I along with many other walkers keep lucking at new lightweight gear,great,but can we be Lottery funded?I was searhing through some old spare kit the other day and came across an old"Troll Marathon" rucksack.Ithink it was last used in anger in the mid 70's on my last KIMMin the Howgills.Itis probably not ascomfy or durable as modern kit but still usable,still I will still look for a new one or Iwill end up using an old canvas one
personally i think there is nothign new about lightweight weight, its just now becoming popular, before the accepted norm was that things should be well built and survive the worst that could be thrown at them, so often things where made out of hevier duty fabrics etc, than really need for the use they where designed for.
the other thing i personally think is that light weight is a mind set not the abbilty to by loads of light weight kit, you could have all the light weight going and still be "heavyweight" in my opion as you are still taking to much, not using items, having two things do the job of one etc. and then simerly you can "leightweight" with a realytivly heavy pack
I've got a Blacks Osprey 65 litre pack bought new in 1990, from Blacks of course. It weighs 1.1 kg but can be made even lighter by the removal of its internal frame. The fabric's a bit flimsy but it does the job and it's fine for carrying loads up to about 11-12 kg. Above this weight it's a poor carry on account of a rather feeble hipbelt.
It's a good job the pack was light because back in 1990 I used to lug around a 3.3 kilo tunnel tent, a Lichfield Hornet 2 (anyone ever heard of these) which still resides in the loft.
I'll have to take these backpacking for old times sake along with some PU coated waterproofs, a fibre pile jacket and a 2.5 kg synthetic sleeping bag. Not forgetting the full Trangia set, Petzl Zoom etc. etc. I must have been tough back then.
Lightweight is certainly not new. It seems to be rediscovered every couple of decades. Back in 1905 Thomas Hiram produced a "Phantom Kit for the self-propelled camper", that included a silk tent weighing 13oz with another 15oz for the poles, 10oz for the pegs and 10oz for the groundsheet - that's a total of 48oz/1.36kg. Other items were a 1.5kb down quilt, 8oz ground blanket and 1lb "cooking apparatus". Around the same time two alpine climbers, W.T.Kirkpatrick and R. Phillip Hope, made their own rucksacks out of gaberdine that weighed 6oz/120 grams.
(Info from Invisible on Everest by Mike Parsons and Mary b. Rose).
A little more recently Hamish Brown did the first continuous round of the Munros in 1976 with a pack that weighed "about 23lb and only twice ever exceeded 30lb". As described in his excellent book, Hamish's Mountain Walk, his gear included a single-skin tent weighing "a bit over 3lb" a 2 pint pan with the lid used as a mug and a simple pack with no frame, hipbelt or poclets. His spoon was "edged sharp enough to cut so I had no knife/fork". He cooked on a Camping Gaz stove most of the time but used a solid fuel one for a while. He had no insulating mat - "except on snow these are just bulky extras". He wore a cotton shirt, Damart vest that doubled as a pullover, flannel trousers, wool socks and light "fairly soft" Sportiva boots. His only spare clothes for this 112 day walk were a Shetland wool pullover, long johns at the start, then nylon swimming shorts and thin nylon socks. This was all before Gore-Tex, fleece, titanium and other materials.
