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Why your outdoorsy friend suddenly has a gummy bear power bank

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258 points arnon | 1 comments | 21 Sep 25 12:31 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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Zanni ◴[21 Sep 25 12:52 UTC] No.45322277[source]▶
Why your [ultra-light hiker] friend suddenly has [the world's lightest] power bank.

I remember Colin Fletcher, years ago, writing in The Complete Walker about trimming the borders off his paper maps to save weight, which seemed like an insane over-optimization to me. But then, I'm not an ultralight hiker.

I am impressed folks are getting their loads down to 10 pounds though.

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JohnFen ◴[21 Sep 25 13:28 UTC] No.45322529[source]▶
That insane over-optimization is how folks are getting down to (and below) 10 pounds.

I'm not even remotely an ultralight backpacker, but I do count ounces (no matter what your weight limit is, you can't escape making tradeoffs to stay within it). Your hiking load is a great example of how quickly apparently insignificant quantities can add up. Saving fractions of an ounce multiple times gets you large savings far more quickly than you'd think.

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addaon ◴[21 Sep 25 21:16 UTC] No.45326727[source]▶
I'm down to around 10 lb base load. And then I hike in the desert where I carry 5 - 7 liters of water (11 - 15 lbs). And food. Saving a pound here and there is totally worth it, but there's a large part of the country where prudent hiking means the majority of your weight is water.
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calmoo ◴[22 Sep 25 00:05 UTC] No.45327783[source]▶
Out of curiosity where in the desert do you hike and where would you recommend? I have a particular attraction to being in the American desert but never have hiked it properly.
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1. prawn ◴[22 Sep 25 01:04 UTC] No.45328126[source]▶
Southern Utah gives you a huge bang for buck. And you can spread a little further to add fantastic stuff in surrounding states. I'm not American but have flown from Australia several times to hike in Utah and its neighbours.

In 10-14 days, you can do an exceptional loop from Las Vegas taking in:

  Bryce Canyon NP
  Byway 12
  Capitol Reef NP
  Goblin Valley
  Dead Horse Point SP
  Arches NP
  Canyonlands NP
  Goosenecks SP
  Horseshoe Bend
  Antelope Canyon
  Zion NP
  Valley of Fire SP
That's all very accessible (besides The Maze in Canyonlands, which is superb but takes 4x4 and/or solid hiking to get into).

Then when you go back, you can do places requiring a bit more planning like Coyote Gulch (amazing), Buckskin Gulch (also amazing), and secondary spots like Natural Bridges, SR 95, etc. Hundreds of great places in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, etc, and all before you get to adding anything more remote or long distance.