Thanks for the congrats and your perspective on pack weight, contingency items. Glad to get a sanity check here. What I tried to solve to with the pack items was a recommendation made by one of the SAR groups (I think it was a video linked on 14ers.org) which said "have everything you need to spend the night on the mountain" because if if you're high up and can't walk, SAR may not be able to reach you until the next day.daway8 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 11, 2022 7:36 amAwesome, congrats on pushing through to a successful summit!!!
As for the "just in case" stuff, I almost always win the largest pack on the mountain contest - oftentimes it mostly goes unused but I've had many a times when those backup layers and such have saved the day. Even when they're not needed it's good conditioning.
Obviously you can overdo it and really bog yourself down needlessly but I don't think 15lbs sounds unreasonable at all and I always remember the day I decided to stop packing all the extra stuff and got caught in a freak summer snowstorm and thought I was going to freeze to death...
So for me that led to extra water, extra food, layers planning for overnight temp not expected day temp, bivy bag, mittens, chemical heat packs, etc.
Despite being part of the flatlands, one helpful thing about living in Wisconsin is, we have an abundance of cold, ice and snow to practice with in the winter! I was able to test my gear down to around zero degrees before attempting a summer 14'er climb.