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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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jeffbee ◴[21 Sep 25 23:37 UTC] No.45327653[source]▶
If saving here and there is worth it, why would a hiker carry a 300g battery? Imagine the savings from leaving that boat anchor at home along with whatever obviously non-essential gadget wants to be recharged.
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addaon ◴[21 Sep 25 23:50 UTC] No.45327711[source]▶
I don't carry a battery, but I do carry a solar panel that weighs around 300 g. I use my phone when backpacking as a GPS receiver, map, flashlight, and eBook reader. Phone + solar panel weighs less than paperback + paper map + flashlight, gives me more flexibility for adjusting plans, and doesn't leave me out of novel after a few days.
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otoburb ◴[22 Sep 25 01:39 UTC] No.45328299[source]▶
Assuming you could afford it, would the new iPhone Air be a consideration in your ultralight base load going forward?
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1. addaon ◴[22 Sep 25 01:42 UTC] No.45328317[source]▶
Potentially? I have an iPhone 15 Pro now, which I got both because it was lighter than previous equivalents, and was the first (?) with direct-to-satellite, which I definitely value. I know I can get ~5 days of navigation (but not reading) out of it, which is one of the reasons I don't take a backup battery (the solar panel isn't a single point of failure; but of course the phone still is for nav, so still need a minimal paper map and a compass). I only spend a couple weeks a year backpacking so I wouldn't choose a phone purely based on that; but if I were in the market for an update this cycle I'd consider it.

Edit: Looks like the Air is 165 g, vs 187 g for the 15 Pro; not even an ounce difference. A bit more compared to the 17 Pro (206 g); but I probably just hold on until Russia collapses into a new metastable state and we can get bulk titanium again.