Backpacking Gear
A lot of people ask me what they should pack for a 3 day backpacking trip. The answer is that you need everything you’d bring on a 1 day backpacking trip, except for a little more food, fuel, toilet paper, and what ever other extra consumables you need to stay out an additional 2 days. It doesn’t matter if I go on a 24 hour hike or a 2 week backpacking trip, I bring the exact same gear and clothing every time.
What’s that include? It’s really just the 10 essentials, plus a backpack.
For example, here’s what I bring on every backpacking trip, regardless of duration or distance.
1. Navigation
- Always: waterproof map, compass, watch, and pre-planned itinerary (leave copy with a responsible adult in case of emergency)
- Sometimes: GPS but never without a map and compass. Don’t rely on batteries or satellite accuracy
2. Sun protection
- Always: small tin of sun tan lotion, chapstick for lips. and sunglasses
- Always: wear a long sleeve shirt, long pants, and hat for sun and insect prevention
3. Insulation, including additional layers
- Always (wearing): 1 pair socks, 1 short sleeve performance top, 1 synthetic pair long hiking pant 1 pair underwear, 1 billed cap
- Always (packed): hard shell raincoat with hood and rain pants, lightweight (top and bottom) long underwear to wear when sleeping, 1 pair extra socks
- Always: a sleeping bag rated for seasonal temperatures and a sleeping pad to prevent my body from being chilled by direct contact with the ground
- Always: rain mitts, synthetic glove liners, fleece beenie hat
- Always: some sort of ground cloth, plastic sheeting, or a waterproof bivy bag to keep my insulation dry
- Sometimes: lightweight down or synthetic vest or jacket, depending on time of year or climate
4. Illumination
- Always: head lamp, one set extra batteries
5. First-aid Supplies
- Always: small packets of Benedryl, Imodium and Ibuprofen, 6 sterile gauze bandages, a few band-aids, 1 ounce bottle of Purell, 1 pair latex gloves, a tick key, and 10 extra chlorine dioxide tablets for purifying water (2 day supply), 1 ounce tube of zinc oxide, and two safety pins
- Always: a pen or pencil to write messages or record first aid information in an emergency
- Always: a 1 ounce bottle of Dr Bronner’s soap for daily hygiene and cleaning wounds
6. Fire
- Always: fire steel and a small box of wooden matches
- Sometimes: cotton balls dipped in petroleum jelly for lighting wood fires
7. Repair kit including knife
- Always: small Swiss army knife with scissors, 10 ft of duct tape, and 1 extra shoe lace
8. Nutrition
- Always: 1.5 to 1.75 pounds of food per day
- Always: bear bag or bear canister to protect my food from bears or other animals
- Always: camping stove, just enough fuel for the duration of the trip, a 3/4 liter pot to boil water and use as a cup/bowl, and a long handled spoon
9. Hydration
- Always: two recycled 1 quart plastic bottles and a small screw-on drinking filter
- Always: chlorine dioxide tablets to purify water in bulk
10. Shelter
- Always: a tent or a tarp, tent stakes, and cordage to tie it down
- Always: trekking poles, which I use instead tent poles to save weight
Other Important Items
In addition, I usually add a few other important items including:
- Insect repellent
- Mosquito netting, to cover my head at night
- A cell phone, although I often can’t get a signal in the backcountry
- An emergency whistle, since it’s louder than yelling for help
- A personal locator beacon, that I mainly use to send a daily email message to my wife with my GPS coordinates to let her know I’m ok, but that I can also use to contact SAR in a dire life-threatening emergency.
Things I don’t bring
- I don’t bring any extra clothes: I just wash the ones I’m wearing if they become too smelly or salty. These dry overnight or I put them on damp in the morning and let my body heat dry them out while I’m hiking. I use the following rule of thumb: you should be able to put on all of the clothes you are wearing and the ones in your backpack at the same time. If you can’t, you have too many clothes.
- I don’t bring extra sandals or camp shoes. Some people do, but not me. They’re dead weight most of the time.
- I don’t wear hiking boots because they take too long to dry. Instead I wear trail runners. They let me hike faster and they dry quickly.
If you have any other questions, ask away. I’m here to help.
Tags
- backpacking gear
- backpacking
- what to pack for a backpacking trip
Phil,
Excelent review of a good packpack kit. Seveal things I do a bit differently but this is a matter of style and choice, mostly. Weight in a 10-15 pound pack is OK. With 1.5# of food per day per person, this is plenty to keep you well fed.
It’s kind of funny how I think of three-day trips as almost not long enough to even count. Of course, once I get out in the woods on a three-day trip, I realize it’s usually been too long since I’ve been backpacking anyway.
I’m going to have to get in the weekend-trip kind of mindset soon, though. Time for me to get employed and stop being a bum.
Great list. I would add a survival kit with a space blanket, a lighter, a couple of esbit tabs, a few water treatment tablets, a couple of Propel packets, and a small Photon light. Also a small repair kit with a couple of zip ties, needle and floss, and a velcro strap. These all go in a small ditty bag with the first aid kit, head lamp, and cell phone, so I've got one bag to grab in an emergency.
In Insulation you mention underwear. On a recent trip I realized I have always been relentless in making sure my layers are all synthetic. But I have never thought to get synthetic undies. I have never had a problem…but wonder what you think…are cotton undies a no no?
I chafe immediately if I wear cotton, but even worse, if they get wet, they won't dry. I think wearing cotton as a base layer is probably dangerous if you get cold (and wet). There is a reason people chant "no cotton."
Definitely give synthetic underwear a try. I had great luck last year with the ExOfficio Give-N-Go Boxer Briefs. Wore one pair for three months on the trail with weekly washings. Can't imagine what cotton would look (or smell) like after that. I liked them so much that once I was back home, I got enough to wear all the time.
I love this format, I have been meaning to do it for years.
I feel like the next step could be calling it 10 essential systems.
When you think of each category as a system it could give you the freedom to consolidate items and eliminate preconceived notions of use. It might even help you pack better and be more efficient. And best of all you could find a place for your other items.
Navigation (& Communication) systems would include phone, whistle and communication.
(Sun & Bug) Protection systems would include all sun and bug related items.
(First Aid &) Repair systems could include both human repair and gear repair.
Carry systems would include pack, stuff sacks, bear bags and maybe even utensils and pot/cup.
Fire systems would include stove.
Shelter (or Sleep) systems would include all items used for sleeping.
Nice list, contains just about everything I carry but did you miss your multi-purpose use towel or Bandana? Currently I'm trying to find a lady who can sew so I can enlarge my Bandana to a 28inx28in size which is much more useable than the current 20×20 size. I used to carry a sewing kit but only used it once in 15 years so I took a good look at what I needed to repair anything I was wearing or carrying. I now carry a small spool of general purpose nylon olive drab thread with two needles and three safetey pins inside a film cannister which also contains an extra boot lace and a bit of tightly rolled up Vietnam era trip wire and then rolled some Duct tape around the film container.. I also added a set of Sterile Stitches to my First Aid kit since the time I had to sew up my deeply cut finger using a regular needle and thread. And thank you for continuing to carry a Map and a Compass, I thought I was the only left alive to do so especially after reading all the Outdoor Magazines and websites and helping a number of lost er disorientated hikers on a well marked trail with their GPS…I've been wearing synthetic underwear since REI first offered them and have not looked back since. I hated wearing underwear because of the clammy sticky wet soggy cotton and associated problems thereof but the synthetic does a great job of wicking and solves all the problems I had with cotton. As part of my layering I still carry a 100% Wool sweater Vest in the cool months, be it a bit heavy, it has never failed to keep me warm like the other man-made materials have..I alternate between a Silnylon Tarp and a Space blanket depending on the Weather Forecast and have used the Space Blanket as my ground sheet and emergency rain cover/Tarp. I recently found a 2 lb synthetic fill sleeping bag with a built in Mosquito Net, good down to 40 deg's, so no need to carry the Bivy tent just a 36×72 piece of plastic for a ground sheet and the Space Blanket Tarp. I do carry a two liter collapseable water bag made by Nalgene which I use in camp as my Water Source. I also have been testing using Bleach instead of Purification Tablets or FIlters since the tablets take up to 4 hours and the Bleach a little as 30 minutes and 8 drops to make a gallon of water safe to drink or 4 per Liter. I carry the Bleach in a Laboratory grade amber glass bottle with a built in eye dropper inside an old Pill Bottle. I also have used a Laboratory Grade plastic squeeze bottle as well, which seemed to leak, but I could not find any liquid, just the smell, so I switched to be safe. And how about a Book?
Book – depends on the length of the trip. Probably not on a short one.
Bandana – I carry a small Trader Joes absorbent towel for washing. Forgot to mention that. Also use it as a pot holder.
Map and Compass – Don't leave home with out it.
Coupla things:
1. How can you tell how much fuel you'll need? Probably a matter of experience – but with canisters I always wonder if I should bring one and then one extra "just in case." And with white gas I always wonder if I should just "fill it up." I have come back home with extra all the time.
2. You wrote: "I don’t bring any extra clothes: I just wash the ones I’m wearing if they become too smelly or salty. These dry overnight or I put them on damp in the morning and let my body heat dry them out while I’m hiking. I use the following rule of thumb: you should be able to put on all of the clothes you are wearing and the ones in your backpack at the same time. If you can’t, you have too many clothes."
Thank you. I've been looking for this information for about 2 years. Really had a difficult time finding anyone who addressed this. I bring too many clothes. I'm using this system. Thanks!
M
The fuel thing really depends on the season, how many hot meals you eat per day and your eating preferences. For example, there are times of year, like summer, when I don't even bring a stove on overnight hikes because I am happy eating cold food.
One suggestion would be to figure out how many meals you want and to simulate the burns at home (with a windscreen) so you know how much fuel you need. It's not that expensive to do this and it will give you more confidence that what you are carrying is sufficient.
I'm gonna get jumped on for this,,but if I am doing an "Over nighter" say leaving Friday afternoon and coming back in Saturday night or Sunday Morning..I carry two MRE Entree's with two heaters and Pemmican Bars, Beef Jerky, GORP, and Cheese and Crackers for the rest of my meals along with various Drink Powders needing no heating. In Winter and looking for to make Hot Chocolate, or Tea or Soup or to Heat Water for Oatmeal, I use Military Heat Tabs or the new Gel Packs placed between two flat rocks placing my 2 cup metal Cup over the flame works really well.Sometimes I carry a Metal canteen Cup instead but both work and the weight of the Gel Packs and Heat Tabs are minute..
That makes perfect sense – honest! Simple and always good.