Eastern vs Western Ultralight

I just watched Glen Van Peski's video on "What's in my pack?"

Glen is the founder of Gossamer Gear.  He knows his stuff.  He regularly goes on backpacking trips using the gear he made, and it clearly works for him.  He carries some stuff specific to his own needs (prevention or treatment of fever blisters due to sun exposure, padding to put around scar tissue on his feet) but even with that his base weight is 4.7 lb.  That includes his backpack, shelter, and sleeping bag.  It's impressive.

The thing is, as I watch the video it's obvious to me that his setup just would not work for me.  He keeps his sleep socks in his shoulder strap - I tried that and mine got soaked.  He has no dry clothing to change into. His shelter has no bug screening whatsoever, it's a small tarp.  He had no bug dope.  Basically, his gear would need to be supplemented to work in a wet, buggy environment.  Like, oh, say, the whole east coast.

It occurs to me that most of the serious ultralighters are westerners. And I think in part it's because they *don't* have to continuously protect every item from the elements, and they aren't besieged by mosquitoes and biting gnats at every turn.

I'm not saying that these guys aren't experts.  They definitely are.  I'm just saying I don't think their methods are as appropriate to my environment as I would like.  Which means that I'm never going to be super ultralight unless I start hiking elsewhere.

If you're super healthy and resilient, you can take a fair amount of abuse and be fine.  I'm neither super healthy nor particularly resilient, so I need things like dry clothes to wear in camp.  Glen carries a lightweight rain jacket, sleep socks, gloves, and a hat.  No backup shirt. No backup pants. He says that he normally doesn't even carry a down vest - he gets in his sleeping bag.  He carried a vest for the demonstration, mentioning that he would bring it if he were camping with people who liked to hang out at night.

Also I noticed that he didn't have every little thing in ziplocks.  I've learned the hard way to put all my stuff in ziplocks.  One big ziplock to put all your food in may keep the odor in, but it won't protect the individual food items once a little moisture gets in that bag.  He had no pack cover.  A pack cover, or pack liner (or both!) is essential to me.  I've been through rain storms with a pack cover, with my gear inside the backpack in drysacks, where my gear STILL got wet.  I've had whole weeks go by that way!  Combining days of soaking wet with no dry clothing to get into, and a minimalist sleeping setup (no insulation on the bottom, and only a torso pad for cushioning) is a recipe for hypothermia and misery for me.

So I think that Ultralight might be divided up into two categories.  One for wet camping, and one for dry.  With the possible exception of drought years, the Appalachian Trail will almost always fall into the wet category.  I'm pondering coming up with my own Wet Ultralight list.