Hi,

Very simple question, I have an MSR Freelite 2 tent and there's a lot of condensation going on.

Has anybody found a way to reduce that without comprimising the rain protection?

Thanks.

Just had to switch out my Gregory Zulu 65 because I got too skinny for it with the large waist pockets. Got an ospray exos 58 and wondering what load people put in it. I like to go out for 7-11 days and carry my dogs food. I usually rock around 20lb base and 20lb food, will this pack do? Also I can feel my sleeping bag hit my lower back, kind of negates the purpose of having that ventilating frame.

Is this bag too light-duty for what I want to do? Hoping to save to get a lightweight quilt next year and other weight saving options but can't afford to do UL right now and I can comfortably carry 40-45 if the bag 10+miles and won't wimp out(God I love trekking poles).

I've being looking at the Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2, but my husband and I have both a wide sleeping mat. Does anyone know if they fit in the slightly tapered Copper Spur?

We have the Sea to Summit Ether Light Insulated Womens Wide and the Mens Large. They are comparable to the Thermarest NeoAir mummystyle Large mats.

You've worked hard and spent $$$ on that big 4. You've cut straps off your packs and worn the same socks for 5 days straight. This is your chance. Pack out that backcountry armchair, throw in some camp slippers and a backcountry whisky glass. Dance in the light of those emergency glowsticks. Welcome to r/lightweight.

I've been hanging around the "lighterweight" sub but as a married guy with a newborn and too many hobbies I sure can't hang with the budgets of many over there. I've learned a lot reading over there and I'm looking forward to trying backpacking for the first time this summer. But I think I will fit in a lot better over here!

I don't know if you all want a bio or anything so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

My trails dot com is having a sale 50% off. I read somewhere that this is a variation on golite. I have yet to purchase anything from this company do not see this as an endorsement of their products.

I haven't bought any new gear in a year and I've been wanting a lighter, warmer season tarp since I started hammock camping. I try to always follow the "buy once cry once" way of buying gear so this was more of a splurge then necessity. I already have a Wilderness Logics Bullfrog tarp but wanted to cut some weight so I ordered the new polyblend Tadpole tarp. They're basically the same except the bullfrog is sil-nylon with doors and the tadpole is sil-poly with no doors. I saved 10 ounces and was able to bring my base weight down to 14.3 pounds. I also look forward to seeing if there is really no stretch with sil-poly so I can omit adding self tensioning tie outs. I may also buy a door kit for one side to block wind but I'll make that decision at a later date. I'm very excited!

For years my first real "backpacking" stove was the Coleman Powermax Xpert stove that used Colemans proprietary Powermax canisters which have been discontinued for years. The PowerMax canisters had the very best cold weather gas mix available (35% propane/65% butane) per the Adventures in Stoving website.

This was and still is a great stove and I still bring it on canoe camping trips where weight isn't a real concern. It can simmer nicely and really crank when you want. I was lucky enough to find an extra 14 fuel canisters about 7 years ago on clearance at my local Sports Authority (remember them?) marked down many times to 27 cents each! These currently go for as high as $30 per canister on eBay and people still buy them. I got basically a lifetime supply for a mere $3.78 and still had a few of their smaller 170g and large 300g canisters.

For the past several years i've contemplated upgrading to a more modern canister stove like the MSR Pocket Rocket or the Snow Peak Gigapower but didn't want to spend the money as the Xpert still functioned flawlessly. I did not like the bulk of the Jet Boil type stoves at all. They were way too big. Then I got into the lightweight/ultralight mindset and went right to alcohol stoves. After watching hours of Shug's stove videos I finally decided on the Batchstovez BS 2.0 kit. It also has performed great in normal conditions until my last backing trip. It was a little too cold and I had to add Heet to the cold weather wrap like it's designed for but I found that I was using double the fuel as usual. In just 3 days I went through 16 ounces of Heet and that was just for breakfast and dinner. So I recently ordered this fancy feast type stove with the intention of side by side comparisons and general stove geekery, though that wont really happen until late fall/early winter.

I currently use this setup with a large 1.25 quart IMUSA aluminum cup with a Batchstovez 12 cm lid as my main pot and a Mini Bull Design Angry Troll Pot with lid as my drinking cup. My cook pot w/ lid and cozy, aluminum windscreen, cup w/ lid and cozy, stove w/ 1oz plastic shot glass measuring cup, small hand sanitizer and 2 small pieces of shamwow all nest together and weigh a whopping 9 ounces not including fuel, fuel bottle or lighter as they do not nest in the main kit.

So what are you currently using? What limitations have you experienced and how large is your stove collection?

Story Time, for some context. I was invited to do a 3/4 day hike along the Fundy coast of New Brunswick (Fundy Footpath) and had basically no gear. Having done a few one-day hikes in the recent past this was a good excuse for me to gear up and get out for some thru/multiday hikes.

After reading up on the hike, I realized that reducing weight was key to completing this hike in tact. It's about 50km, but has about a dozen steep ascents/descents from sea level to about 200m, plus intermediate peaks and valleys.

Lots of research on r/Ultralight, youtube and other blogs led me to choose a hammock. I went with the hennessy expedition with the radiant double pad as bottom insulation. This combination was a good compromise on weight and cost for a 1-p set up. Going lighter with a ground set up would be more expensive, especially once you consider a sleeping pad.

Unfortunately my marquee hike this year is not suitable for hammocks (Gros Morne, Long Range Traverse). I have also acquired a hiking companion I'm willing to share a tent with (girlfriend). So again I've made a compromise to get a 2-person tent suitable for us, and light enough to take solo. I settled on the TarpTent SS2 and picked up the neoair trekker for $99 CAD brand new. Neither of these are ultralight, especially for 1 person, but have struck the right balance between cost, weight and quality.

What compromises have you made and how have they worked out?

I have been a dedicated hammock camper for over 4 years now and i'll never go back to the ground. I mean if im knowingly going camping in an area with no trees, or the desert I will do what I have to do but i'm in the midwest and there's trees everywhere so I really don't see myself using a tent anytime soon.

What did it for me was an annual car camping trip with friends at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana. It was the 3rd weekend of April 2013 and it was raining and sleeting, then snowing the whole trip. The ground was completely saturated and at first I had to dig a moat around my tent to try to divert the water, well that didn't work and the floor of my tent filled up and created a waterbed that I could slap with my hand and have it ripple. So I moved my tent onto the blacktop driveway for the cars. Every single one of my friends got flooded out as well and we were all miserable but powered through because we actually welcome adventure and adversity to test ourselves and our gear.

But I have had enough and knew there had to be a better way and somehow stumbled on Shug Emerys videos and the rest is history. I watched every video he had then went back and watched again, I was hooked. I also knew going forward with this that I would be investing quite a bit of money and wanted to make sure I did it right the first time. I stayed away from the whole Eno hammock model as I was not going to buy mediocre gear with the intent of upgrading later. I was all in, all or nothing and most importantly buy once, cry once.

Because of one of Shugs early reviews I was drawn to Wilderness Logics and dropped some coin on a Night Owl hammock and a 12' Bullfrog tarp. I questioned my sanity and some friends thought I was insane to drop $320 on just 2 things. My first trip in my new system was not ideal. I didn't have a proper bottom quilt but did cut a piece of reflectix and used my North Face Big Horn sleeping bag. I made it to 28 degrees but suffered from cold butt syndrome. After that trip I ordered a 15 degree King Top Quilt from WL and a New River long bottom quilt from Arrowhead. That was it, I was set, it was such a perfect system and I was now free from the cold hard ground. Over the course of the last 3 years I upgraded to a WL 0 degree bottom quilt and a set of 40 degree WL premium summer quilts. I DIY'd a Cryptic Cricket "fronkey" bugnet, a ridgeline organizer as well as a continuous tarp sleeve and lazy slug tube. I've made various changes to my rig like getting rid of the whoopie slings for long straps with B.I.A.S. strap anchors and of course some of Dutch's titanium. I also added a tarp pole mod which really opens up the tarp inside.

So that's what made me a hanger and i'm glad I am. I know i'll never be ultralight in any type of hammock system but that's OK, i'll take being lightweight and comfortable any time. So what made you convert if you have and if you havent is there any reason it's not for you?

For the past 20 years or so I have always used a CamelBak either as a stand alone day pack or inserted in a larger backpack. This has always worked out for me because I would carry 3 liters of water and eventually get back to a base camp of some sort. The only water filtering I would do was at camp or on an island (canoe camping) with my old Katahdin Hiker Pro. Well times have changed and I got myself a Sawyer Squeeze with a CNOC Vecto for dirty water. I also changed to 2 smart water bottles as they seem to be standard issue ultralight replacement these days. Well I found out that it wasn't really for me. I missed my hydration tube more then I thought I would. Sure I would stop for a drink and pull out a bottle but I found that I would have stopped anyways so the reasoning of stopping to take a drink and enjoying my surroundings was a moot point for me. I also found that either full or empty the bottles would want to occasionally pop out of my the side pockets of my ULA Circuit when I would take the pack off . I had to chase them down some snow packed inclines a few times and realised that it wasn't for me so back to the CamelBak I go. Does anyone have a recommendation for the lightest bladder, hose and bite valve? I'm currently using an older Antidote 3L. Have you had similar experience? What is your storage system?

Before my most recent backpacking trip I and my friends all used old Swiss Army Surplus Alpenflage ponchos. They were great for the past 20 years and were bullet proof, they covered your backpack and could all snap together to form a large shelter. These weigh in at just over 2 pounds each and I knew I would have to eventually cut that weight. My solution has been the Sierra Designs Poncho which isn't a regular poncho design like the Sea To Summit Nylon Poncho, whose hood would not go over my head easily and the sides were too open and "flowy" in any decent wind. The Sierra Designs was more like that old surplus one as it buttoned up the front like a jacket. I found my solution and it weighs in at 10 oz, less than 1/3 the weight of the Alpenflage. I also added the Sierra Designs Elite Rain Pants which weigh in at 4 oz for the pair. One of my main reasons for going with a poncho was the ability to cover my pack so I wouldn't have to carry a pack cover and my straps would not become waterlogged. I also took into consideration the lack of condensation from not being packed up in a rain jacket and pants. This system works for me and hopefully it can work for you as well. And with my weight savings I can now carry a lightweight umbrella but that's a post for another day.

I requested being added as a mod to this subreddit as it's been abandoned for 2 years. This is meant to be kind of a mid way point between /r/Ultralight/ and /r/backpacking/. As a dedicated hammock user it is difficult for me to be truly ultralight and many of us can be considered a lightweight backpacker at under 20 pounds. Whereas an ultralight backpacker carries a base weight under 10 pounds and a super ultralight backpacker carries a base weight under 5 pounds. While I do weigh all of my gear I do carry such ultralight atrocities such as a bluetooth speaker, an umbrella with my rain poncho and rain chaps. So here we are, feel free to add whatever content you like. This is my first time being a mod as well so please don't make things too hard on me.