Welcome Verber.

I'm afraid we're going to have to disagree. I base my opinion what I've seen over the past 15 years as a short hiker and hunter in the Greens and Whites, and as someone who grew up here. Cold-wet is not a back up plan- it what you put on a tombstone. Too many times I've heard the back up plan is to "power through it"- yes, a great plan. Particularly with leg injuries caused by light ice on rocks or among leaves. I don't care how "hot" you "run"- under prepared is under prepared. You're gear is a life support machine, and I see too often too little safety margin. I was walking a path not three hundred yards from my parent's house this time of year once, slipped, tried to catch myself, and dislocated my knee- and was so hypothermic that I couldn't talk straight after dragging myself home. This was in my backyard, within what would be shouting distance for most people- halfway up Washington is a really bad place to have that happen, you can have a thirty degree and 20mph difference between bottom and top. In those conditions, right now you get freeze fog without too much difficulty, and there is no one those trails during the week right now; this time of a year, most ultralighters who's packs I've seen are probably dead men if it doesn't go according to plan.

And it isn't just a matter of brains. There was a former Air Force survival instructor who died that way not too far from where I'm sitting. Slipped crossing a brook, went in the water during deer season. His fire lighter was one I've seen on a lot of ultralighter's packing lists- paper matches. He was found the next spring. He had the skills, he thought he was good enough to compensate for junk equipment.

Maybe you are the exception, but around here, I've seen too many people who are geared up as ultralighters who seem to have left their brains at home. A lot of it is good gear, I use quite a bit of it, but when one weighs everything and brags about how light they are loaded, I have to really question the planning. I'll be the first one to admit I'm not a UL'er, but I'm usually alone and weight is a factor. To me, "ultralight" is as much a mentality as it is a matter of gear, and it is a mentality akin to the guys who strip everything out of a car to get that extra five miles of top speed out of it and put slicks on as road tires. Maybe I haven't been fortunate enough to work with a true ultralighter, in which case I'll apologize. But it will be a personal apology to an exception, not a general one.