UL-Backpacking

The Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo is a single-wall trekking pole tent that weighs 26 ounces (740 g). It is a six-sided shelter, shaped like a half pyramid, with a side door and vestibule area that’s good for gear storage or cooking …

The Feather Friends Tanager 20 CFL Sleeping Bag is a hoodless, full length, and zipperless sleeping bag designed for thru-hikers, ultralight backpackers, and alpinists who want to minimize their gear weight and bulk. Weighing 18.6 oz, the Tanager is insulated with 12.6 …

Trekking pole tents use hiking poles for setup instead of tent poles as a weight-saving measure for backpackers. They’re also a good example of how to use the same backpacking gear in multiple ways, one of the core principles of gear weight …

The Zpacks Pocket Tarp w/ Doors is a one-person tarp weighing 6.1 oz with guylines attached. It is constructed from 0.55 oz/sq. yard Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF), a fully waterproof material that doesn’t stretch or sag when wet. I purchased this tent …

Titanium camping cook pots are better than aluminum cook pots if your top priority is saving weight. They are stronger than aluminum pots, corrosion-resistant, and cool quite quickly so you can heat food up in one and then use it as a …

Many people bring too many extra clothes on backpacking trips, including more shirts, pants, pairs of underwear, socks, and even shoes that they don’t need. Extra clothes add a lot of unnecessary weight to a backpack and take up a significant amount of extra …

If you’re looking for innovative new ideas and products for your hiking and backpacking habit, Etsy is a craft-oriented shopping site that hosts the shops of many up-and-coming ultralight backpack gear manufacturers. There are about 30-40 companies actively making backpacking gear today …

A lot of SectionHiker readers contact me asking for advice about which ultralight tent or shelter they should buy. These purchases are almost always driven by weight reduction desires, but often in the absence of any considerations about the environmental conditions they …

Backpackers are split about 50/50 when it comes to using a backpack rain cover or lining the inside of their backpacks with a plastic bag or backpack liner designed for that purpose. When I started backpacking, I used a backpack rain cover …

Siliconized nylon, more commonly called silnylon, is a waterproof fabric used to make tents by many smaller manufacturers including Tarptent, Mountain Laurel Designs, and Hilleberg which specialize in making ultralight backpacking gear or expedition-grade tents. It’s also sold in bulk for DIY-ers …

UGQ Outdoor is a cottage quilt manufacturer that makes top quilts, underquilts, and tarps for backpackers and hammock campers. The quality of their products is excellent and they’ve grown rapidly by word of mouth as the popularity of quilts has grown. The …

The Waymark Gear Lite 50 is a lightweight internal frame backpack suitable for multi-day backpacking and thru-hiking trips. Weighing 34.8 oz, the Lite 50 has a standard UL rolltop design with a sewn-on hip belt, a front mesh pocket, and durable side …

Backpacking quilts have exploded in popularity in recent years and provide a great alternative to hooded sleeping bags for people, particularly side sleepers, who find them claustrophobic or uncomfortable to sleep in. But purchasing a quilt can be much more difficult than …

You don’t need a tent, specifically, for backpacking but you do need some form of rain protection and/or insect protection in most climates when camping out along a trail. It can be a tent, hammock with a tarp, a waterproof bivy sack, …