[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.

[GuB-42]

To make it clear, I am not saying that solar panels don't work, of course they do. What I was questioning is using a solar panel over a power bank of the same weight.

A 20 Ah (77 Wh) power bank weight about the same as a 15W solar panel. That about 3 full (0-100%) charges on a typical smartphone. I think that would have kept your wife phone up the whole trip no problem, and no need to worry about the sun.

On a 11 day trek in the sun, yes, by all means take a solar panel. However, most people I know who do such long hikes usually have access to electricity at some point. But if it is not your case, well, you are the reason why these solar panels exist ;)

[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.