What about a monocular? less than half the weight of binoculars and does the same job while leaving one hand free. That's what;s in my BOB.
I do have a pair of Nikon compact binoculars that are great but still theyre too heavy to pack along.

buy used 8x30 steiner off e-bay for 100$ the ones with out internal range finder,ones with rangefinder 100$ to 200$ higher.i got one great deal, german quality,rubber armored.7x50 have great field of view but are too heavy to hlod up to your eyes for more than 30 seconds, need tripod.you can take 8x30 apart in half for less weight.