Comfortable and safe are vital! Anyone can go out into the mountains with a tiny amount of gear and suffer — you need to be warm, well-fed and ready to deal with safety issues. Ultralight camping should be delightful, not stressful. The challenge is to succeed with only the gear that’s absolutely needed.
The first-aid kit is a good metaphor for your lightweight camping mind-set. It would be foolish to travel without one, right? But what is truly required? What can you effectively improvise? There is a blurry line between TOO heavy and TOO light. You can still go out in the backcountry with a very light pack and be comfortable and safe (see tip 55).
Excerpt from Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips by Mike Clelland
Mine comes in at about 250g fully loaded, which will suffice for two people for three days of harsh luck. I could probably still reduce it a bit but I also don’t want to think too hard about modifying it when we hike with friends; and I have given stuff away on the trail before.
As always Andrew Skurka has a well-researched and reasonable take on first aid kits, it’s the one thing he refuses to list a weight for.
Same here! I’ve given away leukotape, ibuprofen, ibuprofen PM, floss and needle and repair tape and gotten ibuprofen donated to me when I was suffering in the Sierra.
hmmmm. I should probably get some decent tweezers and scissors. I also need to replace my benadryl. It got wet and I never refilled it.
Thank you for posting this list. I’m comforted to know that I was already doing most of what was listed here, but worried that I left out a few essentials.