Knives, saws and the things people carry for no reason

Do this once and it will change what you carry permanently. On your next multi-day trip, keep a note of every item you actually take out and use. Not could have used — did use.

The list will be shorter than you expect, and the items that never appeared will be heavier than you expect.

The over-carried items, in rough order

Large fixed-blade knives. There is an entire aesthetic built around them and, for the overwhelming majority of mountain, river and climbing trips, they do nothing a small folding knife cannot do. Cutting cord, opening food, dealing with tape, occasional first aid. A knife with a blade the length of your palm covers it.

The exception is genuine bushcraft, where batoning wood is part of the plan, and paddling, where a blunt-tipped rescue knife on the buoyancy aid is a serious safety item for cutting entanglement.

Multi-tools. Heavy for what they deliver on most trips. Pliers get used for very little in the mountains; scissors and a blade get used constantly. If your activity involves equipment with screws — bindings, crampons, ski gear — then the specific screwdriver bits earn their weight, and a small dedicated tool is better than a large general one.

Saws. Only worth carrying if you are cutting wood as part of the plan, which for most people is never.

Redundant cookware. A second pot, a plate, a mug and a pot. One pot that you eat from, one spoon, one mug that also holds hot drinks. Everything else is home comfort transported at cost.

Too much fuel. Weigh a partly used canister and take what you need plus a genuine margin, rather than a fresh one every time.

Spare clothing in quantity. One spare base layer and one spare pair of socks, kept dry, is nearly always right. Additional changes of clothing on a four-day trip are hotel behaviour.

Enormous first aid kits. Covered elsewhere — a smaller kit organised around what actually happens beats a large one organised around what looks thorough.

Books, chairs, large camp comforts. No judgement if you have decided the weight is worth the enjoyment. The failure is carrying them without ever having made that decision.

The things worth their weight

An emergency shelter. A group bothy bag is one of the highest-value items in cold, wet mountains and one of the most commonly left behind.

A proper insulating jacket that stays dry in the pack.

A headtorch, plus spare batteries. Every benightment story includes someone without one.

Enough water capacity and a means of treating water.

Communication. Phone in a dry bag, and a satellite messenger for remote ground.

Wide cloth tape and a length of cord. The two most versatile repair items in existence, weighing almost nothing.

Food margin. An extra day's worth on any trip where being delayed is plausible.

How to cut weight without cutting safety

The big three — pack, shelter, sleeping system — account for most of a load's base weight, and improvements there are structural. Everything else is trimming.

Weigh things. Not estimate — weigh. A kitchen scale and a spreadsheet will identify surprises immediately, and the surprises are usually not where you expect. The heaviest unnecessary item in most packs is not any single object; it is the accumulated mass of small ones.

Then apply the honest question to each: when did I last use this, and what happens if I do not have it? Two answers make an item stay: it gets used regularly, or its absence in an emergency is serious. Everything else goes.

The counter-argument, which is legitimate

Ultralight taken too far produces its own accidents. People without adequate insulation, without shelter, without enough food, moving fast in conditions that punish a small delay. The lightest kit list works right up until an ankle turns.

The correct framing is not minimum weight. It is minimum weight consistent with handling a plausible bad night. That threshold moves with the season, the remoteness, the group, and the forecast — and it should genuinely move, rather than being one fixed packing list used all year.

The people who carry least are usually the ones who have thought hardest about exactly what could go wrong.