The Lightweight Trap

If you are trying to shave off weight from your hiking pack, please don't make this mistake! 

Tips For Ultralight Hikers 

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. And today we are talking a little bit about ultra lightweight hiking, which is a really, really, really interesting subject.

[0:12] And today we're talking what I call, and I'm sure a lot of people call the lightweight trap. Now, this was inspired by a conversation I had recently in our Facebook group. And I put up a post talking about a little bit about recovery for hiking. So certain recovery strategies that you can use either after a day hike when you're home to help the body bounce back and feel a little bit happier the next day, or apply this to overnight or multi-day or long distance hiking, which you can do in camp once you've finished up a day to help you kind of bounce back. And the stuff I talked about, it's stuff I've talked about a million times in this podcast before. I mentioned self-massage, so spending a little bit of time rolling over sore muscles, whether it's with a water bottle, a trekking pole, or a foam roller if you're at home. I talked about sports compression garments, so wearing some compression tights or some compression socks for a couple of hours to help things keep a little bit more comfortable. I talked about making sure you get food in immediately after, getting some carbohydrates and protein to help kickstart your recovery. I've talked about rehydrating and a little bit of active recovery. So if you are having, you know, do a day hike and the next day you're at home, just making sure you just do a little bit of movement to help things bounce back. You know, really, really basic stuff, which I've talked about a million times before.

[1:27] Then someone commented on this post, just sort of saying, look, you know, some of these things are not really doable on a multi-day hike.

[1:34] And, you know, I was like, hey, you know what, in all honesty, most of this is pretty doable. You know, self-massage, you can do with just a water bottle or trekking pole. Compression garments, pretty lightweight. You can just leave them in your pack and use that as camp wear as an option. and food and hydration, pretty simple, active recovery. You know, you may not really do this on a multi-day hike unless you're doing a zero day or rest day or whatever it may be. And I sort of laid that out and they kind of ignored what I said, you know, as people do, and basically just jumped on the idea. And they sort of said, hey, they weren't interested in sports compression garments. And they listed off a bunch of reasons, but they said one of the reasons was they weigh too much and it's going to weigh down their pack. And they just prefer to bring more food. And, you know, I understand that line of thinking and, you know, that's totally fine. And, you know, I personally really do like the benefits of sports compression garments on overnight hiking. But in all honesty, of all the things that I recommend, you know, they're not something that I try to push on everyone. I say they're good, but, you know, they do cost a bit of money. It's not cheap and free and easy. You know, the sports compression garments cost you like a hundred bucks or something. So, you know, they are pricey and I don't push them too much. And that was kind of pretty much the whole conversation. It wasn't controversial. It wasn't anything big deal. But looking at this conversation, it does bring up a very interesting point. And one thing that I see again and again and again and again in the world of hiking.

[2:57] Hikers obsess about their pack weight, about bringing down their weight, whether it's at the level of, you know, just a normal hiker, just trying to shave off a half kilo here and there, all the way down to ultralight hikers who are trying to shave off every single gram or whatever may be. And that is absolutely fair enough because, you know, I fully understand having a lighter pack makes things easier and that's pretty straightforward. But I all too often see people just taking this a little bit too far and maybe looking at this a little bit backwards. Because as I said, on the front of things, a lighter pack technically will make things easier. Every single step you take on the trail will take less effort. That is fair enough. And that is absolutely great. We definitely should strive for a lighter pack where we can, only to an extent.

[3:48] Because realistically, there are so many different things which can affect how hard things feel, how much energy we have, how much enjoyment we have, and ultimately how we actually feel on our days of hiking. And if you're compromising on some things which can actually be beneficial purely for the sake of weight, well, in all honesty, it's a little bit backwards. So let's put this in a few examples. Let's talk about food. And this is something that, you know, some people will often do. And when they're on a multi-day hike or an ultra-day hike, they will compromise on food. And what they'll do is they will bring the absolute bare minimum of food that they can get away with from day to day. Whether this is the bare minimum of food that they can kind of feel like, hey, that fills me up, or the bare minimum of food in regards to energy expenditure, and they figure that or whatever it may be. And they'll bring absolutely the barest minimum because they don't want that extra weight.

[4:49] But if you're going about this and you're purely just looking at the bare minimum of food, you're probably selling yourself short because food is fuel. And getting proper fueling for both sustaining your energy during hikes and recovering from day to day, it's important for both, it's going to impact you way, way, way, way more than an extra half kilo weight in your pack. In the sense, if you have a little bit more food, if you have enough food to actually fuel you properly, to give you energy and sustain energy through the day, to give the body enough fuel in between the days of hiking to recover, so you wake up fresh out, you start the day with more energy and go through things, that in itself is going to be way more beneficial than just skimping out on things. Now, sure, we don't want to take this to extreme. We don't want to end up carrying kilos and kilos of extra food that we don't really need or stuffing ourselves to the brink or whatever it may be. And obviously, we don't want to go all that direction, but we do want to find that balance.

[5:50] Now, another example of this, let's talk about electrolytes. And actually, I had a conversation with this same person on another post. And I was talking about electrolytes saying, look, you know, they're pretty valuable for one reason or another on the trail. And this person on the post commented, said they didn't bring electrolytes on their hikes. One of the reasons was because they add weight. And yeah, carrying electrolytes may have a little bit extra weight. But in all honesty, this is incredibly negligible. You can literally get a little tablet, which just weighs a few grams for each day you're taking them or whatever it may be. But the actual performance benefits of electrolyte supplementation during endurance activities is far, far, far going to outweigh their weight. There is so much evidence to show on a long endurance activity, which hiking is. Supplementing electrolytes can help our energy, can help our hydration,

[6:39] can help us just in a bunch of different ways. And it's so worthwhile, not to mention the importance of them when it comes to health and safety and reducing the risk of overhydration or hyponatremia, which is serious. But again, that's another thing. Or we could talk about sleep systems. And sure, when it comes down to sleep systems, it can end up getting a little bit crazy on weight, and we don't want to be lugging around all this heavy stuff.

[7:05] But on the flip side, sleep is critical for your recovery. So how you bounce back day to day, not to mention your emotional and mental well-being, which doesn't get spoken enough about overnight or multi-day or long distance hiking. And so if you might, if you try something that's super lightweight and you're

[7:23] just not sleeping well, then maybe you want to consider carrying something a little bit heavier. Yes, there'll be extra weight in your pack, but you'll probably get better benefits from actually just sleeping better.

[7:35] Or we can go back to this original example of the sports compression garments. I, for me personally, I really like these as camp wear. And basically you do your day of hiking, obviously in camp, you don't really want to be wearing your sweaty, nasty clothes. You want to change into something. And I like these for camp time. So, finish up hiking, put these on, wear them while I'm cooking dinner, putting up camp. And then for me, I'll either sleep in them because that doesn't bother me or for other people who this isn't super comfortable, they'll just change into whatever they sleep in.

[8:05] Now, this can be quite nice just for aiding a little bit of muscle recovery and just keeping that circulation going when you've actually finished up hiking. It can be quite nice for muscle soreness and just reducing that a little bit, and it can be pretty good. Now, at worst, having a pair of this may just end up being a few extra 100 grams, or you can just replace your other campwear with it, or whatever it may be. And this may end up being a tiny little bit heavier than some other things, but if it ends up making your legs more comfortable, if it ends up even given you a 1% boost in recovery, it's probably going to be worth it. You know, I could go on and on and on and on about this, but I think you get the point. Dropping your pack weight is good and it's something you should strive for. Absolutely. If you're bringing stuff that you don't really need and stuff that you don't really need, which isn't going to give you a huge amount of pleasure because some people will intentionally carry big, heavy things because that's what they want on the trail.

[8:59] But yeah, if you're carrying super things that you don't need and you don't enjoy. You know, dropping weight is good, but please don't get too wrapped up in the

[9:07] lightweight world at the expense of all other things. There is always going to be a balancing act and always just to ask yourself, take a step back, remove yourself from this sort of thing and think, what am I trying to achieve here? I'm trying to help my hiking, make me feel more comfortable on the trail. And ask yourself, is reducing weight here going to do that? Or is having a little extra weight going to do that better. Sometimes choosing something heavier may help you in other ways. And it's something that you do really want to consider.

[9:39] And then the final thing I'll sort of say on all this is if you do really truly believe that a kilo or a couple of pounds difference in your pack is legitimately going to make or break your adventure, I would really honestly urge you to seriously look at your training.

[9:58] Because with the right training, with the right physical preparation, you can get ready for pretty much any pack weight you need, obviously within reason. And if you're really, really, really stressing about one kilo or half a kilo, and you're like, I don't want to bring extra food because I'm worried about that, or I don't want to bring electrolytes because I'm worried about this or whatever it may be, maybe you might want to take the more simple option of just building up your strength, building up your fitness so you can actually be more comfortable with those weights so you can get the best of both worlds. So with that being said, I hope this is helpful for a few people. If you are planning out your pack weight, it's absolutely fair enough to go down that lightweight route. It's absolutely fair enough to shave off weight where we can be. But please don't take this to extremes.

[10:45] Keep the holistic view in mind. Ask yourself the question, what am I trying to achieve? Is this actually going to help me or is this going to be detrimental to me in another way? Ask yourself that and it will go a long way. So with that being said, I think that's enough on this subject. Hope that makes sense. I hope that helps a few people. And yeah, and I hope it can make a bit of a difference for your packing on the trail. So thanks for listening and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.

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