[Zanni]

Why your [ultra-light hiker] friend suddenly has [the world's lightest] power bank.

I remember Colin Fletcher, years ago, writing in The Complete Walker about trimming the borders off his paper maps to save weight, which seemed like an insane over-optimization to me. But then, I'm not an ultralight hiker.

I am impressed folks are getting their loads down to 10 pounds though.

[chrisweekly]

Tangent: as a web performance consultant, I've sometimes used "shaving down half the toothbrush handle while carrying a bowling ball in your backpack" as a metaphor for misguided performance optimization efforts.

[jancsika]

To turn it back around-- your entire codebase is on the hiker's back. They feel its aggregate weight with every step.

It's all literally in the hot path.

When bugs show up in the form of back pain, "pre-optimize everything" sounds like a sensible option to me.

[chrisweekly]

Ok, but I'd still say start with the low-hanging fruit.

[JohnFen]

That insane over-optimization is how folks are getting down to (and below) 10 pounds.

I'm not even remotely an ultralight backpacker, but I do count ounces (no matter what your weight limit is, you can't escape making tradeoffs to stay within it). Your hiking load is a great example of how quickly apparently insignificant quantities can add up. Saving fractions of an ounce multiple times gets you large savings far more quickly than you'd think.

[addaon]

I'm down to around 10 lb base load. And then I hike in the desert where I carry 5 - 7 liters of water (11 - 15 lbs). And food. Saving a pound here and there is totally worth it, but there's a large part of the country where prudent hiking means the majority of your weight is water.

[jeffbee]

If saving here and there is worth it, why would a hiker carry a 300g battery? Imagine the savings from leaving that boat anchor at home along with whatever obviously non-essential gadget wants to be recharged.

[addaon]

I don't carry a battery, but I do carry a solar panel that weighs around 300 g. I use my phone when backpacking as a GPS receiver, map, flashlight, and eBook reader. Phone + solar panel weighs less than paperback + paper map + flashlight, gives me more flexibility for adjusting plans, and doesn't leave me out of novel after a few days.

[GuB-42]

I have tried my luck with portable solar panels, and my conclusion is that in most cases, they suck.

For a solar panel to be useful you need:

- At least a few days without access to electricity, otherwise even at max power, you won't get as much charge as a similarly sized power bank

- Good sunlight, preferably in the summer (more daylight)

- No shade, which is the opposite of what you want in hot and sunny summer days

- Correct placement for your solar panel, for example, having it hanging from your backpack will only work if you have the sun in your back

- A large enough solar panel, these tiny panels you sometimes find on power banks are useless

- Compatible devices. Solar panels have a variable power output, not all devices support it, some of them just shut down charging. Your best bet is to use a compatible power bank, but that information is not often specified. Test it beforehand!

My experience with a solar panel is from two week-long music festivals in the summer, which would be almost ideal conditions. My experience was that over the course of a week, I got about the charge equivalent of a 10Ah battery from my solar panel (rated 10W, 300g), so about half the efficiency of that gummy bear battery, for the reasons cited earlier. Maybe I could have done better with a better panel and better planning, but I'd rather have a battery, much more convenient, and cheaper too. I want to enjoy the festival, not babysit my solar panel.

So I'd say you need at least a week without electricity in the best conditions to make a solar panel worth it, preferably more, which I believe is rather uncommon.

Also, I am talking about these portable <1kg solar panels. The large solar panels that go in your car/van are another story.

[dgacmu]

We did a five day backpacking trip this summer (in Wyoming, with lots of sun) and the solar was great. Kept my wife's iPhone at 80-100% for the trip (some idiot left the usb-c cable for his phone in the car) with mostly only using it after we reached camp. Decided that with two phones we had enough redundancy to leave the paper maps behind. And we used the phone a -lot- for taking photos in addition to navigation.

I've had trips where solar would have mostly failed - 11 days of nonstop rain on the Continental divide trail in Canada, to be specific - but solar has worked for me really well in CA, UT, WY, CO, etc. the places where solar would have failed were pretty obvious in advance, too.

And it doesn't take much direct sun on a 15 or 20W panel to keep two phones and a steripen charged if you're not being crazy with the use.

[addaon]

> So I'd say you need at least a week without electricity in the best conditions to make a solar panel worth it, preferably more, which I believe is rather uncommon.

That's basically my use case. I have a "15 W" panel. I can get about 5 days from my iPhone for navigation, and most of my trips are 5 - 7 days, so really it's opportunistic charging for reading on my phone after dinner. I can generally get an hour or so of reading from just hanging the panel off the back of my pack, and another two hours from setting it in the sun during my ~1 hour lunch break if it's not so hot out that nothing charges. 300 g for ~3 hours of reading at night, indefinitely, is a good trade for me.

[otoburb]

Assuming you could afford it, would the new iPhone Air be a consideration in your ultralight base load going forward?

[addaon]

Potentially? I have an iPhone 15 Pro now, which I got both because it was lighter than previous equivalents, and was the first (?) with direct-to-satellite, which I definitely value. I know I can get ~5 days of navigation (but not reading) out of it, which is one of the reasons I don't take a backup battery (the solar panel isn't a single point of failure; but of course the phone still is for nav, so still need a minimal paper map and a compass). I only spend a couple weeks a year backpacking so I wouldn't choose a phone purely based on that; but if I were in the market for an update this cycle I'd consider it.

Edit: Looks like the Air is 165 g, vs 187 g for the 15 Pro; not even an ounce difference. A bit more compared to the 17 Pro (206 g); but I probably just hold on until Russia collapses into a new metastable state and we can get bulk titanium again.

[dghlsakjg]

The battery allows you to bring a weight-saving device; your phone.

It can - within reason - replace maps, guidebooks, emergency satellite beacons, a camera, a secondary flashlight, etc.

You can, if you want, go out with your pockets stuffed with high calorie emergency rations and no pack at all. The weight savings will be tremendous, but at a certain point the tradeoff for weight over comfort and utility becomes too silly.

[eru]

Perhaps you save all the other grams, so you can 'afford' to bring the battery?

[prawn]

Others have already mentioned it, but once you move from pure survival to adventure/experience, carrying a way to take photos, map/GPS, read, maybe message your partner from a mountain-top, etc is part of that.

[calmoo]

Out of curiosity where in the desert do you hike and where would you recommend? I have a particular attraction to being in the American desert but never have hiked it properly.

[prawn]

Southern Utah gives you a huge bang for buck. And you can spread a little further to add fantastic stuff in surrounding states. I'm not American but have flown from Australia several times to hike in Utah and its neighbours.

In 10-14 days, you can do an exceptional loop from Las Vegas taking in:

  Bryce Canyon NP
  Byway 12
  Capitol Reef NP
  Goblin Valley
  Dead Horse Point SP
  Arches NP
  Canyonlands NP
  Goosenecks SP
  Horseshoe Bend
  Antelope Canyon
  Zion NP
  Valley of Fire SP

That's all very accessible (besides The Maze in Canyonlands, which is superb but takes 4x4 and/or solid hiking to get into).

Then when you go back, you can do places requiring a bit more planning like Coyote Gulch (amazing), Buckskin Gulch (also amazing), and secondary spots like Natural Bridges, SR 95, etc. Hundreds of great places in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc, and all before you get to adding anything more remote or long distance.

[dghlsakjg]

The "American desert" can refer to an absolutely huge portion of the continent, and many, many different ecosystems. Its a big enough area of land that it is like saying I like hiking in Europe.

I'm partial to Utah's canyonlands, and a lot of the adjacent pinyon forest (still desert) in Northern New Mexico and Colorado, but that's just where I grew up. The Saguaro forests in southern Arizona are also amazing.

If you've never been to the desert in America, a good plan would be to fly to LA, and drive to the Grand Canyon. You will pass through a number of very different desert ecosystems.

[addaon]

I live in southern Utah, between Zion, Bryce, and the Grand Canyon, right next to Escalante. There's plenty of stuff within a day's drive of here; previously mentioned, plus Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Arches, and all the state parks, national forests, etc.

[anonymars]

The topic reminds me of the .NET core peanut butter improvements:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/performance-improvemen...

[jfengel]

I'm surprised that the gram weenies are carrying a battery at all. Carrying a phone at all must be galling, but you really need it for emergencies (and final pickup).

[vasco]

Better not forget to take a shit in the morning ever, or all your efforts are wasted.

[matwood]

A guy I knew biked across part of Europe and borrowed a travel book of mine. He bought me a new one when he got back because he would tear out the pages of places he visited in order to lighten his load.

[int_19h]

There's a point past which it becomes a number game without any practical utility. But there's a lot of people (especially hereabouts!) that find this kind of thing very enticing. Think of min-maxing D&D builds... it's kind of like that, but your rulebook is basically physics.

[duxup]

I recall reading about mountain climbing and some experienced climber was joking about the folks who are all about the weight and gear and so forth. He didn't say it was unimportant, but he did say that everything that makes him better than the amateurs, or even amateurs better than other amateurs had nothing to do with gear or weight fixation.

It was the same thing when I got into photography. It's always easy to talk about the easily measurable things. This lens is better than that and so on. Gear is cool and fun...

But the old guy with the beat up camera and not optimal lens shooting next to me ... he will take better photos almost every single shot.

[heelix]

The trick to lighter packs for many was weighing everything. Not uncommon to break everything down by grams - which tells you what could be improved. No point in spending $50 on a .5oz spoon, if your pack is coming in at 4lbs. Does help optimize where things could be cut and where the faf is. Lets you focus on what you really want to bring in when you have a breakdown of everything you bring. I really like lighterpack.com for my trip planning.

Very easy to bring crap you don't need as well. Always surprised me how much an extra hoodie or something would add to what was on my back. Also there is a 'stupid' light, where shaving grams is silly. Was shrinking down my hammock tarp and discovered my setup was not great when the wind shifted direction.

When it comes to power bricks, smaller things like this is great for the normal laptop bag or purse. This is cheap enough that I'd send it off to be black holed with all the other bricks I lend my kid.

[JohnFen]

> Very easy to bring crap you don't need as well.

This is so true it's not even funny. I keep a spreadsheet for each trip, and among other things, I record which of the items I actually used on the trips. It was very surprising to me how many things I thought I used and therefore needed, but when reviewing the records, I never (or very rarely) actually used.

Those items get cut from future loads.

[SoftTalker]

I'm not a backpacker, but I presume there is stuff you normally don't use, but don't want to be without. Some amount of first-aid supplies, etc.

[strken]

For me, a not-particularly-lightweight hiker with a 10kg base weight, that list includes:

- a knife

- a first-aid kit with some niche stuff like big gauze pads, electrolytes, strapping tape, etc.

- quarter of a roll of toilet paper

- a compass and whistle

- a paper map

- spare laces

- 3L of water, unless water is guaranteed to be available (2L is more standard)

- spare calories in case I'm delayed

- emergency beacon (except my phone does this now)

I could sacrifice these and be fine most of the time, but I've needed nearly everything except the whistle, the full quarter-roll, and the emergency beacon.

[xarope]

I assume that quarter of a roll of TP has the cardboard inner taken out

Disclaimer: had to run an multi-stage ultra in the sahara, weighed everything, finished with 1xpacket of carbs+hydration that was right at the bottom of the bag, was upset with myself that I didn't use it for the last day. That's like almost 200 calories I could have used to keep myself warm at night (the desert gets cold at night).

[throwaway2037]

Are you (overnight) camping or only day hiking with all of this kit?

[strken]

Multiple nights, and often in less-travelled areas of Australia where there's no guarantee other people will find us if something goes wrong. It would be a bit insane carrying 10kg base weight on a day walk unless you had kids.

That weight is the maximum and (in addition to everything above) includes a 70L pack, tent, sleeping gear, poles, rain gear (the weather is treacherous here), a stove, thermals/scarf/beanie for the cold (some places in the Victorian Alps like to dump snow on you in the middle of summer), a hat and sunscreen, spare socks, a toothbrush that I haven't cut in half and toothpaste that hasn't been dried out, light source and batteries, water filter, battery pack on longer trips, dry bag if we're doing a deep river crossing, etc.

I take out what I won't need, swap in less rugged gear when there's lower risk, and usually end up somewhere between 6kg and 9kg base weight. I could probably shave off another kg or even two, but at some point I'd be sleeping under a tarp in Victoria's famously horizontal rain or ditching safety gear.

[stickfigure]

Not op but my backpacking (overnight) kit contains similar.

When people talk about "10 lb base loads" I assume they are talking about overnights? 10 lb base loads for day trips would not be impressive.

[prawn]

Sometimes also wet weather gear.

[adrianmonk]

Hmm, my records show I only used the bear spray on 1 out of 10 trips.

[heelix]

I do pack in a small med kit. Typically 3-4 Advil, a couple aspirin, tylenol, a tums, one anti-diarrhea, and one sudafed (meth grade). I also bring in a couple waterproof bandaids, a single serving antiseptic, and a small square of leukotape. Most of that never gets used, and is packed over and over. You can spot the med kit in this picture in a small pill pouch.

https://imgur.com/N5en41d

I'll pack in a second mini-bic. One that stays in my pocket, one for our group to constantly loose throughout the trip. Same for that extra TP packet. I'd rather have it with, then find myself in the woods running short. Got a whistle in there too that I don't think I've ever used on the trail.

Most of my hikes, I'll plan to be at the site before dark. I'll still bring a reasonable headlamp.

[JohnFen]

Yes, there are. Not many, but I take a first-aid kit, shortwave radio, and signalling devices (I tend to be in the wilderness far from civilization). I've never used them and hope that I never will.

I was talking about the other stuff.

[rconti]

Even on run of the mill international vacations, my wife and I always casually debrief on what we brought too much of, what we didn't use, etc. Traveling light is nice, even when you're not backpacking.

[prawn]

I'm very good at packing per my spreadsheet and then adding a few extra things at the trailhead because there's room. Mobile tripod, extra (heavy) pocket knife (just in case!), another paracord, etc.

[dreadnip]

I’ve met people on trail with 5-6 pound baseweights. Crazy world out there.

[WithinReason]

does that include food and water?

[cess11]

No, it's likely a bag, a hammock, a small gas bottle with burner and pot, and perhaps sleeping bag, tarp and some gadgets and eating utensils, plus an extra set of clothes. I.e. the core equipment you're going to reuse indefinitely. Perhaps they weigh in things like reusable bottles and the like too.

Personally I'm not into paying a premium for "ultralight" and similar so I might have misinterpreted something when glancing at people that seem to be. For me part of the hiking experience is getting used to carrying weight and living off equipment that would work in a crisis or adjacent to armed conflict, i.e. my basic gear clocks in at about twenty kilos or so, though that's enough to feed and 'house' about four people. Two field kitchens, teepee-style storage tent as well as a large pyramidal tent for sleeping, field spade, handheld radio units for the family/team, fishing equipment, &c. Usually I carry ~10 liters of water, a liter of ethanol, food, spare clothes and whatnot on top of it.

I find that lowering weight into the single digits doesn't give me that much extra range consistently over several days so I'd rather set up camp close to the area where I'd need it and leave some weight behind while I take on the more demanding trail or climb. At the end of the day it's going to be an endurance activity rather than a sprint anyway, at least for a non-athletic button pusher in his forties, like me.

Clearly people that mostly roam areas close to cities or that have joint issues or similar would have reason to make other decisions.

[JohnFen]

With ultralighters, food and water aren't usually counted in the weight.

I'm no ultralighter, but I rarely carry water aside from a 16oz bag to sip on while I'm heading towards my destination. Water is crazy heavy. I make sure that the route I'm taking, and my destination, have water nearby that I filter and drink.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain.

[lightedman]

Pain equals gain.

Most ultralight hikers optimize for low weight, I optimize for low weight and maximum leftover space to haul a ton of weight back.

https://imgur.com/a/ezPqNG1

Cuz trust me, you don't wanna leave that behind when you find it.

[bluGill]

Leave only footprints, take only pictures! Leave no trace. Everything you take is stolen from the next.

[zparky]

yours will be an unpopular view, for good reason. however it is funny imagining you hiking back with a backpack full of stolen rocks.

[OkayPhysicist]

To clarify, it depends on where you are. In the US, federal land comes in different tiers of protection. National Parks are tourist destinations, generally requiring you to stay on trail, take nothing, leave nothing, etc. National Wilderness Areas allow you off trail, but no motor vehicles. National Forests allow a pretty varied level of recreational usage, often including non-commercial rockhounding, and may allow off-road vehicles (depends on the forest), and then Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land is basically a free-for-all, allowing pretty much any recreational activity and even commercial activity with the appropriate permits.

Out here in the west, you'll find a LOT of land in all 4 categories, not to mention state-level parks, which at least here in California allow some rockhounding near streams and beaches.

[lightedman]

Stolen? I have mining claims. What's stolen? To boot, these are in areas nobody hikes because it's too dangerous for hikers. These are in actual mining districts.

[steve_adams_86]

Is it really so bad? My son and I have hiked out to fairly remote places and dug up some rocks to find fossils. I know there are more there and very few people are likely to visit the spot, let alone to find fossils in the dirt. We leave very little trace at all. Is this actually frowned upon?

[binary132]

I mean, maybe that makes sense if you carry 50+ pages of maps, but carrying a whole book of maps on a single expedition doesn’t.

[JohnFen]

Paper is very heavy. Even if you just carry a single map, you could likely save much of an ounce by trimming the borders.

[eru]

If you are bringing your phone anyway, might as well use that for your mapping needs?

You can have a backup paper map inked on your skin.

[JohnFen]

I like to keep my orientering skills sharp, so use a compass and map to navigate. I take my phone with me and it can serve as backup navigation, but I usually just keep it powered off and sealed in a waterproof bag.

[prawn]

I have previously wondered about printed handkerchiefs and bandanas that functioned as backup maps. Invest in my kickstarter!

[heelix]

https://truenorthmapco.com True North makes a great bandana sized map of the BWCA areas.

[eru]

That's a great idea!

(Mildly amusing, I first read 'printed handkerchiefs and bananas'. Like paint your map on the skin of your apple, or the shell of your hardboiled eggs.)

[int_19h]

And then there are things such as maps printed on silk...

[eichin]

... and tyvek (no idea if that wins on weight, but they're disproportionately durable)