Sunday
Feb152009
February 15, 2009 10 pounds is tough
The 13-3-10 Experiment is going to be a toughie. My netbook, AC adapters, and chargers will total about four pounds. Add at least two pounds for the bag, four pounds of clothes, and my minimal personal item requirements and, well, you get the picture. I’m shirt shopping at the moment. The REI Adventures pants are to be my second pair; it’s hard to go much lighter.
Reader Comments (6)
I've got several pairs of those REI Adventure pants. They are great, but tend to wrinkle easily and the seams shrink just a tad so you get this weird look where the side seams are "pulling up" the rest of the fabric. I've found that a good steam iron can remove this to some extent, and then always air dry them.
I figured 10 lbs with a computer would be nearly impossible, but if anyone can do it, you can!
I used the REI adventure pants last year while touring Bulgaria. I loved them. They were tough enough to wear almost everyday, light enough to be a minimal burden, and attractive enough to wear out at night.
Keep us posted on the experiment!
I'm also considering one of the Champion C9 s/s polo shirts as an evening shirt to wear while my day shirt is drying. No pockets though and not terribly light.
I think you need to go as light as possible with the bag. With 10 pounds of stuff, you don't need anything tougher than a glorified grocery sack, so a very simple nylon sling bag or backpack would certainly do the job for less than 2 pounds. Have a look at the Golite Ion, which is 10 ounces, 25L, and made of nice tough Dyneema fabric. It also doesn't have any external pockets and is pretty trim, so it doesn't look goofy. There are other bags out there similar to that, but if you wanted to go really light on the pack, Zpacks makes the Zero, which is about as light as you can get. Silnylon is pretty tough and survives overpacking well, as long as you don't drag it across the floor a lot. A simple neoprene sleeve would probably suffice for the netbook, provided you don't put it right at the bottom of the pack. Most of them are pretty tough, though, and with a light pack you're not going to be taking it off as much as with a heavy one.
You are going to have to be brutal. I'd say to pack only one outfit and to reconsider even the stuff sacks and packing cubes that you normally use. If you haven't checked out Backpackinglight, you definitely should since they really question every bit of weight. I've used a lot of the things I learned from UL backpacking and bike touring when I travel, and I feel very well prepared to deal with most situations. That site also sells a lot of very lightweight, refillable bottles for liquids- I use the dropper bottles for all my toiletries and they work great.
I did a trip to my parents' house in August and had planned on a vacation with lots of running and knitting. As a fun exercise, I limited myself to fit everything in the little hydration pack and to weigh under 6 pounds, pack included. I even took a solar charger for my phone and here's what it looks like and the packing list, where I used a kitchen scale and was probably more persnickety than I needed to be. It came out to 5.5 pounds, which certainly isn't bad. The purpose of your trip is different, but I'm sure that weighing every item will probably be an enlightening experience if you wish.
I've already begun weighing stuff for this trip. I never did a post about it but one of my goals for '09 is to learn more from the ultralight backpacking crowd though I'm not much of a pack guy; I believe a two-pound shoulder bag will work for me. Preferring shoulder bags is one of the reasons for trying to keep everything so light - you just don't want more than 15 pounds on your shoulder. Thanks for the link to your pictures and list.
I took a pair of the REI Adventures pants along with a pair of REI Slickrock pants to Switzerland and Germany last year. I wore them everywhere from restaurants and a wine bar to walking around downtown Zurich to hiking up a mountain, and they always performed well and looked appropriate. Both pants fit the criteria of being sink-washable and capable of drying overnight. I also highly recommend the REI Sahara Tech Tee ; they are super comfortable, wick like crazy, and dry fast.
If you want a really small bag, take a look at the Osprey Daylite . It's very compact and lightweight (~1 lb), and has a padded back panel which provides some shape and support. There is a sleeve behind the back panel that is made for a hydration pouch, but is also perfect for carrying papers, travel or otherwise. At 13L, this is a really small bag, but if your goal is 10 pounds, of which +/-3 pounds is a netbook and 1 pound is the bag, 6 pounds of clothing & other essentials might actually fit.
I have not pared my packing list down to this point yet, but this bag or one of comparable size is my goal for leisure travel. In the past year I have transitioned from a rolling suitcase to an Aeronaut to a Western Flyer for business travel, and I recently made a 4-day business trip with just my WF plus a work-supplied backpack for my work-supplied giant laptop. I'm not quite there yet, but getting closer.