Like many sad, body dysmorphic Americans who consume fast food and glossy images of photoshopped supermodels in equal measure, most backpackers eventually become a bit weight obsessed if not outright tortured. I'm no different, though I should acknowledge that I’m not a super-ultralight backpacker (I also almost never eat fast food - too busy polishing my halo.) In fact, I carry almost 5 pounds of photography gear, because I love landscape and nature photography more than I love counting grams. For me, that's the point. The greatest advantage of ultralight gear and paring down is that it allows one to “indulge” the weight of their passions (photography, in my case) with less physical burden. Even with my five pounds of photo gear, my pack weight is usually less than twenty pounds before food and water. The more self-righteous ultralighters might sneer at such a rotund baseline, but twenty-ish pounds is light enough to allow for very comfortable hiking (at least for me.) When I first started, my pack weight was over thirty pounds, not including my camera gear. I've slowly come to understand that every ounce really does count (just as every calorie in a half teaspoon of salad dressing matters to that self-torturing supermodel.) If you save only a couple of ounces on eight pieces of gear, that’s a full pound dropped. Imagine saving 2-3 ounces from every single thing you carry. With that in mind, here are the tips I used to drop well over ten pounds from my pack weight.
