Probably not. The community is always hungry for ways to trim weight, any new offering in the field is interesting, but since the battery is one of the most critical items, well, people tend to be conservative and stick to established models.

Most ultralight folks go light so they can cover more ground while being more comfortable. Experienced ultralighters consider how a weight reduction introduces risk against that goal, rather than simply "lighter is always better". Aka, don't go "stupid light".

An ultralighter is basically guaranteed to use their phone for navigation. A surprise battery failure may cut a trip short and possibly risk their well-being, both of which go against the goal.

It's not recommended to use battery models that haven't been extensively tested because there are conditions in the backcountry that you may not think about or be able to test beforehand, such as performance in cold conditions, whether the IPX rating really holds up, whether it's possible to brick the device accidentally by pressing the wrong button combination, etc.

A common recommendation is the Nitecore nb10000[1] for 10k of battery, and if you want 20k then bring two. (One of the Anker 20k models is also popular.) Bringing two 10ks is ~0.3 oz heavier than one 20k (per manufacturer specs), but it gives you charging parallelism (shortening down your recharging time by N hours, if your trip requires that you recharge midway) and device redundancy, both of which help you move faster with more reliably.

Related, it is also recommended to only use a battery bank that you have personally used for a few full charge cycles beforehand, to smoke out manufacturing defects.

[1]: https://nitecorestore.com/products/nitecore-nb10000-gen-2-qc...

[2]: https://nitecorestore.com/products/nitecore-nb20000-gen-3-du...

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askvictor 3 days ago | parent [-]

> it gives you charging parallelism (shortening down your recharging time

How do two independent power banks achieve this?

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Xylakant 3 days ago | parent [-]

I believe the parent means you can charge the powerbanks in parallel.

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askvictor 2 days ago | parent [-]

OK; I had never considered hikes where there's a charging point along the way. I guess that's becoming a thing now.

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B-Con 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Airplane mode + 10k battery lasts ~6-12 days, depending on the person and the phone.

There are roughly 1 or 2 thousand attempted "thru" hikes per year, who hike from southern to northern border of the USA over the course of 3-5 months. Far more "section" hikers, who will do a 1-4 week segment of a larger trail.

Such folks often resupply food and recharge their battery banks every few days.

To be fair, we'd generally call it backpacking rather than hiking. But the premise of the article was backpackers, so I didn't bother distinguishing.

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bigmadshoe 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

That has always been a thing. If you’re hiking for several months you have to stop somewhere to buy food tens of times. Most places that sell food (e.g. towns with supermarkets) have electricity.

	▲	askvictor a day ago \| parent [-]
		I'm in Australia, where most hikes top out at a week (there are a few longer ones now). I have also noticed that on the more popular/developed hikes that have shelters sometimes now provide USB charging ports.