Well, I think I successfully conned my younger backpacking protege to help me with some of my extra food weight next summer. He started out with 110 lbs for a month-long backpack last year. Regretted it. But if he drops that down to say 80, we'll eat darn well and I'm have more room in my own pack for LF gear plus amenities for a two week trip in the mtns. Pack weight seems to be inverse with age. I'm turning 70 this year, so aim to keep my pack weight below 70. I ordinarily put my Phillips on my larger Ries tripod. But I do have one of Feisol's strongest CF tripods which supports it well, and weighs about a third. The problem with light tripods is that they don't have enough bully mass to keep your camera from becoming a kite in the wind. So my turnbolt below, after I customized it, is actually a stainless 3/8-16 hookbolt, so if necessary I can hang a mesh bag of rocks from it for added weight. On these longer hikes I use a similar combination of a lightwt Ebony 4x5 folder and the original Gitzo Reporter CF tripod, likewise significantly modified, and stronger than their current versions. Ordinarily I use my lighter Ries for 4x5 use. It would be awfully nice to tote my Bibler tent again, since it's almost bombproof in extreme weather. But my ultralight Big Agnes tent weighs half as much. It keeps the rain and snow out, but because it has a rainfly, wind still has a path through. Last time I was at high altitude storm near the crest in Wyoming, I got pretty darn cold. A winter sleeping bag is not necessarily the answer, because at lower altitudes on the approach, these can be just too warm. And my Feathered Friends 3-season bag is Goretex, so was pricey to begin with. The nice thing about Goretex is that it not only keeps the goosedown completely dry, but frost and dew quickly sublimate off and don't soak in. .. All this wind is bringing down not only sticks from my big aracaria tree, but little cotton balls. It was hard to figure out at first. Then as I was repairing my back fence from wind damage, I noticed the neighbors had a rotting mattress in their
backyard junk pile. Then the resident mommy squirrel ran over there and snagged some more nest material.