The things we carry

Editor's note (aka note from Jen): I suggested Justin write a blog post about gear, since we've both gotten a number of questions.  Holy cow, I did not realize he was going to go into this level of detail.  The following should sate even the most curious of readers.  Over to you, Justin. 

When hiking 2,650 miles, we choose the things we carry carefully. We want to carry as little as possible while staying happy and healthy.

Every hiker figures out the right balance of gear to them depending on what they're doing. If you are going out for 5 days and planning to hike 8-12 miles a day, you might want to carry camp chairs, a roomy tent, a guitar, several onions, a skillet and a bottle of whiskey. If, however, you are going to be walking for days on end that is probably not a great idea. You want to keep enough weight off your legs that you don't need to rest several days for every week that you hike. 

On a thru-hike – what long distance hiking trails are called when hiked from start to finish – weight becomes especially critical. Thru-hikers can be passionate to the point of insufferable when it comes to their gear (we'll talk about food another time). Admittedly, it ranks up there in one of our least favorite conversations to have with other hikers. And yet, it's critical.

So, what things will we carry?

The big 3: tent, sleeping bag & backpack.

Tent: Big Agnes Fly Creek UL3 (3lbs)

• Tent or no tent? Believe it or not a lot of PCT hikers don't sleep in tents. Some "cowboy camp" – i.e., sleep under the stars – for the full first section of the trail in the desert. This strikes this risk-averse couple as a great way to see if there really are snow storms around Mt San Jacinto in May (there are). Some use lightweight tarps or bivouacs that they have to use their hiking poles or other structures to set up. These are absolutely lighter, but take more time to set up and may require you to be picky about where you can go to bed at night (not fun after 25 miles of hiking). We chose to sleep in a tent because they are easy to set up, and protect us better from the elements.
• Which tent? Two years ago, when we hiked about half of the PCT, we slept in a 2-person tent: the Mountain Hardwear Super Mega UL2. A 2 lb (!!) tent, it served us excellently over more than a thousand miles and three months of hiking. However, the price we paid for the weight: only one of us could sit up at a time. Jenny maintains it kept us close. I, well, I bought a bigger tent, a 3-person ultralight tent that has enough room for us to put our packs inside when it's raining and both sit up at a time. The price: an extra pound of weight that I will carry. Worth it? We'll see. The other stipulation: if the tent requires us to hike longer than planned more than two times in a row because it's too big for campsites, we will trade it in for our more snuggly tent.

Sleeping bag: EMS Mountainlight 15 degree bag (2lbs)

An excellent, lightweight down sleeping bag. This bag served us well last time around, and we'll use it again this time around. While it may not exactly keep us warm to 15 degrees, it's pretty close.

Backpack: Osprey Exos 58 (2.2-2.4lbs)

Super comfortable, breathable and lightweight, we both used the Exos last time and we'll use it again. It can't carry more than 50 lbs without becoming distinctly unpleasant to carry, but as we've already alluded to that's far more weight than we really want to carry.

Total weight = ~7lbs for me, ~4.2lbs for Jenny

Things we hike in.

• Hiking shoes: I prefer a mid-weight hiking boot, the Merril Moab Ventilators: low-top for the desert, high-top for the Sierras. Last time they lasted for 7-900 miles at a time. Jenny prefers trail runners (they're lighter and more breathable), and hasn't yet found the perfect shoe. They last for about 500 miles before needing to be replaced. Jenny is starting with a thru-hiker favorite, the Brooks Cascadia (1.5 sizes large for the inevitable foot swelling)
• Hiking socks: we each carry 2 pair that we rotate, and then cycle them out as they fall apart.
• Gaiters: we both wear colorful hiking gaiters from Dirty Girl Gaiters to keep sand, dirt, and rocks out of shoes. These are a far cry from traditional backpacking gaiters that you might be used to which go up to your knees and are made from Gore-Tex. They are a little piece of nylon with elastic that creates a seal around your ankle. Grit in shoes = boku time cleaning socks and fighting the inevitable blisters that emerge. These are life savers.
• Shorts: I go back and forth about whether I like a liner in my shorts, and will be starting with my black Patagonia baggies. Jenny swears by her baggies as well.
• Underwear: performance underwear, 2 pair. 
• Shirt: long-sleeve Patagonia button-down shirt with zero cotton (it collects stink like you wouldn't believe)
• Buff: I'd never heard of a Buff before two years ago, but now swear by it. What is it? A colorful piece of cloth that you can use as a headband, bandana, handkerchief, etc etc. The possibilities are endless!

 

• Sun hat: we both wear nerdy looking tan, wide-brimmed hats in the desert. The sun is brutal.
• Hiking poles: we both have them, and couldn't imagine hiking without them. They save our knees on descents, help pace us while we walk, and help us keep our balance in heavy winds and sketchy terrain.
• Sunglasses: polarized, wrap-arounds with croakies. 
• Umbrella (an experiment): I bought a silver reflective umbrella for hiking in the desert. Friends love them, and I want to give it a try. It will be odd holding an umbrella in one of my hands while hiking (or figuring out how to attach it to my pack - as the resourceful hiker below did), but it provides infinitely better protection from the sun. The jury is still out.

Layers and additional clothing.

• Rain jacket: lightweight poncho (Jenny) and Marmot PreCip (Justin) for the desert, northern California and Oregon. Gore-Tex jackets for the Sierras and Washington.
• Rain pants: Jenny is carrying them throughout, while I'm only carrying them in the Sierras and Washington. Otherwise I have lightweight EMS hiking pants that I love. Particularly useful in town when you're washing your shorts :)
• Warm jacket: Patagonia Down-Sweater. Amazing layer: they pack into a tiny-ball, weigh very little and are our warmest layer.
• Mid-weight hiking jacket: Marmot Ether DryClime Hoody. This came highly recommended by Yogi, a hiking guru who writes the annual "guide" to the PCT – primarily useful for information about potential resupply spots (where to get off trail to get more food) and trail angels (good Samaritans who help hikers by leaving water caches, providing rides from the trail to town, hosting hikers, and more!). It was one of our favorite pieces of clothing two years ago: you can hike in it when it's windy, getting cold, or just use it as an extra layer.  
• Long-underwear: we both carry lightweight Capilene top and bottom layers.
• Beanie: critical for keeping our heads warm, we sleep with these on most nights. It gets cold.
• Gloves: did I mention it gets cold!
• Luxury clothing items: warm sleep socks

Total weight = ~3lbs

Communal gear.

As a couple we are lucky that we can split some gear across the two of us. Some hikers choose not to carry a stove, using the sun and water to "cook" dehydrated food. Call us quaint, but when it is freezing we enjoy a hot meal and even some hot chocolate. This is one of the bright "happy" lines: we could go without hot food or drink, but we are much happier with a piping hot bowl of mac and cheese in our bellies. To that end, we carry:

• Stove: JetBoil. As its name suggests, the JetBoil is a hyper-efficient water boiling machine. Given that our cooking really only involves boiling water, a JetBoil is perfect for us. We have the same version from our prior hike (the Flash system), which is a little heavier than the latest version and really can't simmer anything – but hey, we can't upgrade everything! It comes with a 1 liter boiling cup with an insulated sleeve for the most efficient boiling (typically >1 minute).
• Compressed gas for stove
• Pot: Titanium TOAKS 1.3 liter pot with lid. Strictly speaking unnecessary, we could get by with just the JetBoil cup, as many hikers do. We like the pot because for two hikers we eat a lot and it typically doesn't fit nicely into the JetBoil cup. Also, it makes it possible for us to eat dinner and drink some hot chocolate at the same time. The pot requires us to also carry a small metal adapter for the JetBoil.
• Water purification: Sawyer Squeeze. Weighing in at 2.2 OUNCES, the Sawyer Squeeze is a super-lightweight way to keep our stomachs safe. 
•         SPOT device. We use this incredible little device to transmit our GPS coordinates to our family nightly to say that we are okay. In the event of a disaster, the SPOT device can transmit our GPS location to first responders for a rescue. This didn't exist a decade or two ago, and while Sharon may still have heart palpitations about our hike, our nightly SPOT messages go a long way to keeping them to a manageable level. The only issue: we don't know it the SPOT went through if we don't have cell coverage, and sometimes it doesn't. That's never good. 

 

Total weight (per person): ~3lbs

Other critical gear.

For organization:

• Ziplocs
• Stuff sacks
• LokSak. Waterproof plastic bag for electronics and valuables.

For eating and drinking:

• Spoons: lexan spoons.
• Knives
• Three empty Gatorade or Smartwater bottles each
• 4 liter dromedary each (for the desert only)

For health and gear maintenance:

• First aid kit: band-aids, burn cream packets, two bandages, poison ivy cream, iodine (for drying out oozy blisters)
• Leukotape: super sticky tape great for helping ward off or treating blisters, can also be used as athletic tape and to patch up the tent. We wrap it around our trekking poles.
• Needle and thread: used for popping and treating blisters and patching up gear
• Sunscreen
• Hand sanitizer
• Toilet paper
• Baby wipes for desert "showers"
• Safety pins. Mostly used to pin wet clothing to the outside of our packs to dry in the sun
• Advil

For hiking:

• Headlamp
• Compass
• Paper maps (we send each section with the appropriate resupplies)
• iPhones. There are two incredible apps – yes, apps! – that we use on the trail: Halfmile (named for the hiker who maintains the maps) and Guthooks. Halfmile uses GPS to find our location vis-à-vis the coordinates for the trail. When you're on the trail it highlights distance from way-points such as noted campsites, water sources and road crossings into resupply points. Guthooks is a great visual app that includes photos of waypoints, hiker intel, and an at-times demoralizing view of the trail in vertical form (you mean we still have to go up that?)

For town:

• ATM/Credit card
• Cash
• ID

For sleeping:

• Sleeping pad. Foam RidgeRest sleeping pad to provide some insulation and cushioning from the ground

Total weight (per person): ~3-5 lbs

Little luxuries

• Camp shoes: we both love our lightweight crocs for airing out our feet at camp
• Jackery. External batteries that extend the lives of our iPhones
• Charging cords: iPhone & micro-USB for Jackery
• Headphones
• Kindle

Total weight: ~2lbs

Putting it together

Our total base pack weight (i.e., the weight of our packs without food or water) comes in at ~20 lbs for me, and ~15 lbs for Jenny.

In the peak of the desert we can carry as much as 14 lbs of water each (7 liters) during a 30 mile dry stretch of trail. Our longest resupplies are 150-160 miles, or ~8 days. At ~2lbs food each per day that's another 16 lbs of food. Theoretically, that means most food and water we'd ever carry would be 30 lbs, though the likely max is more likely around 20 lbs.

Therefore, at the beginning of a long resupply we could be carrying as much as ~40 lbs total.

As you can tell, we aren't the most ultralight thru-hikers out there. This list will almost certainly change over the next several months as we learn more about the right balance for us this time around.

It's an El Nino year, which has brought the snow levels in the Sierras closer to their historical average – good news for the drought in California, more mixed for our ability to hike through them in early June. What does this mean for our gear? We already bought microspikes (lightweight metal spikes that go on the bottom of our shoes) to help us in the snow and ice, but may need ice axes or more serious gear depending on the weather and the speed of the melt.  We'll just have to wait and see what we're hearing from hikers ahead of us and then nicely ask Matthew to put the right things in our Kennedy Meadows resupply box.