Pack shakedown checklist

A pack shakedown is a critical review of your gear list with one goal: carry less. Hikers use the word for two things: posting your list so experienced people can pick it apart, most famously on r/Ultralight, and the shakedown hike, a short trip where the pack itself tells you what you didn't need.

The two work best in that order. Get the list reviewed, cut what you can bring yourself to cut, then walk with the result and let the field settle the remaining arguments.

Before you ask for a review

Reviewers can only work with what you give them. Before posting anything:

• Weigh every item on a kitchen or postal scale. r/Ultralight's own shakedown guide is blunt about manufacturer weights: they're almost always wrong.
• Put the weights in a structured list with sections, one row per item. A pile of prose gets skimmed; a list gets read line by line.
• Mark what you wear and what you eat, drink, or burn, so your base weight is honest. That's the number reviewers anchor on.
• Write down the trip: where, which season, expected night temperatures, water availability.
• Decide your budget and your goal base weight before you ask. "Cut 2 kg (4.4 lb) for under $300" gets sharper answers than "thoughts?"
• Name your non-negotiables. If the camera stays no matter what, say so, and nobody wastes time on it.

Posting a request people can work with

r/Ultralight links a guide called How To Ask For A Pack Shakedown in its sidebar, with a template you can copy: location and temperature range, trip description, goal base weight, budget, non-negotiable items, whether you hike solo, and a link to your gear list. Put the location in the post title. Shakedowns go up as standalone posts there, and the sub has a Shakedown flair, so browsing old ones before writing yours is easy.

The template asks for a LighterPack link, and LighterPack is what that community is used to seeing. What matters underneath is the structure: per-item weights, sections, worn and consumable flags, and totals a reviewer can sanity-check. A public TrailGearList page shows the same breakdown, and if your list lives in LighterPack today, the import takes a couple of minutes.

The classic cut candidates

Shakedown threads flag the same suspects over and over. Check your list for them before someone else does:

• Duplicates. Two knives, three lighters, a backup headlamp, cordage "for repairs" next to a full repair kit.
• Just-in-case items. Gear for a scenario you can't name a real probability for. Safety gear that matches real risks stays; the fourth pair of socks goes.
• Camp clothes. A full change of clothes for sitting at camp is a luxury item. Sleep clothes, maybe. A second hiking outfit, no.
• Oversized electronics. A 20,000 mAh power bank on a weekend trip.
• Full-size toiletries. Repackage into small bottles; nobody finishes 100 ml (3.4 oz) of sunscreen in three days.
• A heavy big three. If pack, shelter, and sleep system together weigh 5 kg (11 lb) or more, no amount of toothbrush trimming catches up. Fixing this costs money, which is why the budget question comes first.

I'd add the camp chair to that list, but I know that's where opinions divide. If it gets used every evening, it's not a fear item, it's a choice. Own it as one.

The shakedown hike

A reviewed list is still theory. Pick a low-stakes overnight or two, carry the full kit in conditions close to the real trip, and take notes in the field, not from memory afterwards:

• What you never touched. Anything unused except true safety gear is a cut candidate.
• Clothes that stayed in the pack. The fleece you carried and never wore is data.
• Food left over. Weigh it when you get home; that's your ration math for next time.
• Water capacity against what you carried. Two bottles that never both got filled point at a lighter setup.
• How you slept. Cold at 3 a.m. is data, and so is sweating in a quilt rated far warmer than the night.
• Pack comfort at full weight. Hotspots and bruised hips on day one don't improve on day five.
• What you improvised. If you dug a cathole with a tent stake and hated it, that's a gap in the other direction.

Back home, fold the notes into the list while they're fresh: update weights, flag what went unworn, and write a note on anything you're unsure about, so the next version starts from evidence. Item notes on TrailGearList work well for this; "carried, never used, twice" next to a stuff sack settles its fate better than memory does. Then start the next version of your list and let the base weight drift down trip by trip.