keithy wrote:My new sleeping bag is small and relatively light as posted earlier, so that goes at the bottom of the pack. I usually strap the tent and the sleeping mat to the outside of my small pack. The reason I did that is to make do with stuff I had, and use a 32-36L pack and not take my older bigger pack for 2 nighter trail walk. Are you including water in your 2L/person/day for food? I haven't weighed my stuff, but I was thinking I take maybe over 1kg food/day.madmacca wrote:If you need to strap your bag to the outside, you need a bigger pack even for weekenders. Say around 40L.
I am less concerned if you have a mat and tent strapped outside (although there is discussion elsewhere in this thread as to why it should be avoided if possible - especially if travelling off-trail), but a sleeping bag outside is a definite no-no.
Careful menu planning should ensure that you can meet your nutritional needs at 700-800 g/person/day, (although this requires some nutritional knowledge and scrutiny of food labels) which works out probably around 2L in terms of volume. 1 kg pppd probably improves taste and incorporates some luxury items (important for morale), but may well work out at 2.5 L pppd volume wise.
No I wasn't including water in this. Presuming you are picking up water along the way, your water carrying volume shouldn't change no matter how long the trip. Personally, I use 2 x 1.25L PET bottles in pockets on the side of my pack, and carry additional collapsible storage (wine cask, hydration bladder, platypus) in my pack for carrying additional water into a dry campsite or a stinking hot summer day - no additional volume if not being used, and as I eat down my food stores, volume shouldn't be an issue unless dry camping on my very first night.
