While I will talk about the weight aspect in the Carry Your Weight series, here is what each of the Big Three need to accomplish to meet your goals when out backpacking, and a couple different methods of meeting those goals.
Shelter
Your shelter needs to keep you dry, out of the wind, and help keep you warm at night. Storing all of your gear is a nice bonus, but a lot of your stuff will be kept outside; food should be in an appropriate storage location, footwear/wet gear/trekking poles should remain outside, and you likely won't actually have much else.
There are a couple different ways to provide yourself with shelter on the trail. The most popular is a tent. Tent's allow for fairly easy setup anywhere and provide the largest amount of protection from the elements for yourself and your gear. Next are hammocks. Many people prefer hammocks over tents as they sleep better in them, though they are more limited since you need trees. Third are bivy sacks. Bivy sacks are essentially a coffin shaped tent that you can slide a sleeping bag into. The last two common shelter setups are tarps and cowboy camping. Tarping is just like it sounds, you just make a canopy from a tarp to sleep under, though the lack of a bottom means location is important to keep the water out. Cowboy camping is going without a shelter, simply sleeping in your sleeping bag under the stars.
There are a lot of trade offs between each of the above shelter systems. Roslyn and I have chosen to use a tent because we plan on going to a large variety of terrain and weather types, and a tent makes us feel most comfortable with our shelter setup. We are currently using the Marmot Tungsten UL 2P tent for backpacking trips, which is just over 3 lbs for two people.
Sleeping System
The sleeping systems goal is keep you comfortable while you sleep. Depending on conditions you might need different gear for different temperatures or different shelters. The basic sleeping system setup is a sleeping bag with a sleeping pad. Sleeping pads come in a couple different varieties, closed cell foam, self-inflating foam, or air inflated, each with it's own pros and cons. There are also a large variety of sleeping bags with down vs synthetic being the main choice to make. Down quilts are also a popular choice and are usually a bit lighter than sleeping bags.
Roslyn and I are currently using inflatable air pads with sleeping bags as our sleep system. the sleeping bags are usable down to around -5C, but it's not the most comfortable night ever.
Backpack
The backpacks goal is to keep all your stuff together and comfortably supported on your back while hiking.There are a lot of different ways backpacks do this. The main choices come down to internal vs external frame, roll down vs non-roll down top, uses a brain vs does not use a brain, size of the bag, the number of extra pockets and straps, and the material. I think that choosing a backpack is harder than choosing a shelter or sleeping system because of all the little details that can help or hinder your trip.
Right now Roslyn and I each have 3 backpacks for different types of trips. I have a small 18L pack for day hiking, a 30L pack for warm weather trips in the 3-4 days length, and a 55L backpack for trips that are either 5+ days long or where I need to bring extra clothing or rain gear. Roslyn has a 28L pack for day hikes, a 33L pack for 3-4 day warm weather trips, and a 65L pack for longer excursions. Both of us want to try out some backpacks in the 40L to 45L range as the 55/65L packs are a bit large for us at the moment and we would like to cut some weight.
I'll have some more posts up about each of these eventually, but if you have any specific questions about the Big Three let me know.
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