I had, as you will remember from the last post, a goal for my base weight. That goal, as of last night, is now completely out the window. My goal was a base weight of 15 pounds, which was foolishly inspired by some of the ultralight hikers on postholer.com's sample gear page. Imagine my surprise, then, when my pack weighed in at 25.8 pounds! And to make matters worse, that still does not include the snow gaiters, cash and documents, a bandana, and the phone, none of which I have gotten together yet.
After having a minor panic attack I looked on the bright side. In fairness, this is a skin-out weight, meaning it includes the clothing I will be wearing (which some hikers don't even include in their base weight). It also includes items that I will be using for small sections of the trail and then sending home. Most notably this would be the bear canister, required in parts of the Sierras, and the ice axe for early on in the high Sierras. These two items alone represent 2.6 pounds, which leaves a base weight of 23.2 pounds after they are factored out. Add in the items that have yet to be rounded up and I am at about 24.5 pounds. I had to remind myself that on solo trips in the past I have grow accustomed to hauling 40 to 45 pounds for a 5 or 6 day trip.
I spent the evening re-evaluating my gear and making cuts where possible. I reduced my med kit and duct tape supply by half, figuring on supplementing with resupply boxes or buying in towns. I also removed my lighter, deciding to rely solely on matches, took out the thermal shirt (which was bulky, heavy, and ultimately not necessary) and eliminated the foldable bucket. This last piece of gear was really a luxury item anyway, and probably won't be missed. I also removed the stuff sack from the cookpot, and cut some extra holes in the water shoes. There are also some weight reduction measure that I haven't taken yet, mostly regarding my pack. I had planned on cutting excess straps and gutting the lid/waist pack. I haven't done this yet because I am loathe to permanently reduce the functionality of the pack until I am absolutely sure this trip is a go. Even then, I am still debating the cost of a few ounces versus the flexibility I would have with the extra strapping.
I haven't completed another weigh-in after all the reduction efforts I made. At this point I might as well wait until i have the last bits of gear on hand so as to be as accurate as possible. Hopefully, though, the base weight has been cut by another pound or so. That would leave me at an estimated 23.5 pound final base weight. If I increase my max weight to 40 pounds, and reduce my daily meals to 2, I would still get 8 days between resupply points. I also went back to postholer.com and was comforted to realize that many people run in the high 20's for their base weight. Furthermore, many of the lighter base weights are the result of hikers filling in their weights incorrectly, failing to account for the weight of a large chunk of their gear, or from couples hiking the trail together and sharing gear.
I took a random sampling of ten hikers and looked at their base weights, here are the results:
Weight: 11.0 12.2 13.8 16.1 16.7 20.1 23.0 26.2 28.2 29.2
Mean: 19.65
Median: 18.4
Standard Deviation: 6.36
