Your base weight isn't a measure of your backpacking ability. And neither is the length of your toothbrush.
In Why Is There So Much Gear Content and So Little Hiking Advice?, I wrote about what gear research couldn't teach me on the trail. There's another problem worth talking about: we've started treating the weight of our gear as evidence of our ability to use it.
Somewhere along the way, someone convinced ultralight backpackers that cutting the handle off their toothbrushes would make them better hikers. The logic is simple. A shorter toothbrush weighs less, less weight means a lighter backpack, and a lighter backpack makes hiking easier.
Technically, that's all true. But if you're sitting at home cutting the handle off a perfectly functional toothbrush to save a few grams, it's worth asking a question. Are you becoming a better hiker, or are you just becoming better at weighing things?
Because those aren't the same thing.
WE'VE CONFUSED THE MEASUREMENT WITH THE ACCOMPLISHMENT
Base weight is a useful measurement. It helps identify unnecessary gear and understand how different choices affect the weight you're carrying. But somewhere along the way, the number itself became an accomplishment.
We've become so obsessed with base weight that some hikers actually advertise theirs in their Instagram bios. Not their hiking experience, the places they've explored, or the lessons they've learned. The weight of their belongings.
Imagine a carpenter introducing himself by telling everyone how much his toolbox weighs. Nobody would confuse that with evidence that he's a good carpenter, yet somehow a five-pound base weight has become something resembling a credential in the ultralight backpacking community.
There's a peculiar vanity in that. A philosophy supposedly centered on needing fewer possessions has produced people who want public recognition for the possessions they've carefully selected. The number becomes part of their identity, even though someone with enough money can purchase an impressively low base weight without ever spending a night in the woods.
Your base weight tells people what you're carrying. It doesn't tell them whether you know what you're doing.
OUNCE-WISE AND POUND-FOOLISH
On the Appalachian Trail in 2016, the number of hikers carrying ultralight backpacks absolutely stuffed to the gills was astounding. People were buying some of the lightest backpacks available, then loading them with 40-plus pounds of gear. The backpacks were ultralight, but there was nothing particularly ultralight about what they were carrying.
Buying an ultralight backpack and then overloading it defeats much of the purpose of buying one in the first place. You've spent hundreds of dollars saving weight on the pack itself, only to stuff it with more weight than it was intended to carry comfortably. Frankly, showing up at trail magic with an ultralight backpack stuffed with 40 pounds of junk should be grounds for dismissal.
I was carrying a Zpacks Arc Blast myself that year, and I was such an obsessive ultralight nerd that when a carbon stay poked a hole through its pole-end pocket, I made it abundantly clear in my warranty emails that my pack had never carried more than 22 pounds. I knew because I tracked the weight obsessively. The punctured pocket was a legitimate warranty issue, not the result of overloading the pack.
It makes me wonder how many warranty claims Zpacks had to deal with from hikers loading 40-plus pounds into packs intended for much lighter loads. I don't know the answer, but I saw plenty of overstuffed ultralight packs on the trail.
Buying an ultralight backpack doesn't make you an ultralight hiker. Knowing what to leave out of it does.
On the Appalachian Trail, I watched hikers fill two or three liters of water at the bottom of a mountain, then carry it uphill toward a shelter with another water source. Sometimes that source was only a few miles away.
One liter of water weighs approximately 2.2 pounds, or 35 ounces. Consider how much money someone might spend shaving 35 ounces from their base weight with a lighter shelter, a smaller backpack, titanium tent stakes, or an expensive rain jacket. Now consider the hiker who spends hundreds of dollars saving ounces, only to carry four or five pounds of potentially unnecessary water uphill because they haven't learned how much they actually need.
Of course, there are legitimate reasons to carry extra water. Sources can be unreliable, conditions change, and hydration isn't something to gamble with. But understanding water availability, distance, terrain, weather, and personal consumption is a skill that can eliminate pounds of unnecessary weight.
The same is true of food and clothing. Experience teaches you how much you'll actually eat between resupplies, which layers you need, and which items remain buried in your pack. Those lessons aren't available for purchase.
You can spend hundreds of dollars removing ounces from your backpack while carrying unnecessary pounds because you haven't developed the skills to recognize them. Cutting your toothbrush isn't going to solve that problem.
ULTRALIGHT GEAR IS NOT THE SAME AS ULTRALIGHT HIKING
There's nothing inherently wrong with ultralight gear. A lighter backpack or shelter can make hiking more comfortable. But buying ultralight gear and practicing ultralight hiking aren't the same thing. One is a purchase. The other requires judgment about conditions, water, food, and how the whole system works together.
Base weight excludes food, water, and fuel. A hiker can spend hours shaving grams from a toothbrush, then carry two unnecessary liters of water uphill. That's 4.4 pounds of water. Of course, deciding how much water is necessary requires knowing the conditions and reliable sources ahead. That knowledge is a skill, not a product.
A low base weight describes what you own. It doesn't establish how well you hike.
STOP LETTING STRANGERS FIX YOUR GEAR LIST
One of the stranger habits in modern backpacking is posting a gear list online and inviting complete strangers to explain what's wrong with it. Someone will criticize your shelter, someone else will recommend a different backpack, and eventually someone will suggest cutting your toothbrush.
Most of those strangers don't know your pace, your tolerance for discomfort, your experience, or the conditions you actually hike in. They can compare weights, but they can't assess how the system works for you. An experienced hiker giving a thoughtful shakedown should ask questions before recommending purchases, not just circle the heaviest items.
A spreadsheet is a useful starting point for that conversation, not a scorecard. The goal isn't to win an internet contest over grams. It's to make informed decisions about what you carry and why.
AN APOLOGY TO THE ULTRALIGHT HIKING COMMUNITY
As an ultralight hiker, there's something that needs to be said.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry if someone convinced you that cutting the handle off your toothbrush would make you a better hiker. I'm sorry if you've spent years brushing your teeth with two inches of bamboo pinched between your fingertips because someone on the internet told you it would save weight. You deserved better.
While TownShirt wasn't responsible for convincing you to mutilate your toothbrush in the first place, we feel an obligation to make things right. That's why we're giving away full-length toothbrushes.
Not ultralight toothbrushes, collapsible toothbrushes, or titanium toothbrushes. Just regular toothbrushes with one simple instruction printed on the handle:
DO NOT CUT.
We're not publishing their weight, claiming they're ultralight, or explaining their superior weight-to-bristle ratio. They're toothbrushes, and they have handles.
Every TownShirt order is eligible for a free toothbrush. If you don't need any apparel, you can request one separately and simply cover shipping. We'll also be giving them away at trail events and trail magic.
Take yours backpacking, take it on a thru-hike, or take a picture with it somewhere ridiculous. Hold it up at a summit or beside the most spectacular view you can find. Full handle. Full send.
This is the only Trail Log article where we're going to ask you to visit one of our product pages, and the product is free. We believe everyone deserves the dignity of brushing their teeth with a full-length toothbrush.
It's not going to lower your base weight, improve your miles per day, or make you a better hiker. But brushing your teeth might finally be a little less ridiculous.
We're doing this because it's the right thing to do.
There's a cost to this obsession beyond the grams. The hours we spend researching and replacing perfectly functional gear add up, too. That's a different problem, and one worth examining on its own.
