If you've spent any time around ultralight backpacking, you've heard the term base weight. It's the number everyone obsesses over — and for good reason. It's the clearest measure of how heavy your pack is before the stuff that constantly changes.
The definition
Base weight is the total weight of your pack and everything in it, minus consumables — food, water, and fuel — and minus what you wear or carry on your body (worn clothes, trekking poles). Consumables are excluded because they change every day of a trip; worn items are excluded because you're not carrying them in the pack.
What's left — your shelter, sleep system, pack, cook kit, spare clothing, and electronics — is the weight you carry every single day, rain or shine. That's your base weight.
What's a good base weight?
- Traditional: 20 lb and up
- Lightweight: under 20 lb
- Ultralight (UL): under 10 lb
- Super-ultralight (SUL): under 5 lb
Under 10 lb is the classic ultralight threshold, and it's very achievable with the gear available today — without being cold, wet, or miserable.
Where the weight actually is
Most of your base weight lives in three items: your shelter, your sleep system, and your pack. Ultralighters call these the Big 3. Nail those and you're most of the way to a sub-10-lb kit. It's far more effective to save a pound on your tent than to count grams on your spork.
How to lower yours
- Weigh everything. You can't cut what you don't measure. Build your kit in the pack builder to see your base weight update live as you add gear.
- Start with the Big 3. A modern trekking-pole tent, a down quilt, and a frameless pack can together weigh under 4 lb. See our best ultralight tents, best quilts, and best packs.
- Cut the "just in case" items. The heaviest things in most packs are fears, not gear.
- Don't buy a lighter pack first. Lighten your load, then size the pack to it — a smaller, frameless pack only works once your Big 3 is light.
Ready to see your own number? Start building your pack →