Ultra-Efficient - Pathway to Ultralight

How many pieces of kit do you carry that are heavier than they need to be simply because the lighter version doesn't work very well? How many pieces of kit do you carry to make up for deficiencies in other pieces of kit? How many pieces of kit do you carry that are designed heavy through lack of thought?

How much 'just in case' kit do you carry. Crampons are not going to be needed on a beech holiday and yet many hikers do make similar decisions.

I want to open with a single idea for kit. If you are aware of your kit when wearing or using it then there is a good chance that it is not working very well. Your body will bring to your attention everything that is causing it distress - throwing it out of balance either physically or in terms of wear and tear.

If your pack feels uncomfortable when you are wearing it then it means that your body is having to over-adapt to carry it. If your feet are getting blisters then it suggests that your feet are being used in a way that is different to normal and they are not happy. Perhaps they are cramped. Perhaps they are too hot. Perhaps they are being pushed around differently because load transfer is different. Blisters are a sign that something is different - and not in a good way.

Tarps vs. Tents

I'll start with a big one. Conventional wisdom says that a tarp is always lighter than a tent. Unfortunately it's not true. The only way that a tarp can be lighter than a tent if it uses less fabric and/or it uses lighter fabric.

Fabric is not the only part of the equation. How many tent pegs does it need? How many poles does it need? How heavy are the poles? What is the TOTAL weight required to build a weatherproof shelter.

Let's look at the case for the typical UL hiker - solo and self-sufficient. For argument's sake I am going to assume that said hiker - PackMan is not carrying trekking poles (this gets a separate posting) and so poles or trees will be needed.

A typical tarp for a solo hiker is 2.5m x 1.8m and to pitch it in a weather-worthy state will require two poles (or trees) and maybe 8 tent pegs plus guys.

The fabric is a large square because it needs overlap along every edge to give resistance against driving rain. Any gains from lightness in fabric is lost by the requirement to have extra volume of fabric.

Now let's taper the tarp a little. Feet need less space than the head and so we can slice of two large triangles. Now the tarp is a little lighter and no less functional.

Now there is some driving rain. We need to pitch the tarp to prevent this. The tarp ends up very low.

Let's look at an alternative. Let's block off the rear of the tarp with a triangle of fabric. This stops the driving rain. Suddenly there is half a metre of extra dry space under the tarp.

What about the wind moving around and rain driving in at the front? Well, why not just put a fabric triangle accross the front? Again, this saves a little more fabric.

We now have something that looks strangely like a single-skin tent. I've built a single-skin tent out of the same fabric as a 2.5x1.8m tarp. The tent was 50g lighter!!!

What about condensation? Well, if the tent is pitched high off the ground there is no problem. Airflow works - almost as well as an open tarp.

What about the poles? Well, if we design the tent to use internal poles then the poles can be shorter than the equivalent tarp poles and so will weigh less.

What about pegs? It'll be about the same. An A-frame tarp and and A-frame tent use the same number of pegs.

What about usable space? Here it varies. When no rain is expected or there is only light rain and little wind then a tarp can be pitched wide and flat - because it's not doing anything. However, when the storm comes in and the tarp has to be pitched low then all that space disappears and the tent had more space.

This diagram shows how much tarp fabric is needed to stop driving rain from the ends fo the tarp. A simple triangle on the end of the tarp allows much greater use of space - and the use of a smaller tarp.

Now let's look at driving rain from the side:

From this it should be clear that driving rain can reduce the usable area under a tarp. A Bathtub floor regains that area by blocking most driving rain. A Bivy bag would do this as well of course but a bivy bag by definition uses more fabric - because it has a top and a bathtub floor does not.

A typical tarp setup requires a bivy bag. The bivy bag is required because a small tarp is not very good at keeping the weather out. A typical pertex bivy bag weights 200g. An SUL one weighs maybe 150g.

What if the tarp did it's job and kept the weather out, could you ditch the bivy completely? What if the tarp kept most of the weather out, could you ditch half the bivy?

The typical issue for a tarp (and a tent that is not pitched low) is rain going under the side of the tarp - driving rain. A bivy is a heavy solution for this problem.

The problem is rain from the sides of the tarp and not from above - so no cover is needed above. The simple answer is a bathtub floor. In SilNylon this will weigh in at under 150g for a generous and tough amount of floorpsace. The sides of the bathtub are high enough at just 5cm to stop almost all the driving rain - when

Do you put a Tyvek sheet under your UL bivy bag? How much does that weigh? 50g? 100g? Why not just buy or make a bivy bag with a stronger floor and save weight and hastle! The Tyvek is solving a problem - your bivy bag is not tough enough. In solving the wrong problem you add weight.

You might argue that a poncho tarp requires a bivy bag. In fact it's not true. I've used a poncho tarp (with one end closed off) very successfully in rainy weather with just a bathtub floor. The floor does it's job and fabric is only where it's needed. In fairness a bathtub floor does require pegging out but a 1g Ti stake will do that (just). A 3g one will be even better.

On-Trail Pack Design

To hike efficiently you need everything for your daily walk to be easily available. The daily essentials are food, water, navigation and rainwear probably in that order.

A bladder (no padding) will mean tha water is always available to you without stopping. Suitlable pockets on your pack or a front chest pouch will ensure that you can have raingear and navigation aids to hand - without needing to remove your pack.

How heavy is your pack? How well does it carry a load? Does it try to throw you off balance? Does it get stuck on things? Does it let your gear get wet?

Without breaking into a sweat it is quite easy to make a pack that weighs less than 500g for a 40L pack - it probably won't last 20 years and you cannot use it as a football. Can you live with that?

What is an effiicent shape for a pack? Is a frame worth its weight in gold? Does your pack shape make your load feel heavier or lighter?

Many packs are designed for fashion - for the latest look, for what people expect to see. Teardrop and pear-shaped packs seem fashionable at the moment - but are they efficient?

Many ultralight packs seem only designed for average or minimal and not peak loads. If your peak load is 20lb and your average load is 15lbs then that means that a lot of time is going to be spent carrying 15-20lbs. Why not buy or make a pack that will handle 20lbs comfortably? It's easy to design a pack to carry 10lbs. Much less so for 20lbs. What if your pack made 20lbs feel like 10lbs? What would that be worth to you?

This is an old army pack. It weighs 5lbs but makes your load very light. Does that justify the extra weight?

What if you could copy this pack. What if the result weighed just 1lb? Would that be worthwhile?

Footwear

Do you wear boots? Trainers? Sandals? Barefoot? What dictates your choice of footwear? Boots are probably still the popular choice.

What is it that boots bring to the party? Do they support the ankles? Do they give better grip? Do they help the foot to carry the extra loads?

I'd like to suggest that in fact what boots do most of the time is to try and compensate for the fact that your pack has moved your centre-of-gravity in such a way that you are off-balance. Each ankle every day ever alternate step will happily support your entire body weight over just about any terrain. Why does it struggle when you strap a pack on your back?

The maximum load that I carry is less than 10% of my bodyweight. Why should it make much of a difference? 3 bags of shopping will easily weigh 20lbs and yet I don't put on special shoes to go shopping.

What if you carried your load in such a way that the need for special footwear was eliminated? Trail-running shoes - even the heavy ones will still weigh a 1/3 less than a light boot. It might not seem a lot.

Why not try an experiment? Take a metre of cord and tie a boot on the end of it and swing it around like a pendulum. Now do the same thing with a trainer. How big a difference is there in the amount of force generated?

Remember the length from your hips to the ground will be about a metre. Every time that you swing your leg you are swinging and then stopping that extra weight. It makes a difference.

There is however no point in no longer wearing boots unless you have eliminated the need for boots. If your pack made no difference to the biomechanics of how you moved then there would be no need for special footwear.

Trekking Poles

The use of Trekking poles seems endemic in the hiking community. The lighest pole that you can buy weighs 100g. The heaviest close to 300g. Why do you need one or two poles?

For balance? For efficiency? As tent poles? For sword fighting?

I'd like to suggest that most healthy people who use trekking poles are doing so in order to correct problems of imbalance caused by load-carrying issues. No army in the world issues trekking poles to its soldiers outside of artic terrains. Sherpas don't use trekking poles. Trekking poles are generally just hiding a problem that lies elsewhere.

I do own a trekking pole. It goes out with me rarely on trips - even when I'm carrying a full pack. I've found through lots of experiments that if I get the pack to carry right then the need for compensatory things like boots and trekking poles disappear. It's all weight saved.

Warmwear

I used to carry a spare wicking T-shirt. I carried a spare one because after 2-3 days it would stink. What if it didn't stink? I've been trying Merino wool as a baselayer. I've worn the same T every day for over a week now - including two days of walking. It still smells fresh. It weighs less than the T it replaces and it means that I can leave a spare at home. The Icebreaker 150 T cost me about twice what I paid for a synthetic one but because I only need one it is effectively half the weight - that's 160g saved for not much money.

Waterproofs

What waterproof gear do you carry? How comfortable is it? How heavy is it? Does it work? Do you need it at all?

For the last year or so I've been using a Montane Windproof Smock for most weather conditions. It's OK for all but persistent rain. Even then, sometimes it feels more comfortable to become slowly warm and damp than it does to put on a full waterproof.

The human body is pretty waterproof and so the real issue with rain is whether or not you will lose efficiency if you become wet - by becoming too cold.

I do own and carry a Montane 200 Jacket for really wet weather but I wonder if something simpler and lighter would work better.

What about your legs? They are the engine of your walking and so need to be kept working at peak efficiency. I've found the best way to achieve this is by use of a waterproof kilt. This keeps your legs free to move, well ventillated and dry. If your legs get cold and wet their efficiency takes a dive.

BUT, what if the clothes that you wore were relativelty water resistant and most of the time it was safe to be wet and comfortable to be wet. Could you just ditch the waterproofs and save weight. Even the lightest set is still the best part of 400g.

Navigation

Do you carry a GPS? Why? Can you use a compass? Can you navigate? Many trails are well marked - even a map might be overkill. Other trails or off-trail routes might be poorly marked. Even so, most of the time a GPS is a heavy luxury item. You can learn zero-visibility navigation and it weighs nothing.

I do sometimes carry a GPS. It tends to be when I know I'm going to be walking at night on trails I am not familiar with - especially in mountainous areas. Here the GPS gives me a bit of extra safety - to make up for the difficulty of landmarks at night.

Remember, a typical GPS is 150g. 150g is the weight of a stove and fuel for a week....

Physical Fitness - Core Stability

Many trails are pretty smooth affairs. Some are muddy. Some are rocky. Mostly though they shouldn't require any special techniques - it's not like mountain climbing.

However, what often happens is that someone with a pack on their back can be very unsteady over even slightly uneven ground. What's going on?

There are typically two things:

1. The pack is throwing them off balance - so the body is already working hard even on steady ground.

2. Most people are not very balanced when they walk normally. For most people walking is a controlled falling over - and a pack just makes that worse.

I never realised that I didn't have a sense of balance until I found it! After several years of doing Kung Fu and a little Yoga and Judo I began to have a proper feeling for what balance was. How I walked changed. I was no longer continually falling over. Instead I was flowing forward. The big difference was that there was never a point in my stride where I was off balance. If someone changed diretion in front of me or stopped I could stop - even with a foot in mid-stride.

By learning where natural balance was for walking I could reach an understanding of how to maintain it whilst hiking and how the pack was hindering that.

More than big boots or trekking poles something like Yoga or Pilates will help to strengthen the muscles that control balance and help you to understand what balance is. There is no reason why you should not be able to do Yoga with a backpack on!!!!!

In fact, one way that I have tested whether or not a pack is working efficiently is to try and do a Warrior 3 Yoga pose whilst wearing a 20lb pack. I figure that if the pack is carrying the load in a way that doesn't affect my balance then it should be possible. It's a great eye-opener!!!!

Summary - efficiency saves weight

A lot of kit that is carried - big boots, trekking poles, GPS, uber-tough waterproofs, fleeces and so on are carried to make up for defficiencies in other pieces of kit or lack of outdoor skills. If you eliminate the reason for the item you can eliminate the item and save weight.

Ultralight kit should be both more efficient and more comfortable than heavy kit. If it is not then something is still amiss. Weight is saved by leaving behind things that you no longer need and having pieces of kit that work and work together.

A lightweight pack that carries well will be fine with lightweight boots or trail-running shoes.

If my pack is doing its job then I can move at the same speed over terrain as if I wasn't carrying a pack. My energy expenditure should be similar to. Remember, althogh a pack may add 10% to my bodyweight it is dead-weight - it does not have to be fed and watered like the rest of my body.