Just playing around with ideas, I've put together this. I wanted to get as many comfort or safety ideas in as possible. The obvious item to lose is the GPS, but my navigation is not very good...
My main compromise is the poncho tarp. The ML poncho is pretty small, but so am I!
The figures are rounded up, because I usually work in grams.
pack Zpack zero 4.3
Shoulder pouch Zpack cuben 0.3
shelter MLD spectra poncho 4
bug protection Ti goat bivy 7
stakes and guys 1.4
Stake pouch Zpack cuben 0.07
sleeping bag PHD minim ultra 13.7
Sit mat/ food cosy 0.3
sleeping pad Neo air 9.5
food bag Team IO cuben 0.1
cooking pot Snowpeak solo 3
Fuel bottle 125ml 0.35
stove Caldera pepsi can 0.56
windscreen Caldera cone 1.51
Firelighter LMF mini 0.4
Tibetan long handle spoon 0.6
Cloth 1/4 bandanna 0.24
med kit(Includes toilet kit) 1.76
head torch Photon 0.35
knife SAK 0.77
Zpack wallet pouch 0.05
hat fleece 0.8
PHD minim ultra vest 5.2
windshirt Rab neutrino 2.4
Mountain laurel cuben chaps 1.3
campshoes plastic bags 0.9
water bottle mineral water 0.9
hip flask nalgene 1.86
bladder platy 1l 0.8
water treatment aqua mira 1.05
MSR blizzard stake 0.77
OS map trimmed in ziploc bag 3.5
gps Geko 2.82
Compass Silva mini 0.28
safety whistle 0.17
Camera 6.1
Total 79.11
4.9

Edited by minimalgear on 06/23/2010 05:14:25 MDT.

Everyhing on this list looks prety extreme except that "hip flask nalgene 1.86". What's that for? You can put booze or whatever in a .6oz PET water bottle. Plus waterbottle is 16.9 floz where the Nalgene flask is 12 floz.

Also, do you need a compass and a GPS? I guess the compass is your backup?

Good list, definately out of my league.

You could drop the pot, fuel, and stove if you ate food which doesn't need to be heated. And, maybe you could go Neanderthal by dropping the spoon?

I'd much rather go barefoot than wear plastic bags with the traction of a wet floor.

Can you use dead wood or rocks as stakes?

Need to add sunglasses, sunscreen, and rain jacket (for when your poncho is serving as your shelter)?

I'd throw in some dry tinder and a mini Bic lighter.

Edited by AndyF on 06/30/2010 15:54:06 MDT.

I'm pretty sure he's using the Rab wind shirt as a temporary rain jacket when the poncho is in tarp mode and he needs to venture out from under it for whatever reason.

But I do wonder about the effectiveness of the plastic bags as camp shoes. A pair of trail runners should be sufficient for all tasks.

If you have a sternum strap on your pack you could incorporate the whistle into that. MLD sells such a thing and I think there are a few others out there.

Edited by veriest1 on 06/30/2010 17:04:15 MDT.

"Also, do you need a compass and a GPS? I guess the compass is your backup?"

A GPS receiver can't tell you which way you are facing, but the compass can. GPS can tell you which way it is moving.

--B.G.--

I guess I should have put 'comfort' in inverted commas, although I find it plenty comfortable enough. The idea behind this was that I wanted to include as much as possible in the way of 'luxuries' without breaking the 5lb barrier because the popluar perception is that you have to cut out a lot of this stuff. So, hip flask for whisky is a luxury for me because I want to have my whisky from something that complements the experience. I wanted to have a comfy mat and cooked food in camp rather than a small piece of 1/8" foam. GPS is not necessary, but my navigation is rather shaky. A razor blade is way lighter than the swiss army, I wanted to include a camera in the weight etc. The plastic bags are to go inside the trail shoes to keep my socks dry after I've dried them overnight, but thinking about it, that's stupid, because I'm not going to hike in plastic bags-DOH! So mini bic replaces plastic bags. I've used a variation of this kit with a Gatewood cape for a while now, and I'm really happy with the system. I've just moved to the ML poncho, and I'll see how this goes.

Edited by minimalgear on 07/01/2010 05:38:57 MDT.

IMO opinion comfort and SUL is a contradiction. If your TRULY going SUL your taking only whats necessary, no toilet paper(use natural stuff), etc. So i would consider SUL far from comfortable.

Yes actually, you can hike in plastic bags under w/ socks quite comfortably as a VB in winter.

Edited by isaac.mouser on 07/01/2010 05:41:16 MDT.

This is definitely not a winter kit, so the plastic bags would be too warm. I've only taken SUL as a weight definition whereas I guess you could take it as an ethos. I which case I would agree with you. I don't know whether that should be called a minimalist kit though so that the focus of the definition is on the concept rather than the weight?

@ Bob
"A GPS receiver can't tell you which way you are facing, but the compass can. " - Good to know, I don't use either one.

@ Simon, not to harp but I don't see what functionality that heavy flask is providing you. I like whisky in the woods too, I just keep it in a sub 1oz container. It performs the same function.

Absolutely no function at all!:) I just prefer to drink my whisky out of something that I find aesthetically pleasing. I don't have a cup, and the SPMS is too big to drink whisky from. The flask feels nice in my hand, it's got a nice 'mouth feel' it looks nicer than an old soda bottle.But it is a pure pointless luxury item. I find it interesting though, that gear has got so light now, that you can throw something like that in and still hit the 5lb mark.

"A GPS receiver can't tell you which way you are facing, but the compass can. GPS can tell you which way it is moving."

Some of the cheaper models, like my Garmin eTrex, will only tell you your direction while you're moving. However, most of the more fully featured GPSes will have a built-in electronic compass.

>>A GPS receiver can't tell you which way you are facing, but the compass can. GPS can tell you which way it is moving<<

When you are moving a GPS WILL tell you which way you are facing even without an electronic compass. Any modern GPS will have a compass screen that will orient to north while you are walking and show your direction of travel on the compass screen.

It will also allow you to navigate when you are in dense cover, heavy fog or at night when a compass becomes useless for navigation. My GPS also allows me to geo-reference my pictures to my track log which even without the navigation functions, makes it worthwile bringing along IMO.

+1 for the GPS... it does far more than my compass. My current GPS weighs 2.4 oz (which includes the batteries).

"When you are moving a GPS WILL tell you which way you are facing even without an electronic compass. Any modern GPS will have a compass screen that will orient to north while you are walking and show your direction of travel on the compass screen."

Your interpretation is incorrect. A GPS receiver can show you your direction of travel, but it does not and cannot show you which direction you are facing. Maybe you jump to the conclusion that you are always facing straight ahead.

A GPS receiver develops a "fix" for PVT. That means position, velocity, and time. It does not do PVT+which direction you are facing. Based on multiple fixes, it can guess about the direction of your travel, but not the direction you face. Those are two completely different things.

Some products also have an internal compass function, but that has nothing at all to do with the GPS receiver function.

--B.G.--

>> Maybe you jump to the conclusion that you are always facing straight ahead <<

I don't know about you Bob but if I know where North is I'm pretty capable of figuring out which way I'm facing.

The GPS does a very good job of finding North and also positions me relative to North. On the image below I'm the red dot on the outer ring (slightly north of West). If I turn around backwards, it's not to difficult to figure out that I'm facing East.

That looks like a Garmin display.

Mike, once you have studied GPS receivers for a while, you will learn a few things. While you are stationary, the GPS receiver cannot tell you which way you are facing. Some of them can guess about which way based on which way you have been moving previously. In some products, the GPS receiver function is integrated with a flux-gate compass, but that is not perfect. The product can try to guess which way "it" is facing, but it has no idea about which way the user is facing. It can't.

Skiers sometimes do a maneuver called side-slipping. You are facing one direction, and your overall movement is 60 degrees off. GPS receivers are known for confusing users in this situation. It is similar to a sailboat that is pointed one way, but the wind and the currents carry it another way. The bow heading does not agree with the apparent GPS direction.

--B.G.--

Bob, you are trying to make a point against someone that already knows they need to be moving, and know how to hold the device correctly.

"When you are moving a GPS WILL tell you which way you are facing even without an electronic compass."

The subtle difference between facing and moving would only be noticed by someone that doesn't walk forward while holding the device in the most intuitive way, IE so that all the characters are right side up. Seriously, for all intents and purposes, it tells you what direction you are facing when moving. Not confusing in any way.

Bob -

I'm an IT guy that has worked in Surveying and Mapping for over 25 years and have worked with GPS data and GPS units as long as they've been available to industry and the public. I understand the technology extremely well.

I'm also a boater and skier as well as a hiker and have not used my compass for navigation since the dark ages. I do still carry a tiny little compass as a backup but have never needed it.

Now I hope this thread returns to the original topic... sorry for the diversion.

I like the idea of the OP trying to show that sub 5 is doable w/o being totally spartan

I've managed to get into the 6's and am now finding exactly how difficult it actually is to get sub 5 (again w/o going too spartan)- my hats off to the folks who have :)

Just so y'know - The tetons are about the easiest place on earth to read a map. It's a tiny range with views into Jackson Hole and Teton Valley Idaho.

No need at all for a GPS.

peace,
Mike C!