@ Miwok
I am guessing, of course, but the guess is based on some of my experience. White Shadow mentions long walks with plenty of food and water. He may mean day walks or he may mean overnight trips.
A person traveling with light camera and light camping gear can easily end up with the weights White Shadow mentions.
The camera people ask why carry so much. The trekking people ask why carry so much. Same answer could be offered to both.
Sometimes the place you want to visit is not at the end of a day trail accessible from a parking lot. When you get there, you want to take a decent picture.
Not only are there different types of photography and photographic tools, there are different ways of getting to the subject.
Mmm, I did scroll down but hadn’t seen White Shadow’s response…
My camera stuff can be 9.5 lbs for K-5, 15/21/77 lenses, carbon tripod with 28mm sections, and Induro 3-way head. That can be trimmed depending on how hard the walk might be.
Started out doing photography at the age of 6 using an uncle's old 1940 kodak brownie box camera. At 15 years of age, I decided to buy my very own 1975 Praktica SLR camera. I now shoot with a Nikon D850. I do unpaid TFP and commercial paid work.