Hang around backpacking forums long enough and you’ll see someone ask what their pack weight “should” be — and then watch three factions answer three different questions. The confusion almost always comes down to one term: base weight. Pin it down and the whole conversation gets simpler.
The definitions everyone actually uses
Base weight is everything you carry except consumables — no food, no water, no stove fuel. It’s the number your gear choices control, which is why it’s the number people compare:
- Traditional: base weight under ~30 lb (13.6 kg)
- Lightweight: under 20 lb (9 kg)
- Ultralight (UL): under 10 lb (4.5 kg)
- Super-ultralight: under 5 lb — a sport of its own
Consumables are excluded not because they don’t hurt (water is 2.2 lb per liter) but because they vary by trip. Your shelter weighs the same on a weekend and a thru-hike; your food bag doesn’t.
The other number: the 20% ceiling
Base weight has a natural partner: total pack weight should stay under about 20% of your body weight — the guideline used by REI, scouting organizations, and most load-carriage research. Past it, injury risk and fatigue climb sharply for average hikers.
The two numbers work as a system. A 70 kg hiker gets a 14 kg ceiling; load five days of food (3.5 kg), fuel, and two liters of water, and nearly 6 kg of the budget is spoken for before gear. That’s why the base-weight target isn’t vanity — it’s what makes the ceiling achievable on longer carries. Our gear weight budget calculator reconciles both numbers for your body weight, trip length, and season, and tells you exactly how much has to go when they conflict.
Where the weight actually is
Audit any overweight pack and the same culprits appear, in the same order:
- The big three — shelter, sleep system, backpack — typically 60% or more of base weight. A 3.5 kg tent, a 2 kg bag, and a 2.5 kg pack is 8 kg before you’ve packed a sock. Kilogram-scale wins live here.
- Duplicates. Two knives, two battery banks, two “just in case” warm layers. One of everything, chosen well.
- Fears in fabric form. The camp chair, the second cook pot, the 750-page novel. Comfort is legitimate — but weigh it, literally.
The classic path to UL isn’t buying titanium sporks. It’s replacing the big three (a trekking-pole shelter, a quilt, a frameless pack can cut 4–5 kg on their own), then deleting duplicates, then — and only then — sweating grams.
Season changes the target
Winter legitimately adds weight: a warmer bag, an insulated pad, extra layers, often a sturdier shelter. Budget roughly +30% on base weight for winter conditions rather than pretending a summer kit will do — cold is the one place where underweight packing gets dangerous. (Summer, conversely, lets you run about 10% lighter.)
The point of the number
Ultralight isn’t a purity contest. Base weight is simply the number that turns “my pack feels heavy” into a solvable problem: measure it, compare it to a target, cut where the calculator says the kilograms live. Lighter packs mean longer comfortable days, happier knees, and more attention left over for the reason you came — which was never the pack.