On our second One Stop Shop stop we visit CampSaver.com and see if a online store from the USA can take the lead in offering the lightest gear list for aspiring lightpackers!
If you need to freshen up what this is all about, read the Introduction!
CampSaver.com is well known in the USA, and increasingly also in Europe and elsewhere - they offer free shipping to a lot of countries, and their prices are very competitive. But will the gear they suggest to us be lighter than what the Trekking-Lite-Store.com had to offer? Well, lets see:
| Item | Name | Weight | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Backpack | Exped Lightning 60 Pack | 1100 g | $248.95 |
| Sleeping bag | Mountain Hardwear Mtn Speed 32 Sleeping Bag | 446 g | $479.95 |
| Mattress | Therm-A-Rest NeoAir X-Lite Regular | 350 g | $159.95 |
| Shelter | Big Agnes Fly Creek 2 Platinum Tent | 879 g | $549.95 |
| Pot | Evernew Titanium UltraLight Deep Pot 0,9 | 125 g | $63.95 |
| Stove | Esbit Titanium Solid Fuel Stove | 14 | $11.96 |
| Cutlery | Alite Cloverware 2.0 Utensils | 45 g | $6.95 |
| Knife | Gerber Ultralight LST | 17 g | $20.60 |
| Lamp | Petzl e+LITE Headlamp | 27 g | $29.95 |
| Trekking Poles | Black Diamond Ultra Distance Z-Poles | 260 | $104.97 |
| Shoes | Salewa Firetail EVO Hiking Shoe | 750 g | $118.95 |
| Fleece | Patagonia R1 Hoody | 357 g | $159.00 |
| Insulation | Mont Bell Plasma 1000 Down Jacket | 135 g | $269.00 |
| Rain pants | Patagonia Torrentshell Stretch Pant | 306 g | $169.00 |
| Rain jacket | Marmot Super Mica Jacket | 247 g | $224.95 |
| Boxers | Patagonia Lightweight Briefs | 53 g | $30.00 |
| T-Shirt | Rab Aeon Tee | 95 g | $31.95 |
| Longsleeve | Arc’teryx Phase SL Crew Longsleeve | 110 g | $68.95 |
Total Weight: 5316 g
Total Price: $2748,98 (in today’s exchange rate that’s 1.993,80 €)
My thoughts on the list:
- WOW! That are a lot of European brands!
- Another WOW as I saw the total weight and price - a sub 2000 € list (though one would pay import duties and taxes when buying this from the USA, so price would go up)
- Very nice choices for the stove and pot, though a windscreen probably would be useful, too (CampSaver.com gave me Trail Designs as an alternative!)
- They offered the Salewa Mountain Trainer Mid GTX Backpacking Boot as on option for footwear, which had me a bit baffled, but I was happy to see the Salewa Firetail EVO Hiking Shoe listed as an option, which is far better for an ultralight list
- Very nice garment choices, can’t go wrong with a Patagonia R1 Hoody and the Rab & Arc’teryx shirts
- The Big Three (Pack, Shelter, Sleep System) are 2775 g which is very good and will make Jörgen happy!
- Overall a great list that is very light and for a very good price
The table thus far:
| Trekking-Lite-Store.com | 6157 g | 2.288,80 € | 0,47€ per gram |
| CampSaver.com | 5316 g | 1.993,80 € | 0,52 € per gram |
Next week we’ll see what Globetrotter, Partioaitta and Bergfreunde.de come up with.
Disclaimer: The One Stop Shop Series was Carsten’s idea and he gave me permission to translate his posts to English and contact a few more shops around the world. If you can read German, you can head over to his blog and read already the first posts with the gear lists from Globetrotter and Bergfreunde.