Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
I got home a couple days ago from two weeks of backpacking. After a re-supply, I had 5.0 kg of food, pack without food or water was 16.1 kg. Water at 1.5 kg. And I weigh about 80 kg. Thus, pack started a hair over the 25 percent of body weight level when you include food and water.
I met a lot of through hikers that really were packed minimal. I hiked for one day with a guy that had hiked the AT. His pack weighed 20 pounds, he would pick it up with one hand and put his other arm through the shoulder strap as if it was filled with styrofoam. Had a custom trekking pole tent. His rain coat was shaped like him with a backpack, I am not kidding, his raincoat had a bulge in the back that fit around his backpack almost perfectly. But, he was re-supplying from grocery stores and not from mailed packets of food, thus he was not trying to calculate caloric needs, etc. He tried to catch up on calories on his trips to town for re-supply.
My food was running about 2 pounds per day, but I had intended to lose some weight on the trip so a mild caloric deficit was ok with me, it was only two weeks.
Fat is 9 calories per gram while carbs are only 4. I read a book about arctic sledding where they made their own "fat cakes" as provisions. They also didn't bring any other type of food apart from the cakes, because "without variation there is no disappointment".
They had a no litter rule so they couldn't throw away their used tea bags. They found that the bags froze into ice cubes and added a lot of weight to their sleds, so they would dry their used tea bags inside their hats each night.