This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/Ultralight by /u/prettyinpinkish on 2024-09-11 00:33:28+00:00.

I don’t know how cohesive I will manage to be, but hopefuly this makes sense.

The crux of my question is this: Is it a bad idea for me to aim for ultralight right from the beginning?

I’ve recently been getting interested in backpacking, but I’m essentially a beginner (I’ve done some group camping - canoe and car -and the occassional day hike).

Based on my general preferences in how I live my day to day life, and just generally knowing myself, I know I’d like to be UL. But in my research i’ve been doing, I have seen many a person say that the best way to drop weight is to gain knowledge - the more you know, the less you need. As a beginner, I don’t have a lot of this - even in my canoe camping trips, I have borrowed gear and leaned a lot on the knowledge of those who went with me.

I’m looking at buying gear slowly (that I can ideally also use for camping), and I hate the idea of buying something knowing full well that I will replace it with something else later, but I am also wary of tossing myself in the deep end when I don’t have the skills and experience to back it up. What would be ‘stupid light’ for me is naturally going to be a lot heavier than it would be for someone who knows a lot better what they are doing. I’m not expecting myself to hit 10lb base weight right from the start, but would it be safer to start not even aiming for UL? Or am I just overthinking this?

Safety first, but like…let’s not pack my fears if I don’t have to (yeah, I’ve been lurking in this sub for a bit, can you tell 😝)