The Little things that add up ... or don't.

Whenever you go to the ultralight hiking sites, you'll find this fundamental principle: although shaving a small weight from a single item is of little benefit, the sum of many small savings adds up to a worthwhile reduction. There is no doubt this approach can work, but I've sometimes wondered if the term 'stupidly ultralight' is also true, where the obsession with shaving grams leads to discomfort, impracticality, reduced safety or excessive extra cost.

For example, I've seen hikers replace pocket knives with razor blades, which I imagine are difficult to use safely, and not strong enough to do many tasks properly - like whittling a piece of wood into an emergency replacement part.

Anyway, for this post, I thought I'd look at a few of the smaller items that I use on camping bush walks, and examine worthwhile weight savings, especially in relation to the money cost of those savings.

Have a look at the accompanying photo, where I've shown a few versions of different items I would typically take on 2 to 4 day hikes.

First, let's look at the food bowls, which I carry exclusively for meals (breakfast cereal and cooked dinners like pasta and rice) - no plate, no eating from cups or cooking pots. The typical bowl you'll find in camping stores is the blue plastic bowl, which is quite solid, very heatproof and not too expensive - maybe 10 bucks? It's 70g. The next bowl is enameled metal, unbreakable, not well insulated, and probably also 5 -  10 dollars. It weighs 162 grams, more than double. To the right is another plastic bowl which I picked up in the picnic section of a supermarket for around $3, and is 42grams. It gets a bit hot to hold with soup or a laksa, but it's not a problem.

So far the picnic bowl seems the pick, but look at that clear plastic bowl to the right. Bought at a 'bargain store' as a food storage tupperware, they were 3 for $4 (with snap fit lids), and is a miserly 26 grams. Yes it's a bit smaller, but big enough for my purposes, and allows a smaller pack volume - it actually snugly fits over a gas canister, so virtually disappears into the pack. So - light, functional, and small - and it's cheaper than the camping store product!.

Next, tent pegs - from left to right, a standard alloy 'Shepard' style, and a 'v' section alloy peg (it's a pinky-purple colour). The first weighs 15 grams, compared to 11 grams, so for the bag of 8 which I usually carry, I save 32 grams - a moderate amount, but better than nothing.  I'm not sure how much that saving would cost me, as the 'v' section pegs came with an MSR tent I purchased, but if we price the standard pegs at $2 each and (say) $4 for the lighter ones, it would cost $16 to save those 32 grams or 50 cents per gram. Worth it? That's $500  per kilogram.

Have a look at the cups. There are all sorts of possibilities, from plastic and paper picnic cups which way under 10 grams, but are not sturdy or reliable, to the brand name camping store cups which fold up, stack, have lids etc but cost over $20. Here I will just compare a very light plastic cup (it came with a lid which I never use, and is 450 ml) at around $10, with a 350 ml titanium cup, no lid, hot on the lips; $35. Titanium, 65 grams vs plastic, 72 grams - $25 for a 7 gram saving. Definitely not worth it, except perhaps for the ability to boil a 'cuppa' without needing a separate pot. The plastic one is bigger, too.

The titanium lesson is confirmed when looking at the cooking pots. The pot on the stove is a 1.2 litre aluminium (100g), the one at the back is a 2 litre aluminium (193g), and the one at the front is a 0.7 litre titanium pot (109g) (weights without lids). The 2 alloy pots are from a set of 3, which have a special lid which fits snugly on any of the three (pictured on the biggest pot). So for probably twice the price, the titanium pot is 50% smaller, but weighs more! Admittedly, the alloy pot lid is significant - 105grams, but I'll often not take it, and just use a piece of very light aluminium foil as a lid - it adds 9 grams.

(Edit: I did some subsequent research and decided my titanium pot was an eBay ripoff, as its advertised weight was 85 grams - which is still only 15 grams lighter than the bigger alloy pot - and confirms that titanium is not such a bargain.)

Talking about aluminium foil, the windshield weighs 64 grams and costs around $10, whereas you can use a sheet of aluminium foil from the kitchen cupboard - it does the job in calm conditions or inside your vestibule, but is not sturdy and can blow around if there's a breeze. But in a hut, or in fair weather, the lightweight foil is a no-brainer.

On the subject of cooking, I do make a big sacrifice of weight for convenience with my stove - I use a generic ebay off-canister, pre-heating gas stove ($15, 150 grams), as opposed to the methylated spirits (alcohol) penny stove ($5-$10, 10 grams plus 11g for the wire pot stand) - which saves even more in fuel weight on short trips. I just can't actually cook anything on those alcohol stoves - just boil water. There's no simmer, there's no easy turning on and off, and there's often some fuel spilled - which I'm never comfortable with. So, yeah, the gas stove plus gas canister is going to be around 200 - 400 grams more, but it's definitely a worthwhile trade-off, in terms of functionality, safety and convenience for me.

Note that the gas vs alcohol debate has been examined widely on the net (see http://zenstoves.net/ , for example), and that because of the higher energy density of gas, the weight benefits of alcohol diminish and disappear with longer expeditions and/or larger parties.

Another example of cheap and light is with the water bottles - the nalgene bottles are around $20 and 160 grams, compared to 43 grams and basically free for the recycled soft drink bottle. The only reservation people have about PET bottles is BPA, but this is a furphy as the amounts are insignificant as a  health risk. The PET bottles are quite sturdy, and also clear so you can see what's going on in your water.
Not especially light, but (I find) essential for an enjoyable multi-day expedition, are the odd looking blue slippers, which I put on around the campsite. Nothing beats getting out of heavy boots, feet sore, throbbing and hot, and slipping on these 320 gram neoprene, soft soled booties (I think they're made for the kayaking/water sport market, but I'm not sure; I picked them up on sale from Kathmandu for under $10). I used to use crocs, which were 350 grams, they wouldn't fit nicely inside a pack (so hung on the outside), and had those ventilation holes which let in ants, leeches, thorns, bull-ants and all the other little bitey things around campsites. The booties fold up neatly, and are definitely an 'essential luxury'.

The main gripe I had about toothbrushes was that they always seemed too long to pack in any convenient way, so on my last family holiday overseas, when the stewardess came around with the folding travel toothbrushes, I had the kids put on their sweetest smiles and nabbed a dozen. They're about $1.50 each on "Flea-bay". 13 grams compared to around 20 grams for a regular brush, plus they fold up to half the length, and come with these tiny tubes of paste (good for about 3 or 4 brushes) which are 3 grams (full), AND store neatly inside the folded brush. You can re-fill them by squeezing them, then letting them "suck" the paste out of a regular tube. A small tube of toothpaste, mostly used up, weighs around 25 grams, although you can just squeeze what you need into zip-locks or small containers you pick up from bargain stores (around the size of "carmex" canisters - see the small jar top right).

Cutlery really doesn't weigh much, and I find the sea to summit plastic spoons and forks work well and are robust enough ($1-$2, 8-11 grams). Those "spork" hybrids are a marketing triumph, as they DON'T work for either purpose - spooning or forking. All those items in the picture are between 5 and 11 grams each - the two smaller ones on the left (6.5 grams each), pack better and also came as part of a kid's lunch tupperware type pack from a "bargain store" for a few dollars. The green items in the middle I bought from a supermarket picnic section ($7 including a pair of chopsticks, 10 grams) on the spur of the moment; they work as a single handle with interchangeable fork and spoon end-pieces, so weigh slightly less and are slightly more space efficient - but when they break, I won't replace them. Too expensive.

The knives/tools I consider indispensable for repairs (shoes, packs, tents, skis when ski touring etc.), and  here I figure you get what you pay for - the cost being weight - the heavier the thing, the sturdier and the less likely it will fail when needed. So I mainly decide on what I take based on the remoteness of the camp, the weather, the chances of things failing, and so on. The Swiss army knife, with scissors, is good at 60 grams, but doesn't have pliers. The Gerber, with pliers that I find are often useful, but with no scissors, is 100 grams. Sometimes I'll take the Gerber plus a small (18 gram) baby knife that has scissors (it's the green foldable knife), sometimes I'll take the Swiss army and the smaller, blue multi-tool with light pliers (60 grams).

Torches are also a weight/performance trade, and I've shown three of many options - the button cell torch which is really just a hang-from-the-tent-roof use just before sleep/emergency/back-up torch weighing 7 grams (under $2 on Flea bay, the ultralight choice but low on utility), a fairly standard 110 gram Black Diamond that will do most things reasonably well (although I don't like their system for opening the battery compartment, which eventually fails as the plastic breaks; nor do I like their on-off button, which can be turned on accidentally with pressure in your pack, leaving the torch with flat batteries just when you go to pull it out from your pack at nightfall!) . The Kathmandu unit is 200 grams, bulky in storage and suffers the same problem with on-off buttons, but is super bright, runs off 3 AA's (so it lasts), and seems sturdy. When I'm supervising students, I like the security I get from a bright torch, something that is really useful in emergencies, searches, or walking bush trails at night safely. (All stated weights are with batteries - three AAA's are 38 grams, three AA's are 78 grams, so they make up about one third of the total.)

I prefer to use rechargeable batteries in torches for economy and environmental reasons, but strangely the Kathmandu torch will only except alkalines - my Sony en-loops must be marginally fatter, and will only slide into the tube-like compartments with force, refusing to then slide back out. I always take more batteries than I think I could possibly need, and will often also pack a couple of tea-light candles for emergencies - they burn for hours, and will (slightly) warm a tent on a cold night.
Finally, at the back right corner, you see a few small containers, plus a medium sized bottle of insect repellant, and that's all there just to demonstrate the idea that you really should always reduce sun-screen, insect repellant, soaps, cooking sauces etc. to the smallest quantity required, and carried in appropriately sized and light weight containers, which again can often be found cheaply in the "bargain stores". If you're travelling in a group, these fluids should be consolidated to save packaging weight.

So, a few conclusions:

• Ebay, and "bargain stores" (we call them $2 shops in Australia) can be your friend - but be extra cautious, as a bargain can often be a disappointment.
• Titanium is over-rated - at best it is slightly lighter than aluminium or plastic, at great expense, at worst it's no better - at great expense. In terms of weight savings per dollar, you're better off looking at the big 4 (pack, tent, sleeping bag and mat) for making substantial savings at a reasonable cost per kg saved.
• Some items will weigh, but are worth it for durability, safety, comfort, convenience or pleasure. You're bushwalking for fun, it's not a military exercise.
• Any item that runs off batteries - take one battery out whilst in your pack to prevent accidental discharge.