My RikSak arrived and it is just how it claims, amazingly light. I also got the NightLight sleeping pad (3.85 oz) but it doesn't fit in the RikSak length wise when it is folded into the 3 segment so I rolled it up. I think my Western Mountaineering Highlite Sleeping bag will fit in the RikSak with the sleeping pad. If not, I'll trim one long side of the pad, even though it only goes under my torso as it is. Have to put my jacket under my legs.
I have everything that I carry, including my down sweater and rain jacket (which I carry most of the time) and a couple days worth of food and fuel down to 13.88 lbs. That, all my clothes that I wear and my trekking poles total 18.16. This will be the lightest I have gone. I'll publish my new list on my next blog entry.
Some people wouldn't count their down sweater and rain jacket in their carrying weight but for me, I'm trying to figure out realistically what I normally carry on my back and what causes stress to my lumbar vertibrate. After hiking 29 miles over a weekend, my back was really bothering me even using ultralight techniques. So I'm going to the next level after almost 2 months off. I use a RikSak and a Mountain Smith lumbar pack to keep most of the weight off of my back. I have 3.96 lbs of bulky stuff in my RikSak (including the down sweater, rain jacket and RikSak) which is the only weight on my back, 3.25 lbs in my Mountain Smith DayLight lumbar pack (including the lumbar pack) with another 6.68 lbs of consumables (water, food and fuel) that will go into the lumbar pack (if I can get it to fit). I'm hoping that only 4 lbs of weight will keep my back from hurting and legs from going numb. My hope that if I can keep the bulk of the weight on my hips, I'll avoid any damage to my back. We'll see.
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