Field Notes · Method
Packing by weight, not by fear
Most packs are heavy because of things brought in case. The Pack Simulator counts grams, and the total it produces is a plan: what the coldest night needs, what the wettest day needs, and what the airline, the horse and your knees will accept.
A pack is a list of decisions, and the decisions have weights. A second pair of trousers is 380 grams. A book is 300. The camera with a spare lens is 1,400. The down jacket that you are not sure you need is 420 and you need it. The Pack Simulator builds the list from the place, the activity and the days, puts a weight next to every line, and totals it against the limit that matters for your trip.
The three questions
What is the coldest night? That decides the bag, the jacket and the layers, and it comes from the Climate Simulator’s lows rather than the highs. Torres del Paine in January averages six at night and hits freezing; the Salar in July averages minus ten. What is the wettest day? That decides the shell, the over-trousers, the dry bags and whether the boots are waterproof. The Faroes and the Icelandic highlands rain every second day; the Namib does not rain at all. How does the bag move? On your back for a week, on a horse, in a light aircraft with a fifteen-kilogram limit, in a 4x4 with no limit at all. The answer changes the list more than the climate does.
The typical weights
Good lightweight gear has converged on numbers that the simulator uses: a shell at 340 grams, a down jacket at 420, a three-season bag at 1,100, a mat at 450, poles at 480, a share of a two-person tent at 1,100. Water is a kilogram a litre and on a desert walking day it is the heaviest thing in the bag. Food for a walking day is around 700 grams. A base list with no optional items comes out at around four kilograms without water; the tent and food for a self-supported trek take it to fourteen or fifteen.
The limits
Twelve kilograms with water is the number for a comfortable hut-to-hut week; above it the descents hurt and the day is slower. Sixteen with a tent and food is the honest maximum for most people. Fifteen is the light-aircraft limit in Botswana and Greenland, in a soft bag, weighed. Twenty is the airline hold. Porters and horses in Bhutan and Ladakh carry the loads but your day pack still needs to be light, because you are the one at 4,800 metres.
What to leave
The change of clothes per day; you wash things. The second book; the fog day has a first one. The in-case items for scenarios a guide handles: the operator carries the recovery kit, the satellite phone, the spare fuel. The camera that you will not use because it is too heavy to get out. The simulator marks these optional and lets you untick them, and the total falls faster than expected.
Questions people ask
What is a reasonable pack weight?
Under twelve kilograms with water for hut-to-hut walking, under sixteen with a tent and food, and fifteen for the light aircraft in Botswana and Greenland, which weigh the bag at the airstrip.
What do people always overpack?
Clothes, because they pack a change per day rather than washing. Electronics. In-case items for scenarios that a guide would handle. What they underpack is the warm layer for the night.
