The Simple 4 Step System for Rocking All of Your 2017 Goals

Note from Sean: This year, we all have goals and things we want to accomplish. 

The unfortunate reality of this, however, is that most of us won't be successful with them. We'll do the same things we've done in the past, and leave a big opportunity to make major changes on the table.

For the last six months, our community manager Liz Froment has been talking to me non-stop about how she has been getting shit done lately. Like, serious progress on BIG goals.

In fact, her system was working so well, I finally asked her to share what she was doing and why it's working so well.

So here you go, you're welcome!

—

Goals.

Everyone has them. No doubt you've got stacks of them written down on bits of paper somewhere. I do too. Look online and you'll find a million posts about goals.

How to achieve your goals. Ways to accomplish more goals. Bust through those goals.

I think far too often we fall into the goals trap.

It's not really your fault, we're bombarded with the goals stuff throughout most of our lives. I was a big goal setter. And then, when I didn't hit the goal, a big disappointment.

Blah.

It wasn't until the past year that I started to reformat my thinking when it came to goals. I finally (finally!) stopped setting goals and instead focused on building systems. One great read on this is Scott Adam's book How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big.

These systems were basically new habits that helped me get more done.

And, surprise, when I got more done, I hit a lot of those abandoned goals from long ago.

Image

Don't you want to feel like goal machine Carli Lloyd, too?

Thought so.

Then keep reading. In this post, I'm going to walk you through a 4 step process to start building systems.

Step 1: Think

Noooooooo! Nobody said there'd be thinking!!

I know. But this part is quick.

Think about what you'd like to accomplish in the next year.

Really do this, it seems simple but it's actually kinda hard. Also, write it down. Writing the goals down makes them feel more real. Now they're out there and not just floating around in your brain.

Now, once you write them all down stop. Most people end here. They have a massive list of things they want to do and only tick off a handful of them.

This is where Warren Buffett's "Two List System" comes into play. Basically, it goes like this:

1. Write down your top 25 career goals (these can also be goals for the year for our purposes – and they don't have to be career-related)
2. Look at the list and circle the top 5 things you want to accomplish
3. Now focus only ONLY on those top 5 things and ignore the other twenty on the list

James Clear does a great job of explaining it in this post. In the same post, he expands on the concept of the two lists:

This is why Buffett's strategy is particularly brilliant. Items 6 through 25 on your list are things you care about. They are important to you. It is very easy to justify spending your time on them. But when you compare them to your top 5 goals, these items are distractions. Spending time on secondary priorities is the reason you have 20 half-finished projects instead of 5 completed ones.

Let's say you've gone through your list and you've come up with 5 things to focus on in the next year. Here they are:

• Lose 20 pounds
• Write a self published novel
• Make an extra $1,000 a month
• Learn Spanish
• Be better a copywriting

One year from today, right now, every single one of these can be done. You just need to systems in place. That's when we get to the next step.

Step 2: Plan and Chunkify

Alright, we've made progress already. If you followed the Two List System you have your five areas of focus for the next year.

Cool, next you want to plan. Yea, this is the not fun part.

I skipped a lot of the planning stages when I first got started and it was a mistake for me. I was much more focused on the goal than the system. Planning is boring, goals are sexy!

No. No. No.

It's actually the planning that is the part where the magic happens.

In this planning phase of building the system, you want to break things down into chunks. Spread these chunks over a specific time frame.

I use 90 days based on a system I learned from Taylor Pearson's TEE Course (highly recommended). You can do 30 days or 60 days, it doesn't really matter.

Once you've got your chunks, start breaking your goals up.

Self Published Author Example

Let's say you've gonna go with the 90 day chunks. You want to write your own self published novel. Cool, here's how you can break this up so it doesn't seem so scary.

• Chunk 1: Research and Outline – Spend this 90 days getting your research all good to go and writing your rough outline
• Chunk 2: First Draft – Spend this 90 days getting your first draft written
• Chunk 3: More Drafts – Ha nothing is ever done after 1 draft, so spend this next chunk going over more drafts
• Chunk 4: Edits and Final Details – Once you're happy with your 16th draft shoot it off to an editor, get your book cover created, and set up your Amazon Author account

What you want to do with every one of those big goals is to chunk it down into smaller and smaller bits and pieces. Within each of those 90 day blocks, you can break it down even more.

This is the part of chunkifying that is super important for me. The smaller the chunk, the better off I am.

Look at Chunk 2: First Draft – Spend this 90 days getting your first draft written. Break it down again:

• Block 1 (first 30 days) – Write 85 pages
• Block 2 (second 30 days) – Write 85 pages
• Block 3 (third 30 days) – Write 85 pages

Boom, you've got a 250 (ish) page draft read to edit after your 90 days.

If you want, break it down again this time into weekly chunks. Look at Block 1 (first 30 days) – Write 85 pages. Keep breaking it down:

• Week 1 – Write 21 pages
• Week 2 – Write 21 pages
• Week 3 – Write 21 pages
• Week 4 – Write 21 pages

I bet you know where this is going next, right?

Look at Week 1 – Write 21 pages, and get even smaller:

• Day 1 – Write 4 pages (in Google Docs form, this is about 1,000 words)
• Day 2 – Write 4 pages
• Day 3 – Write 4 pages
• Day 4 – Write 4 pages
• Day 5 – Write 4 pages

Congrats, you just wrote a book. And you took the weekends off! You can write even less per day if you actually wrote on a daily basis.

Now, see how when "writing a book" is broken down into chunks it really doesn't seem so overwhelming?

The average book is about 64,000 words in total. That's just over 700 words a day for 90 days.

Just to bring this example home, I've been doing a daily 500 word minimum writing habit for the last 90 days.

In my 90 day writing habit (from October through December) here are my numbers:

Now, I wasn't interested in writing a book, but you can see that with my minimum of 500 words a day (clearly some days I went over) writing goal I could have.

The power of chunkifying.

A Final Head's Up on Planning

The planning stage is crucial because two big things often get in the way at this part. Hello, resistance!

First, suddenly lots of fun and cool things start popping up that sound way better than planning. You have to ignore and avoid these unless they can directly help you get your goal accomplished.

If someone approaches you and says they want to do a podcast with you, awesome! They can wait until after your book is done. So that might be a year down the road, or you have to write faster. Don't let yourself get distracted by new and shiny objects.

Second, you're going to think you can skip the chunking.

DO  NOT  SKIP   THE  CHUNKING.

This really is a crucial part. You need your brain to get into the habit of accomplishing quick wins on a daily or weekly basis.

And you want to make your system something that offers you very little resistance and is easily repeatable.

You're not writing a book (book = scary)! You're just writing 700 words a day (700 words a day = easy).

Step 3: Act

This is the 2nd least fun part (after the planning stage). Now you actually have to sit down and get stuff done.

If you haven't figured it out by now, what we're trying to do here is actually build new habits. I learned about rewiring new habits from Charles Duhigg's book The Power of Habit (you can check out a post on the book and goal setting I wrote here.)

Understanding how you can build these small daily habits is huge over the long run.

For an example, in this post, Darius Foroux talks about how a small shift in his daily habits allowed him to work out over 300 times last year.

Alright, so what you have to do now is take your chunking schedule and actually do them. The end.

In my experience of success and failure with various types of goal setting methods having a daily and weekly win is something that gets my momentum really going.

As Mark Manson says, these small daily wins are compounding over time:

There seems to be a bias in the human circuitry that underestimates what it takes to accomplish really big goals and overestimates the effort required to take on a series of small goals. In my experience, it's the regular heartbeat of pursuing and nailing small win after small win that eventually leads to the big ones. In fact, I've often found that becoming so intent on the small simple daily victories often causes one to not even realize one of the big goals has occurred until it's already passed you by. This, too, is a habit. And I would argue it's an incredibly compounding one at that.

The best way to act on your goals is to get them in your head daily.

There are lots of tools out there that can help with this. It wasn't until I consistently put daily tasks into a system that leads to my weekly goal (which led to my 90 day goal) that I really started getting lots of stuff done and seeing real progress.

I currently use a tool called Lanes.io for my tracking. I love it because it combines a daily to-do list with the Pomodoro method so I can actually time my tasks.

Here's a quick look at my schedule the last two weeks:

When I have my daily tasks set I rarely ever think about the big picture. Because I know since I planned everything out that I'm only doing stuff that is pushing me forward.

You can use any of these tools to get task lists going:

• To-doist
• Daily ToDo
• Asana
• Momentum
• Any.do 

You can also use a notebook or a spreadsheet. It doesn't matter what the method or tool is, it took me a little while to find one that stuck, just get a daily system going.

Step 4: Celebrate Your Wins

Finally, don't forget to celebrate your wins. Setting habits, ticking off goals, gaining momentum they all need to be acknowledged as a job well done.

I won't go too woo-woo psychological here, but I truly believe that the right mindset is so important when it comes to this stuff. So every month or 90 days or hell even ever week, take a few minutes and look at everything you've managed to accomplish.

All of those daily tasks can and will add up to massive successes if you just stick with them.

And, to be 100% honest, never beat yourself for missing a day here and there. No one is perfect. Aim for getting things done 100% of the time but if you end up with an 80% success rate, you're still going to be so far down the road to progress.

Final Thoughts

So, that's how I've been able to change my habits and build a system that allows me to knock out tons of stuff each week. I've taken bits and pieces that I've learned from a lot of successful people (most of whom I've linked to in this post) and massaged a system of my own.

This might work for you, it might not, what you want to do is tweak it in a way that is going to get you building systems. Do that this week and by this time next year, you are going to be amazed at all the things you accomplished.

I'd loved to hear some of your best tips for setting up systems. Let me know in the comments!

Liz Froment is a Boston based freelance content writer. You can find reach out to get more of my productivity tips, or you can find me on Twitter tweeting about books and the Red Sox. 

The post The Simple 4 Step System for Rocking All of Your 2017 Goals appeared first on Location Rebel.

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Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra Review

The Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra is a winter traction aid compatible with all types of shoes: trail runners, hiking boots, insulated winter hiking boots, ski boots, and mountaineering boots.

The Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra is a winter traction device that has 18 half-inch stainless spikes connected to an elastomer harness compatible with all hiking boots, shoes, and trail runners. They're essentially tire chains for your feet, designed to give you better traction for hiking or running on flat or low angle terrain covered with ice or packed snow.

In addition to better traction, there are many advantages to using this type of traction aid over a traditional rigid mountaineering crampon:

• Much lighter weight than traditional crampons, only 16.2 oz per pair.
• No special bag required to carry them, just clip to your pack with a carabiner or stuff in a pocket
• Idiot-proof to put on or take off (no training, fitting, or practice required)
• Compatible will all types of footwear, including soft-soled shoes or boots

The spikes on the lighter weight Trail Crampon Ultra are connected by chains which lets them float freely of one another making them much more comfortable to hike or run with if you have soft-soled footwear. You can even use them to run on thin ice like you find on winter sidewalks and urban running trails.

How do the Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultras perform? They're easy to put on and take off, provided that you get the size compatible with your boots or shoes. They're quite good for hiking on packed-out mountain trails covered with snow or ice and provide an impressive amount of traction when hiking up steep slopes. I carry and use them on almost every winter hike I take. The velcro front strap keeps them on and secure. The stainless steel spikes are durable and will withstand tremendous abuse, even when traversing open rock. They require zero maintenance. They're really quite good, which is why so many winter hikers use them.

The Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra is compatible with trail runners, winter hiking boots and mountaineering boots.

Compared to Kahtoola Microspikes

There are two big differences between the Trail Crampon Ultra and Kahtoola Microspikes. The Ultras have slightly longer spikes (see below) and the Ultra has a velcro strap running over the forefoot that prevents the elastomer strap from popping off while you're hiking.

Spike and length comparison:

• Kahtoola Microspikes: three-eighths of an inch, 12 spikes total
• Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra: four-eights of an inch, 18 spikes total

That velcro strap makes a huge difference in the reliability provided by the Ultra and is the reason why I eventually tossed my Microspikes and switched to the Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra myself. It never pops off and I haven't lost one yet. When you lose a Kahtoola Microspike during a hike, you'll never find it again in the snow unless the person hiking behind you notices it when it pops off. After that, it's gone. You'll never see it again.

Highly Recommended: Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra

Disclosure: Hillsound provided the author with a sample Trail Crampon Ultra for this review. 

Support SectionHiker.com. If you make a purchase after clicking on the links above, a portion of the sale helps support this site at no additional cost to you.

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Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra Review

BookView with Sandra Hutchison, author of Bardwell’s Folly

In short, I wanted my heroine to be a clueless but sympathetic white girl who needed to get schooled – the hard way, of course, or it wouldn’t be fun to read. 

9 January 2017

The Back Flap

When her thoughtless blackface joke goes viral, it launches Dori, daughter of a famous Southern white writer, on an adventure in which North meets South, white meets black, and girl meets boy she refused the first time. Bardwell’s Folly is a very American journey into race, class, literature, family, and second chances.

About the book

What is the book about?

It’s about an isolated young woman with a famous dead father who makes a racially insensitive joke that goes viral and turns her life upside down –which sparks a journey into her family’s secret past that forces her to grow in many ways.

It’s book club fiction and accessible literary humor and since the heroine is a young woman it falls into the category of women’s fiction. I embrace that category because it’s where my tribe lives, and it also makes it easier to sell books. At some level, though, I also think the whole idea of “women’s fiction” is pretty sexist. If a man wrote this book about a young man in this situation, nobody would even think of calling it men’s fiction.

When did you start writing the book?

A few years ago. I put it away half done when I got stuck in the middle. Once I’d published my second novel, though, I pulled it out and decided it was not only salvageable but more timely than ever.

How long did it take you to write it?

If you subtract the couple of years sitting half-completed on the hard drive, about a year.

Where did you get the idea from?

I started with my love of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which is a reunion romance as well as feminist class commentary. Instead of a resentful ship’s captain hero, I wanted a small town small business owner, because I admire the moxie that requires.

But I also wanted to deal with race, maybe because I’m a native Floridian who lived through desegregation as a girl. I even have the first grand wizard of the KKK as an ancestor on my mother’s side of the family. In fact, I borrowed the two parts of his name for Dori’s father that my maternal grandfather didn’t have in his name. I’ve been looking out at a country that seems to be getting more segregated and more openly racist and hateful towards minorities than it has been since the days of those Civil Rights struggles. And not just in the South, not by a long shot. So I took that reunion romance and wedded it a sort of snarky girls’ version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with my heroine and a new African American friend heading down into the South to uncover some secrets about my heroine’s past that will rattle her world and also raise questions about cultural appropriation.

In short, I wanted my heroine to be a clueless but sympathetic white girl who needed to get schooled – the hard way, of course, or it wouldn’t be fun to read.

In terms of her situation at the beginning, I was actually inspired by tales of financial disaster by writers whose early success dried up, as well as fights over the estates of people like Andy Warhol, Maurice Sendak, and Harper Lee. Especially that last one. It strikes me as such a violation to publish an earlier draft of a work when an author is too feeble to stop it. So my heroine, Dori, is trying to protect her father’s last, unfinished manuscript from a wealthy media baron even as she struggles with her ambivalent feelings towards him because he left her in her current predicament.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Oh, heck yes. I wanted my heroine to be naïve about social media, and also to be cut off from it so that she would be isolated at key moments. This meant she didn’t have a cell phone for most of the book, in great part because she couldn’t afford one. This lack of a cell phone or internet access really freaked out my more securely middle-class beta readers, so I could assume it would freak out plenty of my readers. That one aspect required a lot of massaging for plausibility’s sake, and it may still be hard for some folks to swallow. Related to that, social media and technology are moving targets. So while I needed to include it because it’s integral to the story, it’s something that could date this book rather quickly.

And finally, in the last couple of months has another issue arisen: Vicious attacks have become so common on the Internet thanks to the recent election that my heroine’s faux-pas and the reaction to it may now seem far too tame. Some people are being threatened with lynching and gassing on a routine basis. I hope that dies down quickly, and not because it dates my book.

What came easily?

There’s a scene where the rich media baron swoops in to take control of Dori’s father’s trust where I enjoyed channeling some of the wedding and bar mitzvah receptions I used to photograph when I moonlighted weekends in prosperous Bergen County, New Jersey. I don’t have anything personal against rich people – they are just as human as anyone else – but the easy luxury they live in can be really startling for someone who’s just barely scraping a living, like Dori.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

Entirely fictitious, though I did borrow Grandma Thelma’s squeal. I have no desire to write fiction about real people I’ve actually met. It’s too constraining, and it also strikes me as rude.

Do you have a target reader for this book?

Any person of good will who wants a fun read and is willing to consider the questions it raises.

How was writing this book different from what you’d experienced writing previous books?

This one was easier to edit than the last couple. There was a lot less thrashing around changing points of view and tense and so forth. Either I’m getting better at it, or I’ve failed to thrash around enough.

I also didn’t feel any need to include explicit sex scenes in this one, even at rough draft stage. It was a novelty, at second draft, to be agonizing about whether I should add graphic details instead of taking them out, as I did with the second novel, or keeping them in, as I did in the first. But I just didn’t see how they would serve any useful purpose in this one.

What new things did you learn about writing, publishing, and/or yourself while writing and preparing this book for publication?

I really pondered for a while about whether to try to find an agent and get a traditional deal on this one. I even stuck one pinkie toe in the water with the first draft, before deciding all the reasons I hadn’t done it for the last one still stood. I also considered trying for Kindle Scout, mostly because I’m intrigued by Amazon’s Lake Union imprint. Ultimately, I decided to just publish it as I had the others. If I’d known Kindle sales were going to slide so precipitously this fall, I might have chosen otherwise, though I still hope that is temporary. If I’d known which way the country was going to choose in the election, I might have gone the other way, too – both to give this book a wider audience and because an advance would come in handy as I face some big decisions about having health insurance vs. having time to write in the next couple of years.

Finally, I now know I was fooling myself when I thought I could teach four composition classes AND market a new book well at the same time. Marketing requires more attention to detail than that. Fortunately, the one great remaining advantage of indie-publishing is that you can keep working at it even after that initial publication window closes.

End of Interview:

For more from Sandra visit her website, like her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter, or checkout her Pinterest page.

Get your copy of Bardwell’s Folly from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

from The IndieView http://ift.tt/2ivlgf0

BookView with Sandra Hutchison, author of Bardwell’s Folly

In short, I wanted my heroine to be a clueless but sympathetic white girl who needed to get schooled – the hard way, of course, or it wouldn't be fun to read. 

9 January 2017

The Back Flap

When her thoughtless blackface joke goes viral, it launches Dori, daughter of a famous Southern white writer, on an adventure in which North meets South, white meets black, and girl meets boy she refused the first time. Bardwell's Folly is a very American journey into race, class, literature, family, and second chances.

About the book

What is the book about?

It's about an isolated young woman with a famous dead father who makes a racially insensitive joke that goes viral and turns her life upside down –which sparks a journey into her family's secret past that forces her to grow in many ways.

It's book club fiction and accessible literary humor and since the heroine is a young woman it falls into the category of women's fiction. I embrace that category because it's where my tribe lives, and it also makes it easier to sell books. At some level, though, I also think the whole idea of "women's fiction" is pretty sexist. If a man wrote this book about a young man in this situation, nobody would even think of calling it men's fiction.

When did you start writing the book?

A few years ago. I put it away half done when I got stuck in the middle. Once I'd published my second novel, though, I pulled it out and decided it was not only salvageable but more timely than ever.

How long did it take you to write it?

If you subtract the couple of years sitting half-completed on the hard drive, about a year.

Where did you get the idea from?

I started with my love of Jane Austen's Persuasion, which is a reunion romance as well as feminist class commentary. Instead of a resentful ship's captain hero, I wanted a small town small business owner, because I admire the moxie that requires.

But I also wanted to deal with race, maybe because I'm a native Floridian who lived through desegregation as a girl. I even have the first grand wizard of the KKK as an ancestor on my mother's side of the family. In fact, I borrowed the two parts of his name for Dori's father that my maternal grandfather didn't have in his name. I've been looking out at a country that seems to be getting more segregated and more openly racist and hateful towards minorities than it has been since the days of those Civil Rights struggles. And not just in the South, not by a long shot. So I took that reunion romance and wedded it a sort of snarky girls' version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with my heroine and a new African American friend heading down into the South to uncover some secrets about my heroine's past that will rattle her world and also raise questions about cultural appropriation.

In short, I wanted my heroine to be a clueless but sympathetic white girl who needed to get schooled – the hard way, of course, or it wouldn't be fun to read.

In terms of her situation at the beginning, I was actually inspired by tales of financial disaster by writers whose early success dried up, as well as fights over the estates of people like Andy Warhol, Maurice Sendak, and Harper Lee. Especially that last one. It strikes me as such a violation to publish an earlier draft of a work when an author is too feeble to stop it. So my heroine, Dori, is trying to protect her father's last, unfinished manuscript from a wealthy media baron even as she struggles with her ambivalent feelings towards him because he left her in her current predicament.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Oh, heck yes. I wanted my heroine to be naïve about social media, and also to be cut off from it so that she would be isolated at key moments. This meant she didn't have a cell phone for most of the book, in great part because she couldn't afford one. This lack of a cell phone or internet access really freaked out my more securely middle-class beta readers, so I could assume it would freak out plenty of my readers. That one aspect required a lot of massaging for plausibility's sake, and it may still be hard for some folks to swallow. Related to that, social media and technology are moving targets. So while I needed to include it because it's integral to the story, it's something that could date this book rather quickly.

And finally, in the last couple of months has another issue arisen: Vicious attacks have become so common on the Internet thanks to the recent election that my heroine's faux-pas and the reaction to it may now seem far too tame. Some people are being threatened with lynching and gassing on a routine basis. I hope that dies down quickly, and not because it dates my book.

What came easily?

There's a scene where the rich media baron swoops in to take control of Dori's father's trust where I enjoyed channeling some of the wedding and bar mitzvah receptions I used to photograph when I moonlighted weekends in prosperous Bergen County, New Jersey. I don't have anything personal against rich people – they are just as human as anyone else – but the easy luxury they live in can be really startling for someone who's just barely scraping a living, like Dori.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

Entirely fictitious, though I did borrow Grandma Thelma's squeal. I have no desire to write fiction about real people I've actually met. It's too constraining, and it also strikes me as rude.

Do you have a target reader for this book?

Any person of good will who wants a fun read and is willing to consider the questions it raises.

How was writing this book different from what you'd experienced writing previous books?

This one was easier to edit than the last couple. There was a lot less thrashing around changing points of view and tense and so forth. Either I'm getting better at it, or I've failed to thrash around enough.

I also didn't feel any need to include explicit sex scenes in this one, even at rough draft stage. It was a novelty, at second draft, to be agonizing about whether I should add graphic details instead of taking them out, as I did with the second novel, or keeping them in, as I did in the first. But I just didn't see how they would serve any useful purpose in this one.

What new things did you learn about writing, publishing, and/or yourself while writing and preparing this book for publication?

I really pondered for a while about whether to try to find an agent and get a traditional deal on this one. I even stuck one pinkie toe in the water with the first draft, before deciding all the reasons I hadn't done it for the last one still stood. I also considered trying for Kindle Scout, mostly because I'm intrigued by Amazon's Lake Union imprint. Ultimately, I decided to just publish it as I had the others. If I'd known Kindle sales were going to slide so precipitously this fall, I might have chosen otherwise, though I still hope that is temporary. If I'd known which way the country was going to choose in the election, I might have gone the other way, too – both to give this book a wider audience and because an advance would come in handy as I face some big decisions about having health insurance vs. having time to write in the next couple of years.

Finally, I now know I was fooling myself when I thought I could teach four composition classes AND market a new book well at the same time. Marketing requires more attention to detail than that. Fortunately, the one great remaining advantage of indie-publishing is that you can keep working at it even after that initial publication window closes.

End of Interview:

For more from Sandra visit her website, like her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter, or checkout her Pinterest page.

Get your copy of Bardwell's Folly from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

from The IndieView http://ift.tt/2ivlgf0

Lightweight Winter Backpacking Gear List: Explained

Lightweight Winter Backpacking Gear List: Explained

Winter backpacking is very different from three season backpacking – It requires more gear, good decision-making, and many new skills.

This winter backpacking gear list is designed for use in temperatures down to 10 below zero (fahrenheit) and for camping below treeline, out of high wind. At just under 28 pounds, without food, fuel, or water, it's a good example of a lightweight winter backpacking load and the tradeoffs that you can make to reduce the weight of your winter gear without skimping on comfort or taking too many risks.

I've broken the gear list into sections so I can explain it in more detail for hikers interested in winter backpacking. There's a lot of information packed into this post about winter backpacking activities, gear requirements, and alternatives that I think you'll find useful.

• clothing for camp
• clothing for hiking
• clothing for layering
• hydration
• cooking
• navigation
• electronics
• first-aid
• packing
• shelter
• sleeping
• traction

If you have questions, ask them in the comments. I'm happy to respond.

Clothing for Camp

Winter backpacking involves a lot of sitting around in the cold so you can cook and melt snow for drinking water. We do this to be social (because it's fun) and to avoid dying from carbon monoxide poisoning in our tents or burning them down around us.

name	description	weight oz.
Darn Tough Hiker Socks	Wool socks	2.4
Glasses hard case	Protect glasses when sleeping	4
LL Bean UL 850 Hooded Down Jacket	Puffy hooded insulation	18.7
Montbell Thermawrap Pants	Insulated Pants	12.4
Mountain Hardware Dome Perignon Hat	Really warm hat	2.1
Patagonia Capilene LW Bottoms	Sleeping baselayer	5.9
Personal Effects	Wallet, keys, money, etc.	7
Polar Buff	Neck insulation	2.8
Supernatural Jersey	Sleeping baselayer	6.7

When melting snow or cooking dinner, you're not moving, so you need to pile on the insulated clothing to stay warm. This typically includes a heavy insulated jacket, insulated pants, warm gloves, and head-gear, layered over your day time clothing if it's dry or your sleeping clothes. You'll often wear your regular winter boots in camp, but some people bring down booties to keep their feet warm.

Most of these extra "camp" layers are too warm to wear when you're hiking, but you do need to carry them nonetheless. However, they can be used to augment the warmth of your sleeping bag: I use mine that way so I can take my zero-degree sleeping bag down to -10 degrees. I'm not that interested in camping in anything colder because it's kind of unpleasant. It took me many years to admit this to myself, but when I did I was able to switch from a -25 degree sleeping bag to a much less expensive and lighter weight zero degree sleeping bag.

Clothing for Hiking

You don't want to dress too warmly for winter hiking.  You'll be carrying a much heavier pack than in summer, wearing heavier boots, and possibly snowshoes or crampons. Sweat is bad because it will accumulate in your clothes and cool you whenever you stop moving. This can snowball in crappy conditions and lead to hypothermia. If you start to sweat, strip off layers or slow down so your body generates less heat.

name	description	weight/oz.
Baffin Borealis Boots	Lightweight double Insulated Boot	48
Darn Tough Hiker Socks	Cushioned	2.4
Minus 33 Ticonderoga Wool Jersey	Medium weight	8.4
Mountain Hardware Fleece Hat	Light enough for exertion	0.8
Possumdown Gloves	Highly breathable	1.5
Rab Polartec 100 Fleece 1/2 zip Pullover	Thin, easy to vent, warm when wet	9.9
Ragged Mountain Interval Uncoated Gaiters	High breathable gaiters	4.3
REI Activator Soft Shell Pants	Breathable, stretchy	17.3
Under Armor Heatgear Boxers	Non-chafing, some insulation	3.2

It's not unusual for me to backpack stripped down to my midlayer fleece pullover or baselayer shirt. I also rarely wear long johns under my soft shell pants because I get too hot. I use them for sleeping instead.

My Baffin Borealis winter backpacking boots require some explanation. Called double insulated boots, they have removable liners. This is desirable in winter so you can sleep with your liners in your sleeping bag and not your entire boots. You do this to prevent the liners from freezing at night using your body heat. These Baffin Borealis boots are a real find because they're super lightweight and you can walk easily in them. If your winter boots don't have removable liners, you should be prepared to sleep with them.

Clothing for Layering

External temperatures or wind chill can vary widely on a winter backpacking trip, depending on the time of day, your location, and the amount of surrounding vegetation. It's best to carry additional layers that you hold in reserve so you can layer up or off as conditions change. This is normal on winter hikes and backpacking trips, with people calling for layer breaks all the time.

name	description	weight/oz.
CAMP Wind Gloves	Wind shell exterior, soft shell glove	3.5
Golite Reed XL Rain Pant	Women's boot zip, no longer made	6.7
Marmot Softshell Gloves	Dries fast	2
Outdoor Research Cornice Mittens	Waterproof shell mitts, limited dexterity w/Primaloft inner insulated gloves	8.4
Outdoor Research Foray Jacket	Technical GTX Shell with pit/torso zips. Size XL	17.5
Smith Knowledge OTG Fan Goggles	Internal fan to prevent fogging	6.1
Sunglasses + Case	Glare protection	4.2

Your extra layers should be easy to put on or take off and they should be packed where they're easy to access in your backpack. This includes extra hats, extra gloves, jackets, pants, a buff (neck gaiter), balaclava/face mask, gaiters, sunglasses, or goggles. If you wear big boots, bring rain pants than you can put on or take off without taking your boots off – usually pants with full or 3/4 side zips. My boots are small enough that I can put them on with just boot zip rain pants.

It will be rare for you to need your camping clothes during the day, with the exception of your big puffy jacket if you stop for a snack or water break. But you have those warm extra layers in reserve if you need them.

Hydration

The amount of water you carry on a winter backpacking trip usually varies between two and three liters, so you don't have to stop and melt more using a stove during the day.You should shoot to have a half-cup of water left at the end of the day as a starter for melting more snow. If you try to melt snow in a dry pot, you'll burn it and maybe hole your pot.

You'll want to carry one bottle in an insulated container (foam or neoprene) outside your pack for easy access, positioned upside down so the cap doesn't freeze. You can store the other bottles inside your backpack, snuggled among your insulating layers in order to save weight on added bottle insulation. You should carry your water in wide mouth bottles which are less likely to freeze and easier to open if they do. I like to carry soft propylene wide-mouth Hunersdorf bottles in winter which won't crack if frozen and are easy to open while wearing mittens.

name	description	weight/oz.
Forty Below Bottle Boots (1 liter)	Neoprene insulated covers for 1 liter bottles	3.8
Hunersdorf Bottle (1 liter)	Wide mouth bottle	4.8
Hunersdorf Bottle (1 liter)	Wide mouth bottle	4.8
Hunersdorf Bottle (1 liter)	Wide mouth bottle	4.8

If you can find water in liquid form, you still have to purify it. Boiling is an effective way to do this, since you'll want to heat it up anyway to keep it from freezing overnight and to reboil it in the morning so it doesn't freeze during the next day,

Cooking

All this boiling and melting snow takes a lot of time and stove fuel. I like to use a liquid fuel stove for winter because liquid fuel (white gas) is the highest BTU fuel available and it will burn down to -40 fahrenheit. While you can use a canister stove in winter, it becomes increasingly difficult to use under 20 degrees fahrenheit. You can push that down to about 0 degrees with a special inverted canister stove like the Jetboil Joule. But liquid fuel is still the best all round solution in my opinion, and makes it easy to share fuel in a group since so many other people use liquid fuel stoves in winter. That extra redundancy is nice.

name	description	weight/oz.
Evernew 1.3 L Titanium Pot w/handle	Winter size for melting snow	4
Light My Fire Fire Steel	Fire starter	1
Mesh Stuff Sack	Holds winter stove kit together	0.8
MSR 20 oz Fuel Bottle		6.3
MSR Whisperlite	White Gas Stove w/fuel pump	11.4
Folding Windscreen	Accordion, compact	4
OP Sack	Food bag, heavy plastic	1.3
Sea to Summit Delta Insulated Mug	With cap, liquid measurements	4
Victorinox Classic Swiss Army Knife	Tiny little knife with scissors	0.7

Packing space is at a real premium in winter, but winter cooking gear can be bulky. With the exception of my fuel bottle and insulated cup, my entire cook system fits in my stove pot, which keeps it nice and compact. At 1.3 liters, the pot is about as small as you can go for melting snow, since you can only melt one bottle's worth at a time.

Navigation

Navigation needs can vary widely in winter. While a map can suffice if you're on a well used trail system and visibility is good, trails become much more difficult to find in winter when they're covered in snow, the horizon is fogged in, and the snow is so deep that the blazes are buried under your feet. I always carry a compass for route finding, but it takes some practice to be able to use it effectively in winter, which is a lot more like off-trail navigation, than it is three-season navigation.

I also carry a whistle, something I carry all year, which is good for signaling companions when you can't see them, like in dense fog or heavy vegetation. A whistle carries farther than the human voice and you can blow on it without becoming exhausted.

name	description	weight/oz.
Fox 40 Plastic Whistle	Really loud whistle	0.1
Suunto M3 Compass	Adjustable declination	1.5

While I do use an iPhone for GPS navigation during the rest of the year, I switch to a Garmin eTrex 20x GPS unit in winter because it's waterproof, has a better battery life than a phone, and most importantly, it can be used while wearing heavy gloves. The GPS unit is not part of my base gear list, because it's often not needed.

Electronics

It's important to use Lithium Ion Batteries to power electronic devices in winter because they don't freeze like alkaline batteries, which contain a water-based electrolyte solution.

I like to bring a high-powered headlamp on winter trips because we often hike at night, what with the shortened daylight in winter. I also find shadows very distracting when I hike on snow at night and a bright headlamp helps chase them away.

My Black Diamond Icon headlamp (320 lumens) is powered by 4 AA batteries that last a long time, usually all winter. It also has a lock mode which I view as essential, so it won't turn on accidentally and lose power. I also carry a very small Petzl e+lite headlamp, also with a lock modem, mainly for use in my tent, which is easy to stow in my sleeping bag for easy access at night.

name	description	weight/oz.
Black Diamond Icon Headlamp	/w 4 x AA Lithium Ion Bateries	6.8
Extra Camera Battery		1.3
Canon Powershot S120 with Battery		7.6
iPhone w/Lander Case		5.9
Petzl e+Lite Headlamp		1.8
SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger	Emergency PLB and Check-in Messenger	4.1
Spare Batteries and Camera Stuff	Lithium ion batteries	6.3

I always bring a pocket camera because I take a lot of photos, as well as a SPOT GPS Satellite Messenger. The SPOT lets me send out periodic "OK" messages, which my wife appreciates and would be useful in an emergency to contact Search and Rescue if I'm out of cellphone range. I also carry a phone because it's a better way to contact search-and-rescue if a cell phone signal is available. I also read books and take notes on it.

First-Aid

I use the exact self-assembled first-aid kit in the winter that I carry the rest of the year. Nothing special: Benedryl, Aspirin, Advil, ear plugs, Leuoktape for blister prevention. Some other odds and ends. You can find a complete list of my first aid contents here: Homemade Ultralight First Aid Kit. 

name	description	weight/oz.
First aid kit	Self assembled	6.6

Packing

One of the keys to reducing your winter gear weight is to keep the volume of the backpack you need as small as possible. That means carrying highly compressible gear and learning how to attach gear to the outside of your backpack using its external attachment system. The weight of your gear is important of course, but if you can keep the volume of your pack under 60 liters, you're going to be way ahead of the game. This may require some compromises on your part, for example, not backpacking when temperatures are less than zero degrees, but you can't have it both ways.

name	description	weight/oz.
Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack	cuben fiber stuff sack	0.5
Hyperlite Mountain Gear 3400 (55L) Southwest Pack	cuben fiber pack	32.4
Lowepro Dashpoint 20	WP Camera Pocket. Attached in shoulder strap.	1.9
Mini-biner	Attach swiss army knife to pack	0.1

My winter backpack is a cuben fiber Hyperlite Mountain Gear 3400 (55L) Southwest backpack, the same pack I use for longer multi-day backpacking trips the rest of the year. I can fit all of the gear, food, fuel, and water I need for winter backpacking inside it or attached to the outside of the pack with extra room to spare. I've used slightly larger backpacks in the past, but this one weighs significantly less, just over two pounds. It opens from the top with a roll top, which I find useful in winter because I can quickly find the gear I need.

While cuben fiber fabric is waterproof, cuben fiber backpacks are not because you need to make holes in the fabric to sew on the shoulder pads and hip belt. I line my pack with a white trash compactor bag to keep its contents dry, and while I use stuff sacks or Ziploc baggies to organize gear, I pack a lot of clothes in my pack loose. I find that this reduces the pack space required by my clothes, eliminating the air gaps between other bulkier items inside my backpack. Experiment with this and see what you prefer.

Shelter

My goto shelter in winter is a freestanding Black Diamond Firstlight Tent which I think is the best lightweight all-round winter backpacking tent made. Weighing just 43 ounces, it's truly freestanding so you can set it up just about anywhere. It has very steep walls that shed snow well, good head room, and has plenty of interior space since it's designed for two (very friendly) people.

Black Diamond Firstlight Tent on the flanks of Mt Washington.

name	description	weight/oz.
Black Diamond Firstlight Tent	Freestanding, 4 season tent	43

I don't carry any tent stakes to pitch this tent. If I need anchors, I take apart my poles and use them as stakes (shown) or anchor the other guy out loops with other gear I carry, like snowshoes, crampons, or an ice axe. I rarely even bother to sinter (harden) the snow under the tent and just set it up. Since it's freestanding, I can pitch it in less than 2 minutes, climb in, and change into dry clothes without standing around and getting cold. Freestanding tents are priceless in winter but few truly freestanding tents are made.

Sleeping

It's not unusual to sleep for 12 hours on a winter backpacking trip, so you might as well make the most of it and be comfortable and warm. The key to this is bringing a warm sleeping bag and a thick sleeping pad with a high R-value. Many people like to bring two sleeping pads in winter and combine them to get the R-value (which is additive) that they need.

The R-values for sleeping pads aren't tested uniformly the same way across manufacturers, but they're the best measure of thermal resistance (insulation) available to consumers, so useful for guidance. I think an R-value of 5 or 6 is ideal for winter camping, so that's the amount of sleeping pad insulation I shoot for, and experience has proven this out.

name	description	weight/oz.
NEMO Sonic 0 Sleeping Bag	Roomy winter bag	42
REI Compression Sack	For sleeping bag	3
Therm-a-Rest Xtherm Sleeping Pad	R value=5	15
Therm-a-Rest Zlite Sleeping Pad	Doubles as sit pad	8.1

I bring an insulated Therm-a-Rest XTherm inflatable mattress (R-value =5 ) for comfort and a shortened foam Therm-a-Rest Zlite sleeping pad, which serves as my sit pad during dinner, when we sit on snow to cook and melt snow for drinking water. You don't want to forget a sit pad on a winter backpacking trip or you'll freeze your ass off!

I put the Zlite under the XTherm at night for additional insulation. Foam pads like this are also preferred for shielding accident victims from hypothermia from the ground, which is why you see so many winter day hikers and backpackers carrying them on the trails. It's good to have at least one in your group.

As I mentioned previously, I downgraded from a -25 degree sleeping bag to a 0 degree sleeping bag, when I realized that I don't really enjoy backpacking in sub-zero temperatures. It took me a long time to realize this – nearly a decade. But after I switched to a 0 degree bag, I was able to switch to a smaller volume backpack, and so on, shaving more weight from my gear list. I still carry enough extra insulated clothing that I can take my 0 degree bag down to -10, but I'm also likely to postpone a backpacking trip if the weather forecast is that cold at night.

Traction

I always bring microspikes, snowshoes, and trekking poles on winter backpacking trips, so they have a permanent spot on my winter gear list. It's important to replace the summer baskets on your trekking poles with snow baskets for winter travel. They really are an essential flotation aid for winter hiking.

name	description	weight/oz.
Hillsound Trail Crampon Ultra		16.8
MSR Evo Ascent Snowshoes 22 inch	Bomber snowshoe	64
Pacerpole Dual Lock Poles	Carbon fiber w/snow baskets	20.8

The MSR Evo Ascent Snowshoes I use are intended for climbing mountains and have a televator wire that lifts up under the heel to make them easier to climb slopes with. This unibody plastic snowshoe is also much better off-trail than a snowshoe with an attached fabric deck, because branches can't become caught between the deck and the frame. I do a lot of off-trail hiking in winter and there's a slight weight penalty (just a few ounces) for using these snowshoes instead of decked ones that are slightly lighter.

Extra Gear – As Needed

When I don't need this extra gear, I'll leave it at home. It consists of extra traction, navigation, a shovel for digging out camp kitchen or vestibule trenches in deep snow, and wood preparation tools for when we want to make campfires.

name	description	category	weight/oz.
Hillsound Trail Crampon Pro	ratchet style crampon	traction	24.9
CAMP Corsa Ice Axe	UL Ice axe	traction	10
Garmin eTrex 20x GPS	w/ lithium ion AA batteries	navigation	4.6
Voile Telepro Avalanche Shovel	digging snow furniture	shelter	29
Silky GOMBOY 240 Pruning Saw	wood prep	shelter	9.4
Mora Companion Knife	wood prep, includes Kydex sheath	shelter	4.1

The shovel, saw, and knife are best thought of as group gear and we distribute them around so one person doesn't have to carry all of them. The decision on whether to bring crampons or a GPS has a lot to do with the terrain where we plan to hike, the weather forecast, and trip reports that document local conditions that are posted by other hikers and backpackers.

Wrap Up

Using a Cuben fiber Duomid in Winter took too long to set up for me, so I use a heavier freestanding tent instead.

My winter backpacking gear list is pretty streamlined and lightweight and should provide you with a good template of the gear required for winter backpacking and camping. While I could still "spend" its weight down more by swapping out my freestanding tent for a tarp shelter and other ultralight substitutions, I'm not really inclined to race to the bottom like that any more. I have used floorless cuben fiber shelters in winter and not found them to be particularly comfortable. It also takes a while to freeze in deadman stakes so you can stake them out, time I'd rather be spending out of the wind and changing into dry clothes inside the freestanding I carry instead.

My advice – figure out what is right for you to be safe and comfortable, and suck it up if it weighs a bit more than you'd like. Winter backpacking gear IS heavier than three season hiking gear, but if you can get your full-out pack weight for a two night trip under 40 pounds, including food, water, and fuel, that's a good target weight to shoot for. Reducing your gear weight for winter backpacking is a worthwhile goal and does pay dividends, but it takes some time to accomplish it, so keep at it.

See Also:

• Winter Backpacking on a Budget
• Winter Sleeping Bag FAQ
• External Attachment Guide

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