Persuade me to go light?!

[Erbswurst]

You even don't need special lightweight equipment. Just a short packing list.

Lightweight Milsurp Packing List

BW stands for Bundeswehr, the German army. The military equipment will surely last a lifetime in civil use if bought new, new old stock or in the best available conditions.

Rucksack BW Jägerrucksack Cordura 820 g
Sleep mat BW folding mat 430g
Sleeping bag Carinthia Tropen 1100g
in the
Bivvy bag British army 800g
Poncho BW 1000g
Cordage 2x 2 metres to tension it as shelter 30g

Dry bag (as pillow too) 70g
containing
Fleece Jacket 450g
Spare underwear 1X Briefs and T-shirt 200g
Spare socks 1X 70g
Swimming briefs 1X 60g

Toilet paper 60g
Wash kit 160g
(tooth brush, tooth cream, soap in a box, razor, small towel)

Food (Bread, Salami, hard cheese, nuts, chocolate)
in the
Mess kit BW 450g
Spoon stainless steel 50g
Candle 30g
Bic lighter 20g

Rucksack in total 5800 g


ON THE MAN:

Shoes
Socks

Underwear
Shorts or trousers
Cotton Handkerchief
Several times folded usable as pot holder and pre filter before water purification by boiling.
Purse
House keys
Matches or Bic lighter
Belt
Knife (Victorinox Compact or Climber)
Field bottle with mug and belt pouch
(or 2x plastic bottles from the supermarket in the rucksack)

T-shirt
Shirt (Buttoned long sleeved shirt, ideal with two pockets and flaps over it.)
Compass
Topographical map
1:50 000

 

[SaraR]

The question is also, what will you be doing? I don't bring the same gear on a strenuous mountain hike, as I do on a long hillwalk or when sitting around in a forest. Likewise, I don't wear lightweight synthetic materials if I'm going to be hauling bits of tree around or work around an open fire and I don't wear my dense woolen clothes when hiking. Some gear and clothes may be used on all trips, but many are selected depending on the location and planned activities. Sometimes, I bring something (eg a different stove) just because I fancy using it on that trip.

In addition, if you ask a question on a bushcraft forum, you'll obviously get answers with a bushcrafty bias. If you want a purely superlight viewpoint, there are plenty of other forums for that.

 

[Paul_B]

I have my outdoors clothes. I use them all in different combinations according to need. I don't have sitting around a campfire clothes that's different to my hiking clothes. I've never had an issue with durability.

I once used a buffalo windshirt for wet weather working with BTCV. One day I caught it in a tree branch and it put a big hole in it. By the time I got home and had taken it off for a closer inspection of the damage I couldn't find any sign of the hole. Somehow it had closed up.

 

[Limey Pete]

You even don't need special lightweight equipment. Just a short packing list.

Lightweight Milsurp Packing List

BW stands for Bundeswehr, the German army. The military equipment will surely last a lifetime in civil use if bought new, new old stock or in the best available conditions.

Rucksack BW Jägerrucksack Cordura 820 g
Sleep mat BW folding mat 430g
Sleeping bag Carinthia Tropen 1100g
in the
Bivvy bag British army 800g
Poncho BW 1000g
Cordage 2x 2 metres to tension it as shelter 30g

Dry bag (as pillow too) 70g
containing
Fleece Jacket 450g
Spare underwear 1X Briefs and T-shirt 200g
Spare socks 1X 70g
Swimming briefs 1X 60g

Toilet paper 60g
Wash kit 160g
(tooth brush, tooth cream, soap in a box, razor, small towel)

Food (Bread, Salami, hard cheese, nuts, chocolate)
in the
Mess kit BW 450g
Spoon stainless steel 50g
Candle 30g
Bic lighter 20g

Rucksack in total 5800 g


ON THE MAN:

Shoes
Socks

Underwear
Shorts or trousers
Cotton Handkerchief
Several times folded usable as pot holder and pre filter before water purification by boiling.
Purse
House keys
Matches or Bic lighter
Belt
Knife (Victorinox Compact or Climber)
Field bottle with mug and belt pouch
(or 2x plastic bottles from the supermarket in the rucksack)

T-shirt
Shirt (Buttoned long sleeved shirt, ideal with two pockets and flaps over it.)
Compass
Topographical map
1:50 000

To come back to the matter, I do approve of most your recommendations. German army equipment is good. I use a German army combat jacket which I bought in an army surplus store in Dallas..
I prefer it to my cortex jacket and have never found any British Army jacket as good.
German army has always been superior to British army, as my father and uncle, veterans of the second world war told me.
I dispute you need a folding sleeping mat, 430 grams. I never use any sleeping pad or mat.
There is plenty of insulation out there, I am not going to direct you, just discover for yourself.
Your preference for the jager rucksack is noted. However the British army NI patrol pack is better.
It has an extra compartment on the top flap which is convenient for items wanted, which does not require opening the pack.
True the pack is heaver, but it is also cheaper.
Shirts? if you can buy them, a cowboy pop buttons cotton shirt is the best you can buy.
You will never rip a button, and you can close the shirt with one hand. They also have two chest pockets.
Your sleeping bag, is good enough, however if the night is mild,, a lightweight bag could be used, and I have slept well enough in a six feet bin liner, with newspapers inside.
Fully clothed of course.
Overall your list is good for light weight.

 

[Erbswurst]

I don't own the NI patrol bag but know it from pictures of course. I guess it's a bit heavier and more practical with the flap pocket but the plain oliv green Jägerrucksack (34 litres) has NO ZIPPER (which could break) and is apart from the straps a 100 % Cordura construction.
I bought a couple of them used for approximately 30 € each, after they were 30 years in service, and they look like new, just became a bit brighter over the years.

The folding mat fits here into a own compartment, serves as back pillow and gives the rucksack a nice structure.
But I agree, there are enough twigs in the forests that can serve as a bed, and I used for decades just the BW poncho in summertime, as ground sheet and bivvy if it started raining. If it became cold I did put the jacket under me and it was fine.

I also went with even far less, already decades ago, but I nearly don't feel the weight on the back, and why shouldn't I take the comfortable and practical stuff with me?

 

[TLM]

I dispute you need a folding sleeping mat, 430 grams. I never use any sleeping pad or mat.

Have you done any cold weather trekking, I don't quite see how you get by in the open without one.

 

[Billy-o]

The best argument for going light is your knees.

And yes, sleeping directly on snow or hard ground at 0C is next to impossible, unlesss you soaked up all of your rum ration and someone else's too. It has got be insulated from. I took a trip up Metal Dome in the late Spring snow with a friend a couple of years ago who tried an experiment with just a piece of Tyvek as insulation. He looked like a Panda the next day.

 

[Erbswurst]

There is a difference if you have a unexpected cold night that reaches 0*C, but the ground is still warm or if you have that conditions since a longer time and the ground is cold.

There is a difference if you use a down bag that doesn't give you any insulation against the ground, or if you are wrapped into one or several wool blankets in the traditional way that double the layers underneath you, or if you use a polyester hollow fibre sleeping bag that also reaches with 0*C it's limit or if you sleep at 0° C in a hollow fibre winter sleeping bag that's rated for far deeper temperatures.

If you are used to change the side every 90 minutes that helps a lot to. And who is used to sleep just in a bivvy bag or on a ground sheet can see even from a distance which insulation value the upper layers of the natural ground will offer.

If you sleep by the fire it will heat the ground too. You can even dig in hot stones as long as you can dig.

But using no modern insulation mat usually doesn't mean to sleep on the ground how you found it below the freezing point. Apart from using wool blankets or sheep hide the traditional way was to use straw in the military (Ski and poles as well) and other similar materials in civil use.

There is always a lot of insulating material in the woods that could be used to get off the cold ground, the spruce bed is only one option.

And above the freezing point a heap of leaves that you could find somewhere doesn't only insulate due to the air that's enclosed. It heats due to the rotting process.

It is very comfortable to sleep on or in a heap of leaves. Inside you get a bit whet but you can dry that in the morning by the fire.

There is a huge difference between camping with modern mountain equipment in the woods, what's nowadays usually done, and the real old school way to do such things.

Old school is to sleep in the woods by the fire using natural materials that can be found in place for ground insulation.

That's usualy less comfortable than a modern trekking equipment of course, but one can become used to it as well.

But I admit that this surely finds its limit in pure conifere woods, where you can't replace the blanket so easily, and of course in areas where you don't find any trees like in Lapland or above the tree limit where the usual bushcraft techniques simply reach their limits.

 

[TLM]

The problem often is that one is not allowed to take spruce branches and bracken is very rare in the north, in the open the material just does exist. Sleeping by the fire works up to a point but for a short time camp it is no help for frozen ground. Considering that with half a kilo one gets a good nights sleep and stays dry I just don't see why not to use a proper mat when the conditions call it.

 

[CLEM]

Further faster easier.

 

[TLM]

Further faster easier.

That is the theory but a few cold sleepless nights tends to slow you down and make things appear heavier.

 

[Erbswurst]

My reason was that the closed cell foam mat doesn't look nice if attached to a Wehrmacht Tornister.

 

[JonathanD]

I can’t be sleeping in the ground without a mat anymore. Miserable.

 

[Wayland]

It is a while since light weight was my way of operating. These days it tends to be the opposite but when I was younger I cut back my camping gear so that I could carry more photographic equipment.

I started by making a list of the items I needed then looking at the list to work out the lightest way I could meet those requirements. Old favourite items were often put to one side in favour or lighter items at that stage.

Before setting out I edited the list to include everything I was carrying, including my clothing and pocket contents. Have you ever considered the weight of all the house keys on your key ring for instance. I started leaving the key ring hidden in the vehicle and just carrying the car key when hiking.

On my return, while things were still fresh in my mind, I looked through the list and ticked the items I used and put a cross by the items I did not.

Next time round I used the same list and considered the items marked with a cross. Were they emergency equipment? Were they something that might have been used if conditions had been different? Were they something that could safely be left at home.

At the end of the new trip, same thing, ticks and crosses.

Some things gained two or three crosses before I finally got the courage to leave them out of my pack. Some things, like my FAK stayed in despite never really being used but did get trimmed down a bit.

One of the things that I lightened my load with dramatically was leaving behind the cooking equipment. Many foods can be eaten cold and I don't have the tea/coffee habit so cold drinks are fine too.

Getting rid of crowbars masquerading as knives helps too. The only knife I took with me to the Arctic was a small folding pocket knife ( Joker )

The Arctic trips are about the only time I think about lightening up now, mainly because of flight luggage restrictions though. Once things are on a toboggan, gravity is more or less taken out of the equation, it's more to do with friction then.

 

[Limey Pete]

Have you done any cold weather trekking, I don't quite see how you get by in the open without one.

Well 10 degrees below freezing.
In those conditions I use the twin campfires, one each side 4 feet long, and the fire wood at the head of the bed. I must admit I never had a good night's sleep, but I did sleep
One fire goes out, it is started with burning wood from the other, swung around the head of my sleeping space. I also have a method of heating the ground beneath me, plus ways of heating the sleeping bag . . .
I addition a hammock might work well above a snow covered ground, although I have never used this.
In evergreen forests which are common in cold areas, there is not usually snow on the ground , and a bed of evergreen branches 9 inches deep will insulate well enough.
For the sake of lightness, it might be worth taking one light sleeping bag in warm weather and taking another sleeping bag to put into the other in cold weather, an old hobo method in the USA.
I did for a time take a light sleeping bag and a short child's sleeping bag that came up to my waist.
I found my legs became cold before my upper body.
For extra warmth I stuff newspaper under my clothes, which also soaks up any moisture that a body emits during the night.

 

[Paul_B]

Newspaper or a warm and light mat? Now that's a real difficult decision. The question is whether carrying a mat outside my bergen looks worse than carrying newspapers. Hmm!

 

[JonathanD]

Newspaper or a warm and light mat? Now that's a real difficult decision. The question is whether carrying a mat outside my bergen looks worse than carrying newspapers. Hmm!

You can put mats in your pocket now they’re that good.

 

[Broch]

Newspaper or a warm and light mat? Now that's a real difficult decision. The question is whether carrying a mat outside my bergen looks worse than carrying newspapers. Hmm!

Or, for that matter, destroying large swathes of vegetation, leaving big fire scars, and not getting a good nights' sleep, or, carry a lightweight, compact, sleep mat - it is a difficult one.

 

[JonathanD]

Take only memories leave only footprints. Does that apply any more.

 

[TLM]

It is somewhat surprising how far people might go to avoid carrying a sleeping mat.

The northern boreal forest, Taiga, is quite snowy, last winter snow depths of well over a meter were measured at places. Depending on one's camping methods it can sometimes help but most often makes things more difficult or at least they require more time and work.

Real winter camping starts at about -20C, then about everything one does has to have the temp taken into consideration.