Ultralight Backpacking Hacks You Can Find at a Gas Station

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Sure, it’s expensive to achieve that elusive sub-10 pound base weight. But trimming a few pounds off your kit is shockingly affordable. You can spend less than $20 at your local gas station and trim more weight off your backpack than spending hundreds of dollars on a Dyneema ultralight tent. Here are the top ultralight backpacking hacks for saving weight while saving your wallet. 

Smartwater Bottle

For years, there was an obvious tell for the likes of ultralight thru-hikers versus traditional weekend warriors. One group was carrying a trusty Nalgene (or two) in their backpack’s side pockets. The other had bedraggled smartwater bottles. Occasionally, it’d be a Vitamin water or Gatorade, but the slim profile — often with a Sawyer mini sticking out the top — of the Smartwater bottle was the most ubiquitous. 

The reason for this was fairly utilitarian. Traditional backpackers can pick and choose routes that offer ample water, or are just very short, such that they don’t need to carry more than a liter at a time. Also, there is something about the sturdiness of a Nalgene that’s just appealing. An argument I occasionally hear is that you can hammer in tent stakes with it. 

Ultralight thru-hikers, staring down waterless 20-mile stretch after waterless 20-mile stretch, have rightly lost their minds. They’ll deal with all the ramifications of that microplastic ingestion later; today, they need their backpack to be lighter. You might ask: Why not carry something like a Platypus Softbottle or a GSI Water Cube? The problem with bladders is that they fail so consistently, and in such inopportune environments, that depending on them to hold your water starts to become a safety risk. The Smartwater bottle, to my knowledge, has never failed anyone. I know an ER nurse who set himself a challenge of carrying the same smartwater bottle for the entire length of the Pacific Crest Trail, which is just as disgusting as it sounds. That you can screw several of the best backpacking water filters directly onto the bottle is just a bonus. 

The Cnoc Vesica is the first water bottle I’ve seen that is actually threatening to take the place of the Smartwater bottle on trail. But at $17 a bottle, versus $2 for a Smartwater bottle, I wouldn’t hold my breath. 

Read Next: Does Ultralight Gear Have to Be Ultra-Expensive?

Trash Compactor Bag

Sudden downpours. Dicey river crossings. Water bladder explosions. Spend enough time on the trails and it’s not a matter of if your backpack is going to get soaked, it’s a matter of when. And while rain covers do a pretty good job, most of the time, you need your sleeping bag and puffer jacket to stay dry all of the time. Even for gram-counting ultralight fanatics this one isn’t negotiable. 

Read Next: Traditional Backpacking Is Dead: Ultralight Gear is the Future

Enter the trash compactor bag. Unlike regular garbage bags or lightweight dry bags, trash compactors are impressively durable. You can use the same one for an entire season of backpacking and it won’t develop any holes. Even thru-hikers typically only swap theirs out as a precautionary measure every 500 to 1,000 miles or so. Word to the wise: Make sure the brand you go with is unscented. 

Ziplock Freezer Bags

Of course not all your sensitive items are gonna end up in your trash compactor bag. Some of them — first aid kit, matches, permit, maps — need to go into the junk drawer of your backpack: the back mesh pocket. Like trash compactor bags, Ziplock bags are surprisingly sturdy.

I’ve had the same one housing my backpacking first aid kit for over a decade. And I always grab an extra to update my bathroom kit before I head out the door. I’ve also used them on treks to particularly soggy locations to provide an extra layer of protection to clothing. To protect paper maps so that I can pull them out in the rain and still look at them. I’ve even used them to cook in, although there are better food-safe alternatives for that now. 

Plastic Spoon

Ah, that eternal staple of ultralight backpacking: the fast-food plastic spoon. I don’t know that anyone ever really means to end up with a plastic spoon as part of their kit, but it’s what ends up happening after you lose your actual spoon, which was probably an expensive little piece of titanium. There is no way you are going to pony up for that again, so the plastic spoon is here to stay. Grab yours when you’re getting snacks from that roadside gas station. 

Bandana

We’ve tested a number of the best camping towels, and we’re honestly not that impressed. If you’re backpacking into a mountain lake with plans to spend all day out on the water, then it might be worth it. But if your backpacking shower routine is to clean your face and your feet and call it a day, then that’s a waste of money, weight, and space. A better fit for your needs is a simple bandana. Try to choose one that is as colorful as possible. That not only makes it harder to leave behind at a campsite, it also helps to hide some of the inevitable dirt stains that get baked into the fabric.

Duct Tape

The number of uses for duct tape patch are seemingly infinite. Gear repair. Clothing repair — I’ve had the same duct tape patch on the rear of my favorite down pants for years. Blister repair. I always carry a small roll with me in my first aid kit. Other people keep it on their trekking poles, although this risks some degradation from environmental factors, like sun and rain. It’s also worth adding a bit of Leuko tape to your kit, as this will help to hold on band-aids through whatever amount of rain, sweat, and time. 

Baking Soda

Sure you can buy mini tubes of toothpaste or specialty toothpaste powder. Heck you can even dehydrate your own toothpaste if you are so inclined. Or you can just pack a small dime bag’s worth of baking soda and call it a day.

A Pair of Scissors

If you’ve been backpacking for a while, you probably have a good idea of what you don’t actually need in your kit. Packing cubes, multitools, five-piece cookware set: It all can go. 

Read Next: Cheap vs Expensive Backpacking Tents

But you can also trim off any excess on the gear you do use and see substantial savings. Never used an ice axe in your life? Those loops on the bottom of your pack can hit the road. Hip belt straps whacking you in the legs as you hike? Trim ‘em down to the right size. Has it been so long since you used that nemesis of ultralight backpacking, the top lid, that you can’t even find it in your gear closet? Time to lose the strap connection points. 

It can feel a little sacrilegious to take the scalpel to your outdoor gear, but once you get started, you’ll not only get to enjoy a few ounces of weight savings, but you’ll also enjoy some ownership over how you use gear separate from the manufacturer’s ad copy. 

Final Savings: $117.74

Now that you’ve saved a solid chunk of change with these ultralight hacks, what will you do with it? There are a lot of options available to you. Of course, you could (almost) buy a pair of brand new pair of trail runners, which I know you need, and we both know will only last a season if you’re lucky. A better investment might be four pairs of Darn Tough hiking socks. With their “unconditionally guaranteed for life” promise, they just might be the last hiking socks you ever buy. I’d personally go with an America the Beautiful pass — unlimited access for a year to national forest, wilderness areas, and national parks — just about the best deal you can get for outdoor recreation access. Real ones will reinvest at the gas station: $117 is enough to resupply for that next leg of trail. 

Final Thoughts

At its finest, ultralight backpacking is a combination of MacGyver-style ingenuity with a minimalist ethos that would make Marie Kondo blush. But just because every piece of gear in your kit has a distinct purpose, or three, doesn’t mean it needs to cost an arm and a leg. Take a tour through your junk drawer and see if you can start your ultralight journey today. 

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