Low Budget (but high-quality!) Ultralight Gear

hey guys it's Paul here with gear test TV and if you've been into backpacking for really any length of time you know that the two things that add up the most quickly when it comes to backpacking are weight and cost well today I'm going to be showing you a backpacking setup that keeps both of those things to a minimum [Music] so there seems to be this idea out there that in order to have an ultralight backpacking setup you have to spend some astronomical amount of money and it is true that a lot of ultralight gear is very expensive but nowadays there are also a lot of good options out there that are not that bad so I set out on a project a couple of months ago to come up with a backpacking setup that would have a nine pound or less base weight for between six and seven hundred dollars and this is the backpacking setup that I came up with it took a lot of research but I was able to find a lot of good options so I have the whole setup assembled here in the pack and I'll try to give you the cost of each item and the weight of each item as I walk through the pack but before I'd start tearing into it I thought I would weigh the entire set up and just show you what my base weight came out to be so the total weight there comes out to be nine point zero six pounds and that's actually with the four ounce fuel canister inside here which typically would not be included in the base way so really coming out to just under nine pounds for the entire setup so I'll start by talking about the bag itself I ended up deciding on the Teton sports circ 1600 but I will say the backpack was probably the hardest item to nail down out of this entire setup I did try the REI flash 22 because it's I think $55 and it weighs only 13 ounces but it was just barely too small I did find a lot of cheap fairly lightweight packs on Amazon from some of these no-name companies but I just didn't know that I would trust them to be rugged enough to hold up backpacking but Teton Sports as you may see over here at this red pack it was my first back packets of Teton sports hiker 3700 and that bag held up really well I put a lot of miles on it and it's still in decent shape today so I at least trusted and had confidence in Teton sport so I ended up going with the circ 1600 it's a 26 liter pack and you can find it for about $50 on Amazon they have it listed on Amazon as one point eight pounds but whenever I got it here and I weighed it myself I was coming up with 2.3 pounds so I think it was a little bit heavier than what I wanted in a pack for this setup but my total weight still came out to be within my goal range so it worked out so far I have about fifty miles worth of hiking with this pack and it's held up really well even swinging it around and tossing it on the ground it's held up well the bottom of this is white so you can see it gets dirty pretty easily but as far as the seams and things like that it's held up really well so with all of that said I will start on this side for water I am just carrying some wife water bottles you could also carry smart water bottles they're just really lightweight and the main thing about these is that the reason you'll see people carrying life water or smart water is because the threads are a standard size thread that will work on these sawyer filters so that is what i'm carrying as my water filter i have the sawyer mini here these when they first came out I've had this one for probably five or six years now and when they first came out you could only find them on the Amazon and now you can pick these up at Walmart they're all over the place because they only weigh about two ounces and they're only twenty bucks so I was able to keep my water bottles in the side pocket and the water filter in this little zip up pocket to keep them both accessible without digging into the bag so if I needed to just stop really quickly in filtered water is right there easily accessible from the outside I'll spin this around here and show you my tent I just personally sleep a lot better in a tent than I do in a hammock so I wanted to go with a tent I ended up going with the six moon designs skyscape trekker now this is a trekking pole tent so it uses your trekking poles as the tent poles you can get optional carbon fiber or I think they even have aluminum poles if you don't want to use your trekking poles or don't high clip trekking poles that is an option but the tent itself comes in at 28 ounces so under two pounds for the tent and it's 225 dollars if you will seem seal it yourself it is an extra 30 if you want them to seam seal it for you but still just a really lightweight tent for the price I can keep it on the outside of my bag where if it's raining when I get to camp and that needs to be the first thing that I set up it's easily accessible there or same thing if it's raining in the morning I needed to be the last thing I pack up it's easy to just stick on the outside of my bag where I'm not putting a wet tent on the inside of my bag with the rest of my gear so with that on this other zippered pocket I have the first of all the footprint these little footprints they're nine dollars for a pack of two and they only weigh one point two ounces each so these are super lightweight and then they also have the six moon Designs tent stakes that you can buy separately they are $13 for the stake set and they only come in at 2.3 ounces so I will set the tent to the side and move on to the top zippered pocket of the hood of this bag and one thing that I will point out is that the six hundred and fifty dollar total cost is four I would say ninety five percent of what I have in this setup there are a few things like toilet paper for example that I'm gonna hope you already have on hand and then the little bag that I carry it in it's a nylon water it's not waterproof I know that from experience it is a water-resistant bag and they come in a set of three I got these at Walmart for ten dollars I think you can get them for the same price on Amazon now but it's only three ounces for all three bags the next thing I have in here that I also do not include in the cost just because not everybody's going to care enough about it to carry one of these this is an ultra pod little tripod with a velcro strap that I also have a phone adapter on and when I'm backpacking if I want to take pictures or videos this is what I use because it's a tripod so I can just set it down on the ground or I can use the velcro strap to attach it to a trekking pole or a tree limb or whatever it weighs in that three point two ounces total for this set up so that was included in the base weight not included in the total cost but it's something that I like to carry with me and the last thing that I have inside this top pocket here is my Snow Peak titanium spork these things are $10 and they away only a half ounce so I've been using this for I think the past five or six years I've had it for quite a while and it has worked well I carry it in this top pocket because some like to carry peanut butter as a snack and when I stopped to eat that I don't have to dig out my entire cook kit to get to my spork it's just easily accessible and it just fits a little bit better in the top pocket that's everything that I have in this top pocket the only other thing I would carry on an actual trip up here I might add some sunscreen or bug spray depending on the weather time of year and then also I'll keep my snacks in this top pocket as well so that's everything on the outside of the bag I can unclip these two clips here and show you it has another pocket on the inside of the hood the first thing I'll talk about is this essentials bag I call it an essentials bag it's not the ten essentials of backpacking but it's just I have a sharpie I'll carry my toothbrush toothpaste floss I have some ibuprofen chapstick Kleenex a little bit of extra guerrilla tape just a few minor things once again something that hopefully you already have or have around the house and this whole setup weighs a couple of ounces so I keep that easily accessible in this top pocket here the next thing that I have is an emergency poncho now this thing is only a dollar and it weighs only one point two ounces now I will say if I know for a fact that rain is predicted on a trip then I'll probably carry something like an actual rain jacket but I carry this at all times just because sometimes especially in the mountains the weather forecast is not always accurate so I always carry at least this as a backup option and the reason I like carrying a poncho instead of a rain jacket is that I do not like to carry the rain cover this bag does come with the rain cover I don't carry it just because it's additional weight but with the poncho I can put it on over me and over the pack if it does start raining at random the next thing that I have is something that I just bought for this setup this is my headlamp it's the night corps in you 20 I've used this on the last couple of trips and I absolutely love this headlamp it is $30 so it's not the most expensive headlamp out there but there are cheaper ones I wanted a good quality headlamp and this thing weighs only 1.7 ounces and it's rechargeable so that's with the battery 1.7 ounces you could probably drop even a little bit away if you replace the the headband if you're really what syntek 77 calls a gram weenie you can swap that out to drop a little more weight but even as it's it's it's 1.7 ounces it's also ipx7 waterproof which it's amazing to me how many headlamps are not waterproof one of the things that I love about this headlamp if you notice is that it has a little tab a little plastic tab on the top so when the headlamp is folded up it blocks the button the power button from being pressed while it's inside your pack my old Coast headlamp that I used to use I can't tell you how many times I would pull it out of my pack all to see that the light had been on for the last six hours and the batteries were almost dead in addition to all of that this thing has a maximum output of 360 lumens which is way brighter than what you need most of the time but it does have the power there if you need it when you first press the button it comes on at one lumen press begin right after that it goes to 40 lumens and then after that it goes up to 220 lumens now I won't go through a full review of this thing there is a way that you can turn it on and go into turbo mode which is the 360 lumens but I love that when it first comes on it's just one lumen so if you have this in your tent at night and you wake up and you just need to look for your water bottle or whatever it may be you can turn it on it automatically comes on at one lumen and you're not blinding yourself so it's a great little headlamp and really quickly I'll just go through at one lumen it will run for a hundred hours at forty lumens it will run for eight hours 220 lumens it runs for six hours and then like I said USB rechargeable if you need to recharge it after that so an excellent little headlamp I've really enjoyed using this I would recommend it so the last thing that I keep up here in this top pocket which you'll notice this pocket has a little clip on the inside so I will clip my keys there whenever I get to the trailhead just to make sure they don't accidentally fall out of my bags when we're along the trail but I also keep clipped to that this little Gege dime this has a little knife on it and often times this is the only knife that I will carry with me sometimes I'll carry a larger pocket knife but I can't tell you how many trips I've been on where I didn't use a knife the entire time so usually this is enough for me and this little thing weighs two point two ounces and it's only sixteen dollars but the thing that I like about it is that this also has a small pair of pliers these can also be used as tweezers in addition to that it has a small pair of scissors here and I will say one of the reasons I like carrying this is because I would say that I have used the scissors and the pliers on backpacking trips probably twice as often as I use a blade moving on to the inside of the bag you can see there is a drawstring here so I will just open that up this is where I keep my medical kit this used to be an adventure medical 0.5 so much has been changed out in this kit in the years that I've had it that I wouldn't really call it an adventure medical kit anymore I'm gonna hope that you if you're backpacking already have a medical kit if you don't this is a good one I think that are only like 9 or 10 bucks and they weigh very little I'm not gonna bother going through everything in this pack but that's a good one to look at if you need a lightweight setup since I'm not carrying a hydration bladder that if the bag does have a sleeve for a hydration bladder but instead what I carry in here is this little foam sitting pad so you can get a whole long roll of this stuff for I think it's nine or ten dollars at Walmart and this little pad I've used for a very long time and I just cut a little section off to just be big enough to sit on or kneel on and it's nice it's just a little extra padding when I'm sitting on the ground or on the log it's a closed cell foam so it is waterproof if the ground is wet and then sometimes at night I'll just slide this up under the tent under where my head goes just to add even a little extra padding there so this as have a cut down like this weighs only like an ounce it's super lightweight but it's a pretty useful little thing to have at camp next are these two bags these are the other two bags that I was talking about that come in the set that I had my toilet paper in so they are three different sizes this is my clothing bag the red one if it's getting colder then I'll carry also like a quarter zip or something like that inside of this bag but for most of my trips the last couple months the only thing extra that I'm taking is an extra pair of smart wool socks and ex-officio underwear so that's usually all that I'm gonna carry and I'm just gonna rewear what I wore the first day on my trips but that's what I carry in that bag and then in this bag this is the largest of the set this would be my food bag but since this is just a video about base weight I don't actually have any food in here the only thing that I have that I will always carry and you hopefully carry on every trip is a gallon ziplock bag this is my trash bag so whenever I have any trash at all then I just put it in this bag it's easy to zip back closed and then it keeps everything contained inside this bag and when I get back home I can just toss it in the trash but I keep that inside the food bag so that whenever I hang up my food at night the trash is also in my food bag the next thing that I have in here is some paracord that I carry this is my Barre chord or my my food hanging cord so I just keep a little carabiner clipped on to the end of it it's paracord not much else to say about it so the next thing inside my bag is my cook set and I just like to keep a little elastic band around it and what I have in here is the toks titanium 750 milliliter cooking pot now it comes with this little mesh orange bag but I like to keep my cook set inside of a bandana and the reason that I do that is just because when I'm cooking I like to have a place to set down my spork or say the lid or whatever it may be it's just nice to have a little space where I can set things down without them touching the ground so I like to carry it in a bandana and then I can also use this too if I need to I can wipe out the cook set with it and then it's easy enough to just toss in the washer and wash it whenever I get home like I said this is the topes titanium 750 milliliter pot it weighs only 3.6 ounces for the pot and the lid and it comes in at $35 for the set so inside here I have my stove this is a little no-name no brand stove that I got on Amazon about eight years ago it only cost seven dollars and it weighs 3.8 ounces and this is the piece of gear that really I thought would just be like a temporary thing until I could upgrade to something name-brand or something a little larger but like I said I've been using this for the past eight years and it's like it won't die it just keeps working and it works really well and it costs almost nothing it weighs almost nothing so I continue to carry it and it fits well inside of this titanium pot so I would recommend going with one of these it has definitely performed well for me the next thing that I have in here I do carry a small bit wider just as a backup a fire source I carry it inside of one of these tiny bags just to keep it waterproof these little bags I use a lot and my backpacking stuff just we're kind of measuring out say medicine or whatever Lobel thing you might need to carry with you these little bags you can get them in a pack of like 50 for a dollar at Walmart so they're great little bags to have on hand I keep this little mini bic lighter inside of here and then the last thing that I have is this little 4-ounce Jetboil can which the stove just screws right to the top of this and as I said this is the fuel so typically this would not be counted in the base weight but I keep it in my cook kit because it fits well down inside my pot so I have this in there as well so the next thing that I have inside the bag is my sleeping pad this is another one that I bought specifically for this setup and for a long time I've been using the climate static v which is a great pad I've used it for several years now and it's worked well it does weigh a little bit more and cost a little more than what I wanted for this setup so I went on the hunt and found this the the brand is G for free which is just another one of these like dime-a-dozen brands on Amazon but what drew me to this pad specifically is that it was only twenty four dollars and it weighs only fifteen ounces I couldn't really get a clear weight on their Amazon listing so that's 15 ounces is what I weighed it at and the thing that I really liked about it is that it has a built in pillow on one end one of the issues I've had for a long time is my pillow moving around at night so having a built-in pillow like this it doesn't go anywhere so I sleep a lot better on this than I did on my climate static v and then another benefit to it is that it does still have a separate air valve for the rest of the pad versus the pillow so if you need to change the height or stiffness of the pillow versus the rest of the pad you can do those independently so far I have only I think three or four nights on this pad if I end up you know finding that oh that's only lasted me five or six nights then I'll update the description below but so far I'm really impressed with it and I'm hoping that it lasts me for quite a while so last but certainly not least inside this backpack is my top quilt like a lot of backpackers nowadays are switching to top quilts I chose to go with the top quilt instead of a sleeping bag because it is a little bit lighter this is the outdoor vitals storm lockdown 30-degree top quilt it's the long version they have a couple of different links but the long version comes in at 20 ounces and it's 200 I will be doing a full review on this quilt once I have a chance later on to really test it out I will also be doing a full review on the skyscape trekker so be looking out for those if you're watching this later on and those reviews are already posted I'll have the links in the description below so that is everything that is in the set up for a sub time pound base weight coming in at about six hundred and fifty dollars now one last thing that I want to say is that I am NOT one of those people that would tell you that the goal of backpacking is to drop your pack weight as much as possible I think there are some out there that enjoy that challenge and for some it's kind of like a hobby in itself of just trying to drop as much pack weight as possible but I would say that the goal of backpacking is just to get out and enjoy the outdoors but if you're like me and you have done trips in the past with 30 40 even 50 pounds on your back you know that dropping some of that pack weight can make the experience a lot more enjoyable so I hope that this video has shown you that you can drop quite a bit of pack weight without spending thousands and thousands of dollars if you have found this information helpful be sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more content just like this coming to you soon if you have any questions you can leave them in the comments section below otherwise I will see you guys next time [Music]

Channel: GearTest_Outdoors

Views: 836,451

Rating: 4.9018664 out of 5

Keywords: Gear, Test, GearTest, Geartest.tv, Backpacking, Kayaking, Hiking, Hunting, Camping, Outdoor, Kayak, Light, Ultralight, Food, Weight, Snacks, Camp, Low, Hike, AT, Appalachian, Trail, Overnight, Weekend, How, To, Review, Wilderness, wildlife, 4K, Survival, Backpack, Base, $650, 9LB, 10LB, Teton, Vitals, 8LB, 9 LB, Budget, thru, Cirque, Skyscape, Trekker, Six, Moon, Designs, Drop, Lighten, UL, Ultra, Cuben, Fiber, Cheap, Price, Walmart, Quality, High, High-Quality, list, trip, checklist, essentials, equipment, tips, backcounty, beginners, what to, hyper, cookset

Id: 2n2yf5DvvJA

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2019