Everyone pushes ultralight base weight, but my 38 pound pack on the JMT last August was the smartest dumb thing I did

Sage Green · 2026-10-02T19:50:02.862867+00:00

Last August I did the John Muir Trail with a 38 pound base weight because I wanted a real camera, a chair, and actual food, and three different people at the Tuolumne store told me I was doing it wrong. I slept better, ate better, and finished all 211 miles without the knee pain that sidelined me on a lighter trip in 2022, mostly because I wasn't scared of every mile. So my question is, at what pack weight did you actually start hurting, and was it really the weight or was it your shoes?

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Everyone pushes ultralight base weight, but my 38 pound pack on the JMT last August was the smartest dumb thing I did | Backpacking Routes - Rigidtalk