I know that many classic trippers have no interest in ultralight in the same sense that some UL backpackers do...but as I age, taking less has become the norm. And for backpacking trips, I do go ultralight (20-22 lbs with food for 5-7 days).

Curious if there are a few other canoeheads out there that try hard to cut gear weight, and if so where you lose the weight.

Certainly two of the big 3 of backpacking transfer (Pack, Shelter, Sleep System - the Pack may warrant more discussion amongst the canoe crowd)...

Would love to hear from folks who have invested some thought in the topic.

Cheers.

Welcome to the BWCA forum. I consider some of the same things you have such as shelter, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and other gear. I'm not a true UL nut but I still consider weight when adding or changing out gear.

So far I have changed my sleep system from a synthetic bag and heavier pad to a down bag and semi UL pad (Exped UL 7). Most recently I went to a down quilt (Enlightened equipment) but that was a comfort change more than a weight drop.

I have a lighter cook set now a GSI than pot versus what I had a (Coleman) stainless steel.

Good luck with your adventures as UL should be renamed UE (ultra expensive) it seems that the lighter gear is the more money they charge you for it.

I have some fairly lightweight gear, but if I am truly concerned about weight savings, I will need to shed some pounds. Lightweight is great, but if the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (e.g. me!) is worried about saving a few grams on tent stake, well, that just seems kind of folly.

Food is one of the heaviest items. I take all dehydrated meals, no fresh food. To some degree, I try to eat the heaviest stuff first.

Dehydrated food requires only boiling water for cooking. For that I take a Littlbug which is lightweight and requires no fuel. It will work in the rain, even if raining pretty heavily, if you have some firestarter.

I have found that the worst place to save weight is sleeping gear. I do try to save weight (i.e. I took the memory foam pad off my luxurious Nemo air mattress and I have a nice down sleeping bag) but I also take a nice cot on which to sleep. Makes a huge difference.

I use the lightweight CCS rope for my CCS tarp which is pretty lightweight. I don't take an axe - for the Littlbug a set of lightweight Fishers loppers are much more functional and lighter than an axe. I can chop up a huge pile of sticks in no time.

Also, I flyfish rather than conventional fishing. Much lighter weight gear.

I've been cutting weight for years for several reasons - I'm not as young as I used to be and I'm doing longer trips, usually solo, where food weight adds up. I've cut weight and bulk with lighter tent, sleeping bag, pad, and pack, as well as food, fuel, kitchen, water filtration, and just general odds and ends. Another part of my strategy has been things I don't bring - chair, ax, saw, solar shower, pillow, fishing tackle, GPS, etc.. I've also replaced clothing with lighter items. The lightest weight is not my sole overriding criterion, but I do like to double portage and less weight is easier to lift, load, and portage.

Things that you probably already do, but might be of interest:

Food is dehydrated, rehydrated in a cozy (saves fuel), and eaten out of the bag. Breakfast is cold cereal (saves fuel) and is eaten out the bag. No dishes to carry and none to clean up besides the spoon. No utensils besides spoon, no cleaning supplies except sanitizer.

Sawyer mini gravity water filtration.

Reducing redundancies.

I've found that dropping five pounds of body weight is always my first step in reducing trip equipment weight

Good topic.
We learned early with car camping. There was just so much stuff we saw other people take and not use or wasn't necessary.
On one of our early trips the shuttle guy was freaked at how little we were taking, which still a little too much. Two of us in a CCS Pioneer, a tackle backpack and a waist pack that held first aid etc. for a week, and we were fine.

Best way to cut weight is to stop tripping with someone who brings too much crap. "Don't worry, I'll be carrying it." Right.

quote NotLight: "
Best way to cut weight is to stop tripping with someone who brings too much crap. "Don't worry, I'll be carrying it." Right.
"

Ha! Spot on. My group has a 25 year age span...the guy who would bring the kitchen sink finally decided that RVs were the way to go. So the rest of us are the lighter for it...

Most of my UL backpacking gear crosses over nicely...what about canoeing & tripping specific gear? Everything from PFDs & paddles to fishing equipment to saws, etc?

And I admit that my UL cooking solution is awesome but is not the right tool for shore lunch...

The thing is, most people go to the BWCA to "do something" besides just cover distance... fish, take pictures, hang out around the campfire and eat. So there's always going to be extra stuff that prevents you from being truly "ultralight". There's a happy medium somewheres.

I'm outfitted entirely as an ultralight backpacker, then make some adjustments/additions for canoe trips. I still refuse to double portage though, so the addition of bulk is limited. The changes/additions I make aside from boat, paddles, and PFDs...Helinox chair(s), axe/saw, CCS packs, bourbon, fishing gear, tarp, wx radio, camp footwear, book/Kindle.

We made the crossover from double to single portaging for longer trips so we had to change and invest$ across the board in ultralight tent, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, cookware, tarps, etc........ Every pound in gear you want to lose without leaving things behind gets more expensive. Step one is leave everything you can trip without behind. The one thing I found in evaluating everything is the weight of the packs themselves really adds up. For us two (2) large packs is the way to go with one (1) packed heavy and one (1) packed light for the canoe carrier. Additional small packs just add unnecessary pack weight. We pack food in silnylon dry bags and hang with zingit cord not rope. We don't take our food barrel (too heavy) we don't pack 2-3 bearvaults (too heavy) etc. Everyone has a different limit and different expectations. We carry way too much fishing gear and we know it but that is why we go so we've paired it down incredibly from years ago and its still too heavy and some more may get left behind this year. We'll see. Good luck with your system.

Good info - and perhaps that's the UL tripping definition: the ability to single portage...

We have talked about this many times here in one form or another. It comes down to your trip style. What do you want out of the BWCA vacation? If you want to cover many lakes in a day, or travel 15 miles a day you will miss out on other things. You might not fish, because of tackle and bait and rods to bring. You might not take pictures, or as many pictures of time and energy, space, weight of a DSLR camera. You can eat boil and dump out of the bag meals, and others will eat fresh foods. You might sleep on rocks and roots, while I will have a nice soft air mattress. You might not have a fire because you don't have a saw or an axe with. I will have a huge fire to sit around and a pile of chopped wood. These are just a few examples that might happen, just to make a point. But these examples all come down to weight and trade offs. And that brings me back to my first question, what kind of a vacation does your group want? Does everyone in your group have the same goals as you?

I had some of the same thoughts about too much gear that people bring. I had to remember that it's a vacation for every person in your group. They too off vacation days just like I did. Cast iron fry pans, perk coffee pots, hammocks, chairs, huge tackle boxes, 4 fishing rods. My goals have changed over the years on trips. Where you are trying to do single, I'm trying not to do any triple portages.

I was into this by my second trip. My first trip was fully outfitted and my thoughts were way too much food, lot's of redundancy, heavy gear. I thought I can do this better... Nothing against the outfitter, I get it---they need all that stuff for newer people.

Now anything I buy I look at weight.

For our group we use EXPED down mats that are large 26" wide but are still at 26 oz. We all have down bags that are warm down into the high 20's low thirties and weigh about 1.5# or less. Tent is now an UL big Agness that is under 6# for 4 people (granted we have small kids so as they grow we need another option)--added titanium stakes. Titanium cookware, dinner ware, 1.1 oz. siltarp from CCS, anywhere you can cut a few ozs. Or in many cases pounds I do it---it really adds up or down quickly---try not to have redundancies, but I am confident in my skills that if something breaks or fails I can repair or improvise...for 17 years that has worked well.

I could go even lighter---there is always new and lighter stuff you can buy :) Also although I have paired down my tackle I still bring 2 rods and way too much tackle :) and I don't do dehydrated food either. Those are 2 areas I am working on.

T

the pack was the first piece of specialized canoe gear we bought when we started tripping in the BWCA. We're the twisted sort who like to cover miles and see new stuff, not into fishing/basecamping.

We started out as backpackers, and MOST gear transfers very nicely. IMO buying portage packs was the best thing we did in terms of making our trips more enjoyable. Compared to high end backpacks portage packs are 'sorta' inexpensive, and don't soak up water in the back pad/shoulder strap area like our osprey/arcterx packs do.

Having said all that, some very respected members of the board (and especially the gear forum) use hiking backpacks, so YMMV.

I agree with the comments above that it depends on trip style. On the other hand, I want it all! I want to do what I like but as easily as possible. I agree with the comments above that cutting weight (apart from one's own) means addressing everything - from the type of ropes and tent stakes to the type of food.

For fishing, nothing is lighter than fly fishing (or more fun). The thought of lugging in bait no longer computes in my mind. For fly rods, the heaviest item is the rod case(s). They are usually PVC and cordura. I replaced mine with a length of vinyl gutter, duct tape, and some foam padding. I can fit two 8-wt rods in rod socks in there and save over 2 pounds. For flies, I take one large fly box from Cliffs. All flies have to fit in the one box. We never take a net. I used to take a Boga Grip but those are heavy and now I take a plastic Lippa tool that weighs just a couple of ounces saving more pounds. I have also limited the number of fly reels I take. No fish finders for us but I do have a handheld depth finder that looks like a flashlight - it is inserted to the water and aimed at the bottom. Push the button and it tells you the depth. Not ideal but very handy and much lighter than a depth finder and all the required batteries.

For a tent, I use a CCS Lean which is hard to beat for weight - but its weight is increased by the rigging of rope and stakes - so paying attention to lightweight rope (like Zing It) and lightweight stakes is important too.

For fires, like I said I use a LittlBug which in itself is one of the best firestarters there is. After boiling water for dinner, there is a great little bed of coals that will get a fire going with less than ideal firewood. A little pruning saw and loppers is all we need for fires.

In the canoe, I have 2 nice Zaveral CF paddles and a lightweight wood paddle as the backup. I don't add thwart bags and such. For seats, I like the GCI folding seats but they are too heavy so I replaced them with the Crazy Creek canoe seats and saved a couple pounds.

Another big area for weight reduction is clothing. I used to bring way to many clothes. Now, apart from what I wear, I bring one extra pair of pants, one extra long sleeve shirt, just a couple underwear, a couple pairs of socks, and one set of sleeping clothes. I use lightweight synthetic clothes that can be washed and dried on the trip. My clothesline is lightweight as well. For footwear, aboard from the OTB Odhins which I wear, I have a pair of crocs for camp which are light and dry easily.

The comment about saving weight on packs is important. I shaved off pounds by switching to CCS portage packs. The food pack is still a weak spot for me because I hate wasting time hanging food - love the convenience of a barrel so I have a CCS harness for the blue barrel. But I am smart enough to have my friend carry it.

I am with you. More than half my trips are with my kids so packing efficiently has been very useful. If you do a search, there are a few threads on the subject of light weight BW tripping along with some packing list, gear ideas and so on. Someone had mentioned in a thread, to stand back and look at what you need. I did that and developed my own packing list. Some people "need" a Dutch oven or fishing gear to enjoy the BW, I don't. I need to move freely and have a simple camp set up. Over years, I think I have worked that out.

I trip with about 15# solo+food = 22#ish for 5 days. Happy.

Where did I cut weight from a 30# load?

Big 3-My 4 man (BA CS UL) tent is the same weight as my old 2 man and my new 2 man is almost 70% of that. Switched to an EE quilt late last year and love it. Pad has been an Exped UL7 for a few years. Total on all 3 (if solo) is less than 5.5 lbs. The pack gets tricky and canoe packs are heavier than a modern pack. I love my CCS packs, ride well in a canoe, stay dry and carry well. I have older mountaineering packs and smaller climbing packs and at this time, unwilling to buy a lighter weight 40 or 50 liter pack that I can carry a canoe with. The ruck is just a bit too small to be a solo pack.

Cooking set up is another. Wisperlight for years and I will still use it on group trips, but solo and 2 man trips it is a SnowPeak Giga at this time. Shaved a few lbs there. TI pot/spork and cup round that out.

Filter system-Not yet used this season, but I have switched to the Katadyne BeFree for solo and Platypus gravity for group.

Clothes-look at what is needed. Do I need extra shirts? Pants/shorts? Using a warm quilt, do I need base layers as well as fleece layers? Puffy and so on? I was able to cut a few lbs here as well as switching from rain pants to a kilt for summer use. There is a wide range of weights on rain gear and I have stuck with my Marmot Precip jacket for total value (effectiveness/weight and price).

Food-lots of room here. You need what you need, but always looking at KCal per ounce is the way to go.

Lastly, canoe outfitting was mentioned and that is a great point. I do use a map case/thwart bag and that stays in the canoe. I like having certain items handy and secure and the CCS set up gets an A+ but there is probably a pound or more on the table. Having light paddles helps and I could probably shave another 1.5 lbs or more over 2 paddles if I wanted.

I like to be efficient and find the process of getting there and being to be rewarding.

Lastly, as mentioned is body weight. Portaging is a physics problem, you are moving mass over land, fighting with gravity and friction. How anyone approaches that is their own journey. For me, I train for BW trips. I train year round for various things, but canoe country is calling very loudly this time of year. Having the strength to hoist a pack on and canoe on from the water as well as being conditioned for a long trail and long days helps.

It's a journey, enjoy it your way.

The main thing keeping me from being UL is my canoe. I have a 85lb Old Town and my buddy has a 65lb aluminum. Even taking the aluminum, we just can't single portage it. At that point there is not much reason to shave off an extra 5-10 lbs. I'm not spending $500 to go from a old 10LB tent down to a 3-5lb'er, not when its a side note compared to the beast of a canoe I have. I use the canoe duck hunting too so its not like I would completely get rid of it. The Royalex is nice and quiet in the blind.

I do pack light and ensure that I can carry my pack, tackle box, poles, and anything else that's needed like a stringer of fish. So its not like I ignore UL concepts, it just doesn't make sense to skip on comforts, like my helinox knock off or a bit more food. We usually bring potatoes, carrots, and onions all fresh. We might have a dehydrated meal pouch or two incase we don't get fish, but with the bread and peanut butter and having enough for 4-5 guys, the food pack gets pretty heavy, not too heavy though. Obviously, a lot of this depends on the trip we are planning, but we aren't even 30 yet so we can handle a little more weight.