CLOTHING My cotton, hooded sweatshirt was the big tip-off that I’ve never camped in the rain. “No cotton,” Hawk says. “It gets wet and stays wet, and it’s actually pretty heavy. That will cause you problems.” Instead, opt for a fleece top (Julie had one), and make sure your hiking shorts are made from a synthetic material. I could buy a pair for about $20, Hawk said, pointing to my cotton cargos. Also pack a set of wind and rain pants for when it gets chilly, he advises.
Your jacket should be your weightiest piece of clothing, but even there, newer models made of Gore-Tex come in at just over a pound. (Though you’ll probably spend more than $100 for one.) My old North Face was passable, while Hawk was genuinely impressed with Julie’s REI shell jacket. “It’s waterproof, somewhat breathable, and it can really keep you warm,” she explains. “Plus, it’s Julie Blue, my favorite color.”
I packed ski gloves, which were overkill for a non-winter hike. Julie had some nice, fingerless wool ones with a mitten flap, a far better choice, Hawk says. Each of us brought a ski cap for cold nights and a baseball cap for the day, though Julie’s was a synthetic material with mesh sides while mine was a weightier, standard Red Sox cap.
Hawk generally liked my long underwear: a lightweight Bergelene top and bottom I’d picked up years ago at EMS, plus a second thermal top. Julie says she gets very cold when sleeping at night, so she packed a ton of clothes, including an extra down jacket. Hawk reminded her that we were packing for a low of 35 degrees–not 20 or 10–and talked her into tossing out about half the stuff. “She had two pairs of long underwear bottoms. We took a pair out. And we took a pair of socks out. And one of her long-sleeve shirts out. Right there was close to three-fourths of a pound we took out,” he says.
WATER Like tons of hikers, Julie and I packed Nalgene bottles. Like tons of hikers, we made a mistake. “Nalgene bottles are good and rugged and all that, but they’re significantly more weight than bringing a No. 1 plastic bottle,” Hawk says. My 1-liter Nalgene weighed 6 ounces, whereas a No. 1 plastic bottle, like a SmartWater bottle, does the same job while weighing less than 3 ounces. Just look for bottles with wider mouths for easy filling. (CamelBaks, while über convenient, are likewise more weighty.)
I didn’t pack any water filtration system, which isn’t smart. Julie uses a small bottle of iodine, while Hawk says he prefers Aquamira, a two-part treatment solution that comes in a pair of minuscule, 1-ounce bottles.
OTHER GEAR I packed a 4-ounce aluminum flashlight, but a 2-ounce headlamp is really the way to go, Hawk says. Julie packed two headlamps, one with a lower power for reading. Hawk’s advice to her: buy a single headlamp with variable light strength.
This was probably our most interesting category, as I didn’t bring nearly enough gear–no Moleskin for blisters, no stuff sacks or rope to hoist my food out of the reach of animals, no boot gaiters to keep out dirt. Julie was clearly a smart packer, using trial-size bottles and incorporating homemade solutions, like using a cheap piece of spare plastic for her tent footprint. She forgot nothing that was essential, but…she also packed too much.
A bivy sack for medical emergencies? Hawk asks. Extra batteries? When packing light, you need to improvise, he stressed. For instance, Julie used a huge carabiner as a weight when throwing rope over a branch to hang her food. A more efficient idea, Hawk says, would be to tie the rope to a sack with a rock in it.
“Bring what you know you’re going to need,” he says. “Take a two-day wilderness first-aid course, which is big on making do with what you have when you have to help someone, rather than the giant first-aid kit and the bivy sack. It’s a case where knowledge, skills, and experience can substitute for pounds.”
TOILETRIES Hawk told Julie to dump her deodorant. She argued that it was just a trial size, but to no avail.
Hawk had similar disdain for my leave-in hair conditioner–“You’re not going to be showering”–my mouthwash, and my electric toothbrush. He tossed aside one of my two rolls of toilet paper and removed the cardboard from the remaining one. “That’s a half an ounce right there,” he says, proudly. Total weight savings: about a pound.
Hawk also threw aside my magazine and told Julie, a diplomatic way, that her hardcover hiking journal was excessive. But it was the one item, she says, that was worth its weight. “I make those myself, and I can only make them so small. It’s not just a journal about that one hike, but a journal about the whole season.”
FOOD You need food, so Hawk was most lenient in this area. On average a hiker consumes two pounds a day, so any decent mix of protein and carbohydrates will do, he says. (No surprises here: oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter or almond butter sandwiches for lunch, some type of rice dish or macaroni and cheese for dinner.) If you like to snack on energy bars, pack two per day. Hawk liked my plastic peanut butter jar (lighter than glass) and praised any dehydrated food, be it meat, fruit, vegetable, or sauces. “You can dehydrate all kinds of stuff. You add water to it and it’s close to what it was in the jar.”
Julie’s tip? Panini sandwiches. “They’re pressed, so you don’t have to worry about your bread getting smushed,” she says. And my big, fat hazelnut chocolate bar? Bring it, Hawk says. “By bringing your base weight down, it allows you to bring more foods you like, or that extra something that is going to give you some extra energy on that last day.”
Hey, with all my newfound pack space, I’ll take two.
-Peter DeMarco is a freelance writer living in Somerville, Mass.
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Related: Hawk's complete packing list and links to packing light websites
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