View topic - Gear weight for single-carry trip

Hello everyone,
I try for some years to optimize my gear for single-carry solo trips. The best I managed for 7-8 days summer trip in Central Ontario is 64lbs of gear plus canoe - and this involved considerate expenses for UL stuff, especially sleeping gear and paddles. I have no problem carrying this load on many portages, but as years go by it might become a problem in the near future.
I wonder if looking at the following list you can comment - if anything looks out of line:
Tent 3.0lbs
Tarp 3.0
Sleeping gear 3.5
Camping Gear 7.0
Spare Shoes & Sandals 4.0
Luxuries (chair, scotch) 2.0
Superior One pack (with waterproofing) 6.0
Clothes Bag 4.0
Cooking kit 3.0
Repair kit 2.5
First Aid kit 1.0
2 Ursacks with food 15.0
Thwart pack with daily necessities (camera, Steripen &c.) 3.0
Canoe gear (paddles, ropes &c.) 7.0

Cheers,
Sergey

Have a look at these search results

http://www.myccr.com/phpbbforum/search. ... mit=Search

You are looking for posts by Lightjay about his 17 pound pack. included in some of the posts are the details of the items and their weights. While this pack was designed for a 3 day trip it can be expanded to week simply by adding extra food.

Many of lightjay's posts in the early years were about packing light so there would be nuggets of info in many of them.

Other posts by Lightjay relate to his cross Canada trips (or attempts???), obviously he didn't do those with only 17 pounds but he was the guru of light tripping and there is a ton of info in his old posts about reducing weight.




Really? "spare" shoes AND sandals!!!!!!



An MEC Guide Tarp Silnylon weighs just under 800grams and it's a BIG tarp. First question....do you really need a tarp and a tent? If you do want a tarp how big of a tarp do you really need? An Integral Designs Siltarp1 is good for a solo tripper and weighs 215gm.



Must be brutally heavy paddles and just how much rope do you need?

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"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

Thanks for the links, recped. Obviously I didn't explain myself clearly. I'm looking to enjoy my trip in relative comfort and this for me means some "niceties", like big tarp, a 1lb chair or 1.2 lb sandals for bathing where there's not enough water to swim (i.e. pretty often). Spare shoes since I don't like wearing wet shoes for a week in a row. You are right - it's something I can do without (this is why I explicitly mentioned these items) and someday I will have to drop some of them. I doubt I'll ever do without scotch.

UL smallish tarp without extra attachment points and sick guy ropes - in my experience it's a poor barrier against consistently bad weather and gives you very limited dry area. Mine is Mountain Laurel 10*12' Supertarp, which comes - with ropes and stakes - to 2.8lbs.

Canoe gear (not carried in the pack): paddles 1.5lbs; yoke with comfortable pads 3lbs; pfd 1.3; the rest is ropes, maps, knife &c. Ropes, including those for lining rapids, could easily come to more than a pound.

If you're wet footing I get taking spare shoes for in-camp. But I don't get the sandals. If you want them for foot protection when wading in shallow water to bathe why not just wear your wet shoes?

If you're unwilling to give up the luxuries, which appears to be where most of the weight could be trimmed, maybe consider splitting it into two smaller packs and double portaging. My trips are too long for single portaging but even for shorter ones I'd be more likely to double portage even if my pack was light enough to single. I enjoy walking so portages make a nice break. It's also nice to walk the trail twice to know where the tricky footing is before putting the canoe on my head.

Alan

Alan

Perhaps some of the food and health kit could be ditched for more scotch? If you have enough of it then the chair is pretty optional too. Just a thought

No I get it / got it. I'm a solo tripper and I like my luxuries as well but I understand that method is incompatible with single carry portages. Personally I'm usually doing quad carries, 3 for gear plus 1 for the boat. I can get down to 2+1 for a 7 day trip and maybe down to 1+1 for an overnighter.

As time passes and you can't handle such heavy loads you really have only two choices, go ultralight and give up the luxury extras or do more trips it's as simple as that.

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"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915

Thanks to everyone. I half expected that there's a miracle way to portage and if I ask nicely enough somebody might give it away... Well, steve.of.london almost did - though I doubt I can afford it.
There's nothing wrong with double-carrying except that it makes some routes too time-consuming, for instance Algonquin where 4-5km portaging a day is almost routine. Double-carry makes 5 a 15, which leaves little time for paddling.
Of course some less trodden trails are not suited for single-carry and walking them is as much fun as paddling.
Quad carries? Wow! May be some day when I'm retired... and my kids are retired...

Here's a thought: Take a look at your cordage. Using dyneema type cordage like Zingit or Lashit for your tarp ridge line and guy lines, and maybe some Amsteel 7/64 for a floating canoe painter line, etc, you might be able to drop a pound or two? Check out Hoop's post on moving toward lighter high tech cordage. That stuff is stronger than steel wire.

Tarp: I've got a CCS Tundra tarp, silnylon, a ton of tie off loops, 10x10 feet, so not much smaller than yours, and with light cordage and stakes, it's still not anywhere near 3lbs.

Camping gear, 7 lbs....id like to see a detailed list of this. Probably a lot of room here to go lighter.

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Thanks, sturgeon. The cordage -
I tried 1.5mm dyneema for tarp setup and decided that neither guy-line locks nor guy-line hitch knots on this rope can withstand high loads/winds - it's just too thin. Am I wrong? As for ridge line, it shall be at least 3mm to engage prusik knots (I use static cord from local climbing store). For side tie-out ropes (4 at 20-50' long) and guy lines (10 at 4' each) I'm installing now Spectra Core 1.8 mm rope - I tried it this spring and it kept my camp dry after a night of wet snow. It is approximately 41g for 50' (1.5mm dyneema is 25g) and shall reduce weight a bit compared with the cord. Steaks weigh 190g.

As for camping gear (everything that doesn't fit in other categories) , it's more like 9lbs total, though I might exclude some items, depending on the trip:
Raingear 1.8
Various PP Bags for waterproofing 0.7
Nalgene bottles (2) 0.7
Toiletries 0.4
Toilet kit with trowel 0.9
GPS+SPOT 0.7
Spare ropes, Flashlight 0.7
Saw, Lopper, flagging tape 1.8
Nook, Camera Tripod 1.0

Cheers,
Sergey

I agree the 1.5 mm line can be just too small to handle. I have used 1.75mm line successfully with titanium Dutchware Flyz hardware to keep my ridgeline taut. (Ask for some Dutchware for christmas, birthdays, etc. https://www.dutchwaregear.com). Though if you are doing the ridgeline and prussic thing you will need the larger diameter line, so I guess I'm not saving you much weight.

I no longer use line-locs after a few malfunctions. Now I just go round the stake and then through a loop and back (a truckers hitch). This is using 2mm line and has never failed.

Nalgene bottles are heavy. Unless you are using them to heat the bottom of your sleeping bag, or you really need that wide opening, I'd ditch them for empty pop or water bottles from the convenience store.

3 lbs for cook kit sounds like a lot, too. Are you baking?

I guess in the end the best way to reduce weight is to go back to first principles, like an ultralight backpacker would do. Get a scale. weigh everything.be ruthless. get ideas from the net or from books like "Ultralight backpacking' tips" by Mike Clelland. a few grams here and there, an ounce or two, and pretty soon you're down a pound or five. Good luck!

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Last year I left the cat-hole shovel at home. It's easy enough to find a sturdy stick to dig with.

Alan

How much does your canoe weigh Sergey?

@Alan - this will work! Depending on the soil, of course: I'd hate to dig with a stick in Temagami.

@sturgeon: truckers hitch for guy-outs is not the best knot in my opinion - it won't get loose, but also it's difficult to retention. I prefer guy-line hitch. Cooking: Jetboil flash with 200mg gas is 1.8lb, insulated mug - 0.3, everything else is soap, cozy, bowl, small stuff. Thanks for your advice!

@open_side_up: 43 lbs, it's fiberglass Curtis Nomad circa 1988. I can replace it with new kevlar Peregrine at 32lbs if that's what you are driving at, and it will be far more than any gear reduction would get me. Hopefully this can wait for another few years. I love my Nomad.

taut-line hitch for guidelines.

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Brian
http://www.JohnstonPursuits.ca

 

The boat is way heavy. New Nomads available from Colden under 30 lbs, newer DY solo trippers, Kee 15, available from Swift under 30 as well, so there's 15 lbs saved.

The tent/tarp can be replaced with a hammock and expanded rainfly tarp, there's another couple pounds, and the hammock replaces the camp chair.

Agree with other's above, you're toting more footwear than needed. The portage yoke can be replaced with ~1lb fabric unit from the Bag Lady to save another two, So there's over twenty off your back. which should allow another bottle of single malt.