THE BACKPACKING ESSENTIALS
The items that are considered essential for backpacking, which are often the heaviest, are the core items found in your backpack. If you don’t have the budget for these expensive items initially, it is completely acceptable to begin with cheaper equipment and gradually upgrade to a more efficient and lighter kit as you gain experience as a backpacker.
When considering each step, remember that investing a bit in these items will have the greatest impact on reducing the weight of your backpacking pack. It’s truly astonishing how lightweight gear has become nowadays! And my acquaintances, it is genuinely worth the cost.
The Granite Gear Blaze 60L is another excellent backpack choice. This pack is lightweight and highly adjustable. I purchased it specifically for our JMT thru-hike and found it to be superb throughout the weeks we spent on the trail.
I always recommend bringing a map of some sort on your backpacking trip. Either you can find one online that describes the area you will be hiking in, or you can create one online with CalTOPO or GAIA GPS. For paper maps, I love National Geographic, and it can be nice to have a physical map along with your GPS.
Backpacking Tent
When choosing a tent, it is important to consider a few key factors in addition to the obvious ones such as floor size, weight, and price. These include ease of setup and the overall comfort of the tent (I realized the true comfort of our tent only after experiencing a week-long backpacking trip in rainy weather during our honeymoon!). This encompasses aspects like the height of the tent, available interior pockets, ventilation, and space for storing your gear.
Here are several choices to contemplate:
The Zpacks Plex Solo or Duplex is an ultralight pick for those looking for a lightweight tent. These tents are widely seen on the JMT, possibly due to their low weight. Both versions of the tent, whether solo or two-person, are made from Dyneema composite fabric and weigh 13.9oz and 18.5oz respectively. To set up, they rely on trekking poles and stakes to maintain their lightweight design. It’s important to mention that this tent is quite expensive, but if you want the best ultralight option, it’s hard to find anything better.
The best freestanding option is the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL. This tent offers ample interior space and can be set up fly first. However, its freestanding nature adds some weight, with the UL1 weighing just over 2 lbs and the UL2 weighing 2.7 lbs. Both the 1 and 2-person versions feature “awnings” that can be set up with trekking poles to provide shade or light weather protection. Additionally, the 2-person version includes two doors to avoid disturbing your tent mate during the night.
Included in our packs is the Big Agnes Tigerwall UL, which is a suitable choice for those who prefer a double-walled tent and are indifferent to it being semi-freestanding, requiring a few stakes to set up. It offers the advantage of being able to be set up fly-first, which is beneficial during rainy conditions. Weighing just over 2 lbs, the Tigerwall UL2 is also $100 less expensive than the Copper Spur UL2.
The REI Passage, our budget pick, weighs approximately 4 lbs, making it not particularly lightweight. However, it stands out for its unbeatable price of only $139 for the one-person version. This tent is freestanding and simple to set up, featuring a double-wall design, a footprint, a spacious vestibule, and interior pockets to keep your gear organized.
Sleeping Bag
After a long day of hiking, there is nothing better than snuggling into a warm, soft sleeping bag. When purchasing a sleeping bag, you will come across numerous temperature ratings.
When it comes to temperature ratings, a general guideline is that the listed rating indicates the survival temperature. However, if you prefer to feel comfortable, especially if you tend to feel colder while sleeping, it is recommended to increase the temperature by approximately 15F.
For those interested in reducing weight, another possibility is using a sleeping quilt or a hybrid quilt/bag. This particular design does away with the down on the bag’s bottom, which tends to get compressed and lose its insulating quality due to your body weight.
Here are some options to consider when thinking about backpacking sleeping bags and quilts.
The REI Magma is an excellent choice for a lightweight sleeping bag. It is available in two temperature ratings, 15F and 30F, for both men and women. The men’s 15F version weighs less than 2 lbs, while the women’s 15F version weighs slightly over 2 lbs. This makes them quite lightweight considering the level of warmth they offer. Additionally, the 30F bags weigh less than 1.5 lbs each.
The Zpacks Classic is the best hybrid quilt/bag in terms of ultralightness. It is a sleeping bag that combines the features of a bag and a quilt. It has an excellent warmth-to-weight ratio and is available in temperature ratings of 30F, 20F, and 10F. The bag is filled with 900 fill power water-resistant down and has a 3/4 length zipper, which helps reduce weight and provides a snug sleeping experience. With weights ranging from .75lb-1.5lb, these bags are truly ultralight and vary depending on the temperature rating and length.
The Marmot Trestles Elite Eco is the best synthetic bag because it is lightweight and affordable. However, synthetic bags are not as compact as down bags, so they may not be suitable for smaller backpacks. Nevertheless, if you want to steer clear of animal products, this bag is a great option.
The Kelty Cosmic 20 is a budget down bag that effectively balances price, weight, and warmth. The men’s version is priced below $200, while the women’s version is slightly over that amount. Both versions utilize water-resistant down. It is noteworthy that the women’s version is around a pound heavier but offers a comfortable temperature rating that is 10F warmer and a lower limit tested temperature rating.
