A place to chat about gear and the philosphy of ultralight. Ultralight bushwalking or backpacking focuses on carrying the lightest and simplest kit. There is still a good focus on safety and skill.
Forum rules
Ultralight Bushwalking/backpacking is about more than just gear lists. Ultralight walkers carefully consider gear based on the environment they are entering, the weather forecast, their own skill, other people in the group. Gear and systems are tested and tweaked. If you are new to this area then welcome - Please remember that although the same ultralight philosophy can be used in all environments that the specific gear and skill required will vary greatly. It is very dangerous to assume that you can just copy someone else's gear list, but you are encouraged to ask questions, learn and start reducing the pack weight and enjoying the freedom that comes.
Common words Base pack backpacking the mass of the backpack and the gear inside - not including consumables such as food, water and fuel light backpacking base weight less than 9.1kg ultralight backpacking base weight less than 4.5kg super-ultralight backpacking base weight less than 2.3kg extreme-ultralight backpacking base weight less than 1.4kg
In other news, it appears that ZPacks has stopped using non-hybrid fabric for their original Blast backpacks. Their website now says that the Blasts are being made with the more durable hybrid fabric.
So this basically turns them into the Arc without the frame.
I think there is this growing trend over the last year or so within the SUL world to focus more on durability of gear than saving an ounce here-or-there. Seeing it at almost every gear company. SMD for example with their new backpack lineup threw the issue of weight out the door and focused more on building a backpack that could properly handle load-transfer to the hips (where weight belongs). MLD has stopped offering 0.51 cuben fiber all together and only offers 0.74 now. The list could go on and on.
Is all of this because of market demand, too much products being returned because of damage, or just foresight by these companies to try to prevent bad PR from gear that does not hold up over the long haul.
I personally love the hybrid CF and my last two backpacks have been made with it (at a near double the weight penalty) but I still find myself grabbing my old Zero made from 1.0 cf a LOT of times.
Going to be interesting to watch the market over the next year and see if this trend continues.
It's like any new technology - lots of people push the boundaries and some of those experiments work and other fail. Most Ultra lighters push the weight boundary down as far as it will go and then usually add back a bit to achieve a comfortable balance for their personal needs. With cuben we are now in the minor rebound stage where there is enough acceptance and kms on lots of cuben gear. The experiments that didn't work or achieve some generally agreed level of acceptance are being shed. For shelters .75 is a standard but .51 obviously works for many so that is what has been standardised around. 1.0 or 1.43 for shelter floors as well. I have always thought that it wasn't the right material for packs and this is being demonstated by the move to the hybrid cuben pack fabric.
"Perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to remove".
