Pack weight is a heavily discussed topic for backpacking, but there isn’t any real standard for it. How much your pack should weigh is largely subjective, and to be perfectly honest, most people’s packs aren’t as light as you might think. Evaluating pack weight can be confusing in regards to the different types of weight, such as dry weight, total weight, if this weight includes both water and food, etcetera.

There are good reasons to want a lighter pack, but decreasing weight is almost always a compromise. What you should bring and how much your pack will weigh depends on several factors.

For safety reasons, your pack should never weigh more than 1/3rd of your body weight, but that’s really the only true upper limit. Carrying 1/3rd of your body weight is enough to make most people pretty miserable on the trail though, and there are several steps you can take to lighten your pack. This means leaving unnecessary items at home, and figuring out where to cut weight using a pack weight calculator such as lighterpack.com

Dry Weight
Dry weight is what people are talking about when they brag about pack weight, and it’s arguably the most useful weight to evaluate your gear selection. Dry weight excludes all food and water, giving you a minimum weight of everything you will have with you regardless of trip length.

Total Weight
This includes both dry weight, food weight, and usually water weight. Sometimes people don’t count water because how much they carry will vary from day to day based on conditions.

Ultralight
Having the lightest pack possible at any cost. This is done to let people hike faster, cover more miles, and because they enjoy coming up with creative ways to lighten their load. Dry weights can be anything under 15lbs.

Lightweight
This is what most people aim for, as it leads to a manageable pack weight without sacrificing too much comfort, safety, or much in the way of campsite selection. Dry weights are about 15-20lbs.

What gear you need depends on the environment you will be in. If you are backpacking in the Rockies, your gear needs will be very different than if you are hiking in the coastal mountains of Southern California. High elevation typically means harsher environments, and this means you need warmer clothes and better protection from the elements.

Requirements can also vary wildly within the same region, with some areas being under snow or overrun by mosquitoes just a few miles from a location that is dry and relatively bug-free. This often changes with elevation, moisture, and exposure.

Conditions vary from year to year, month to month, and even week to week in some areas. The High Sierra is a perfect example of this, where some years receive extremely heavy snowfall that lasts through most of the summer and other years receive almost no snow. When the snow melts, meadows get swampy, trails flood, and the mosquitoes come out in hoards. A month later, things start to dry out and the bugs mostly die off. In another month or two, things start to get cold again, and the same sleeping bag that would have been fine a month earlier will leave you seriously chilled.

The length of your trip determines how much food you will bring, and on longer trips your food might actually outweigh your other gear. This is perfectly normal, and the only thing you can really do here is pack lighter food. You should always pack enough food to sustain yourself and have enough energy to keep hiking. This article discusses how to optimize your food for weight reduction.

It’s not until you gain experience in the environments that you will be backpacking in that you will know what gear you are comfortable with. Having experience helps you better predict what conditions you will encounter, and it provides a way to know what comforts you are willing to sacrifice. Some backpackers hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail with a tarp for a shelter, for example, but these hikers are willing to put up with buzzing clouds of mosquitoes around their heads while they sleep, being cold, having more limited campsite selections, and waking up from ants and mice crawling on them.

This is a factor that often gets overlooked, the reason being some people don’t know what kind of experience they want, or even what their options are.

Ultralight backpacking is a very unique experience as it involves sacrificing quite a bit of comfort and exposing yourself more to bugs and the elements. It also lets you carry less weight and hike very long distances daily. Hiking 15-20 miles or more per day means you will be passing by most of the scenery without much time to stop and enjoy it, but you don’t have to hike this fast. Hiking 10-15 miles/day is a more leisurely experience that most people find more comfortable, especially when they have a tent and clean socks to crawl into at night.