BACKPACKING

u    l    t    r    a    l    i    g    h    t      &       u    l    t    r    a    l    o    n    g

Earl Shaffer’s advice for long distance hikers on the Appalachian Trail, circa 1950

Do you prefer quality, or quantity?

Getting started

Lighter is better, but only to a point

On the trail, with the clothes on your back and little more

Some useful rules of thumb

Testimonial of a lightweight hiker

TrailQuest ultralight backpacking page: Philosophy

Ultralight backpacking is a philosophy

Ultralight commandments

What is ultralight backpacking?

Why travel ultralight?

Read about the underpinnings of this sport.

Like you, everyone else also does it out of love, and everyone learns as they go.

This is really the important part of the story, not having fancy gear, not being better than someone else.

It’s the hard part, the learning, the thinking, and inventing new approaches out of thin air.

We’re all in this together.