Prepare
GR20 pack weight
How much should your pack weigh on the GR20? At the start of a stage, water and food included, most packs fall between 8 and 14 kg. This page explains where those kilos come from — and the calculator below lets you build your own pack, gram by gram.
The principle
Base weight and consumables
To think clearly about weight, separate two things. Base weight is everything that stays in your pack from the first day to the last: carrying system, sleep setup, clothing, electronics, first-aid kit. Consumables are what varies: water (1.5 to 2 L depending on the stage, i.e. 1.5 to 2 kg) and food, which depends on how many days you carry between two resupply points. This distinction changes everything: base weight is decided once, before you leave; consumables are recalculated every morning. It also explains the range: around 8 kg, the hiker who sleeps in refuges and eats there; closer to 14 kg, the one carrying a tent, mattress, sleeping bag and several days of food. One last benchmark: beyond roughly 20% of your body weight, the pack starts degrading your technique on the sections where you need your hands.
The calculator
Build your pack, gram by gram
Tick what you plan to carry: the total updates as you go. The suggested weights are those of my real, itemised list whenever I weighed the item, and realistic averages otherwise — adjust them to the grams of your own gear. Then set yourself a target and make trade-offs: every unticked line is weight you won't haul over every pass.
The pack
Sleeping
Clothes in the pack
Water & cooking (empty containers)
Hygiene & health
Electronics & misc
Total at stage start: —…
Not counted: what you wear or hold (shoes, poles, the day's clothes, watch). Suggested weights = my real list where marked "weighed", realistic averages otherwise — adjust them to your own gear.
My list
The pack that finished the 12 days
To see a complete pack in real life, my gear list details piece by piece what I carried over my 12 days: weight, price and an honest verdict on every item, including what I would not take again. One figure to set the scale: my bivouac trio — Simond MT900 tent (1.3 kg), mattress (480 g) and sleeping bag (950 g) — weighs about 2.7 kg on its own.
Going lighter
The levers that actually matter
- Sleep in refuges or in a pre-pitched PNRC tent: you leave the tent and mattress at home — most of the ~2.7 kg bivouac trio (only the sleeping bag remains mandatory everywhere).
- Eat dinner and breakfast at the refuges: every meal taken on site is food you don't have to carry between two resupply points.
- Refill water at refuges and springs instead of hauling 3 L at all times — but keep a real reserve for the dry stages, because they do exist.
- Repackage your food: out of its original packaging, it weighs less and takes up less room.
- Apply the last-trek rule: if you didn't use it on your last trek, leave it behind.
- Beware of the oversized pack: a 50 L bag begs to be filled, and every just-in-case item costs you on every pass — the GR20 stacks up +11,220 m of climbing.
The best weight saving doesn't go in your pack: it's training — a well-prepared body carries the same load far better, from the first pass to the last.