reuse the zip bags.

Sleeping (mat only)

This is very personal, and depends on the individual and where and how well you are able to sleep comfortably or at least get enough rest to be able to perform well the next day.

I, in particular, preferred to do without the mat and just take the mat with me. This also allows me to set up and dismantle "the camp" more quickly.

I also know people who have done the GR11 with only the sleeping bag and the tent floor, without a mat or matting.

I used to need a mattress and a mat to sleep fairly well, but now I'm used to it and the mat is enough.

General weight of the material

This is very obvious, but if you really want to go light, when you are buying or renewing your equipment, look at the weight, compare it with other brands and see if it is worth buying the lighter one.

Minimum clothing

A The clothes can make our weight go up a little more.

Obviously, depending on the season, you will need to take more or less warm clothing and know how to play with it. In summer you may not need bivouac tights, but in winter they may be essential.

Apart from that, especially when it comes to changing clothes. I only carry one to change into. The one I put on and the other in my rucksack, either to use it as a spare change of clothes in the bag, or better to combine them and wash them when necessary.

I have come across people carrying a clean T-shirt for each day of the route. This is a mistake, as it is an unnecessary weight and we can perfectly well wash and dry the clothes along the route.

Electronics (solar panels, batteries, powerbank)

The whole issue of electronics can increase the weight quite a lot, even more if we go in autonomy as we will be carrying the solar panels (in my case, it is important when recording), powerbank to charge our electronic devices such as mobile phones, gps, watches, etc.

And me, plus all the recording equipment I usually take with me to record the adventure.

Unnecessary things (just in case)

Another detail to bear in mind is the things we carry "just in case", they seem silly and may help us at some point, but we must be realistic and control them.

Typical duct tape, some string paracordan excessively large first-aid kit...

We can take things of this type with us, as it is a good idea and can get us out of trouble, but without going overboard.

Personally, on my first hikes I carried up to 30m of paracord, now I only carry 3m and it is more than enough in case I have to make a "fix" somewhere.

Also in the first aid kit, for example, instead of carrying a whole pack of plasters, we can get by with 5 or so, and if necessary we can buy more in a village we pass through.

Sharing weight with a partner

If we go in company we can "share the weight" a little with our companion, making sure it is balanced.

We compare backpacks and check what each of us is carrying before the day we start our journey.

One can carry the tent, if we carry only one, and the other carries something else of equivalent weight.

Or material in the combined first aid kit so that there is little duplication.

In a nutshell

Knowing how to reduce the weight of the backpack is key, especially if we are talking about a trip lasting several days.

You have to find a balance between comfort and lightness. We should not carry so few things that we have a hard time due to lack of material, nor due to excess weight.

Knowing where to "invest" in carrying weight, and where we can skimp a little more.