Kit List – Winter in the Carpathians…..

Here is my kit list for walking over and through the Ukrainian and Romanian Carpathians during the depths of winter. I thought I would put it out there just in-case there are people out there planning their own extended winter hike and umming and errring over what kit to bring, or in case there are people who are curious as to what kind of things I carry in my rucksack.

I managed to get my base weight (The weight of rucksack plus everything in it, not including clothes worn or consumables (food + water + gas)) down to around 14 kg.  So far I have been walking through January and February 2018 with this equipment load and I am comfortable enough with the balance between taking too much to comfortably carry and taking too little for safety that it represents to me. Still, with a typical load out of food, water and gas, my total weight carried and worn is 23 kg.  This is almost a third of my body weight, and it slows me down significantly.  A more experienced or braver hiker would certainly be able to cut it down further and still stay safe.

Essential winter equipment like a 4 season sleeping bag (or a 3 season bag + quilt as I have taken), extra clothes, or snowshoes invariably increase your total weight to uncomfortable levels increasing the urge to cut out whatever possible.  But leave out too much and you put your safety at risk.  To cut down on weight, I do not carry an ice-axe or crampons, nor wear stiffened winter boots, which are all necessary for full on winter mountaineering.  I therefore pay careful attention to my route planning so as to avoid the steep/exposed/technical slopes that these will be necessary for.   My snowshoes do have metal teeth on the bottom of them if I am confronted with moderately sloped hard packed snow or ice.

Would I change anything in retrospect?  My sleeping bag + quilt combo is egregiously heavy (2 kg).   If I had unlimited amounts of money I would be very happy to swap out my synthetic Thermarest quilt (850 g) for a much lighter c. 400g down one.  Also, I bought a multi-fuel stove (Edelrid Hexon – 220 g) thinking that finding camping gas cylinders might be a problem – this has not proven to be the case.  I could have saved money and weight (about 100 g), by instead choosing a stove of similar design which could only burn canister gas.

If you are planning your own winter camp/hike and have any questions about my kit list, don’t hesitate to get in touch.