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.
I am pretty normal... though maybe more loquacious that most of the people I know who ultralight. If you want to see what a community of thoughtful ultralight people look like, check out the free forums at
forums at backpackinglight.com Warning... lots of geeks there who do things like measure the Clo values of clothing, run experiments to see how long it takes for shoes to dry after they have walked through a river, etc. But it's clean fun... well, mostly clean anyway.
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.
I would agree that when we are talking sub 0F temp that the margins need to be wider. When I suggested that the back up plan was being wet and cold I try to make clear (and apparently failed) that many of the ultralight folks I know target their gear to be comfortable in the expected conditions (e.g. things go well), and be safe, but maybe uncomfortable in the worst case.
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, 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.
A couple of thoughts. First, given the number of people who die in the whites (small), and the odds that murray with strike (high), I wonder if they are dead men or just very unhappy men
Second, I am sure there are ultralight folks who don't take the white's seriously enough. Of course, I think that cuts across all styles of outdoors folks. If I was going to predict the percent of people hitting the whites who had problems with exposure, I would bet that in decreasing likelihood it would be day hikers, hunters, classic backpackers, ultralighters. Why? Because the day hiker and hunter don't normally plan to handle the night and expect to be able to walk away from any problem they find. If they can't walk away, many are in trouble. Why would I expect the ultralighter to be less at risk than a classic backpacker? Because an experienced ultralight backpacker is used to explicitly managing the risk / benefit trade-off and won't assume "it's not a big deal... I will be ok".
As to to paper matches being the standard on ultralight backpacking lists... I expect it depends on the ultralighter, and also the season they are going in. There are conditions that are moderate enough that it could be argued that that paper matches are sufficient. There are conditions where paper matches are clearly completely inadequate. A thoughtful ultralight person would select what they bring based on what they are facing. I will use myself as an example. I am a pretty ultralight guy. In the middle of the summer I always have at least three types of fire lighters (box of small wood matches which is inside my cook kit and what normally gets used, spark-lite, and some customized windproof matches which live in a waterproof container with small amount of tinder -- vasaline soaked cotton balls and the tinker sold with the spark-lite for emergencies). I also have the alchohol fuel from my stove and the gel alchohol I use to clean my hands to help with starting a fire. More importantly, I know how to start a fire with these different tools in the face of harsh conditions. In the winter I will typically also have the auto-lighter on my winter stove, a windproof butane lighter, and a lmf firesteel, and of course bring more hardcore tinder. Going for ultralight doesn't mean a person is stupid or careless.
The other thing to consider is that the ultralighter pretty much always has their pack with them. In the case of ending up in a lake, a much faster recovery path would be to get out of the water, take off wet clothing, pull out sleeping bag from the drybag. Get warm enough so your hands function again, and then think about the fire. The nice thing about going ultralight is that the pack is typically not much of an exuberance. When hiking, my pack rarely comes off my back until I am setting up camp. Honestly I have been known to forget it was there. There have been several trips with classic style backpackers that we will get to a place they want a break, they will all dump there packs and I will scout around a bit. When I come back they will ask why I didn't dump my pack and I say "I didn't occur to me. I am fine". Because of this I don't carry a seperate "10 essentials" because they are fully intergrated into my ultralight approach. When it's time to summit one of the 14Kers... I don't drop my pack. I take it will me. My full pack is approx the same weight as many peak-bagger summit packs.
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