Measuring backpack contents

How can we go light weight?

It is essential when backpacking to determine the best pack weight you should be carrying comfortably on your back. Pack weight will vary from season to season. Again I emphasize that you should strive to obtain the lightest pack weight possible and to maintain as much comfort as you can while hiking. I am older and I need to keep any extra weight off of my knees to keep from injuring them. Many people feel comfortable with 50 to 60 pound packs. But for the most part I have seen an abundance of extra hiking gear left in shelters to lighten distance hikers packs. I have determined that you should weigh every item that goes into the pack and on your body to get the lightest load possible. In this blog you will see the measuring scales I use and the units of measure that I believe are most accurate.

In order to get an accurate measure of the weight that you are carrying in your pack and on your body you must be able to accurately measure all gear.

I measure heavy gear on a larger scale purchased from Bass Pro Shop that measures gear from 0 to 44 pounds or 0 to 20 kilograms.

To weigh the lighter smaller items I use the Weight Watchers scale. With just a push of the button on the top you can toggle from ounces/pounds to grams/kilograms.

Weight Watchers scale

You must first decide which type of measurement you are going to use to measure your gear. Do you want to use tenths of an ounce, ounces and pounds or do you want to use grams and kilograms. I prefer to use grams and kilograms. The metric system is based on a scale of ten and it contains units (decigram, centigram, milligram) that are units of measure smaller than an ounce. Many pieces of gear may weigh less than a tenth of an ounce but combined with other like items can have a significant cumulative weight.

Weights and Measures

Kilogram 1,000 grams kg

Hectogram 100 grams hg

Decagram 10 grams dag

Gram 1 gram g

Decigram 0.1 grams 1/10 gram dg

Centigram 0.01 grams 1/100 cg

Milligram 0.001 gram 1/1000 mg

1 gram is equal to 0.035 ounce

1 pound is equal to 0.454 kg

1 ounce is equal to 28.35 grams

Everything in your pack and on your body adds weight. The less weight you carry the longer and faster you can backpack. The smaller the measuring unit the more accurately you can determine your carrying weight.

Lets look at some examples:

If you use the metric units of measure and you want to set you pack weight at 30 pounds you do the following:

Convert your base weight to kilograms.

30 pounds X 0.454 (kg/pound) = 13.62 kg

Convert to grams.

13.62 kg X 1,000 grams/kg = 13,620 grams

Now all you have to do is weigh all of your gear in grams until you get to 13,620 grams.

A 25 pound pack will weigh 11,350 grams and a 20 pound pack will weigh 9,080 grams.

On my next blog I will weigh some of the backpacking gear I carry on an extended backpacking trip.

Tennessee hike

In order to put some joy back into hiking after my freezing experience on Roan Mountain in Tennessee I decided to do some day hikes. I hiked a 15 mile section of the AT south of Damascus Virginia and a 6 mile section farther south of that. It was a real joy to hike with a 15 pound backpack compared to the 30 ponder I usually carry. I seemed to fly down the trail passing other backpackers for a change. Hiking in the sunshine was a treat. It had rained just days before my hike and rain was expected again after my hike. Every hiker I met had that "I am soaked" look about them. I recorded a few videos as I hiked along for your enjoyment.

Moving the AT

Going through cow pastures

Spittle bugs are insects that go through a nymph stage where the bug attaches to a stem of a plant and with their bodies produce a frothy mucus for protection, temperature control and to keep from drying out.

One of the scariest times to hike is during a thunderstorm. Just recently a female hiker was killed hiking on the AT near Hot Springs NC. I was hiking in a thunderstorm one time and I got off the trail in a hurry when I felt my hair beginning to stand straight up on my head before each lightening strike.

Remember

He who walks with integrity walks securely. Proverbs 10:9