Date: 2011-06-08
To: Choices, choices. Notes on Equipment.
Miles today: 0.0

To get below Winton Porter¢s of Mountain Crossings recommended sub-15 pounds base weight (pack and contents without consumables - food, water, fuel), each equipment item has to be tested along several continua: importance, weight, contribution to safety, comfort, convenience, and finally durability. There are many options in each of the six systems, due to a growing cottage industry of manufacturing ultralight backpacking equipment. Nearly endless debates on even the smallest issue concerning light equipment for long-distance backpacking can be found on the forums of Whiteblaze.net -- the A.T. (and other long trails) hikers discussion site.Here are summaries of my considerations in each system area.Pack -- The days of the external frame, heavy weight backpack are gone. Most packs have internal frames or have no frames at all. The purpose of the frame -- to transfer much of the pack weight to the hips -- is now served either by light aluminum or carbon fiber stays, or by using a rigid item in the pack, such as a foam pad, to effect the load transfer. Pack fabrics are thin coated nylon or even the newish Cuben fiber (from the sailing industry). I looked at packs weighing well under two pounds that would allow me to carry around 30 pounds total and have a capacity of about 3,000 cu./in. I choose the ULA Ohm, on Winton¢s advice, even though he generally recommends the larger and slightly heavier ULA Circuit as the ideal long-distance pack. Most of his customers are hiking north on the A.T., beginning in March. They need a pack that will hold some bulky winter gear. My hike, for the most part will be summer and fall, so a smaller pack should work. I added a 17 x 35 Mt. Laurel Design Cuben dry bag as a pack liner - 2 oz. Pack weight - 24 oz.Shelter -- Here the options are hammock or tent, or nothing. I quickly decided that relying on the A.T. shelters exclusively was a bad idea. They are often full, they are sometimes not where one wants to stop. The hammock option also held little interest--my acrophobia would be hard to overcome. Hammocks are light and have many adherents; something to reconsider in the future. So, on to tents. Many categories here -- free standing or not; single wall -- so-called tarp tents -- or double wall, tarp and ground sheet or sewn in floor.   Free standing tents have some sort of arched poles that can support the tent even if the corners are not staked down. Free standing tents are heavier and because of the poles, bulkier. My last solo tent was not free standing, but in the U.K. almost all of the tent sites are fields, where pushing in stakes is fairly easy. Rocky or sandy areas make it more difficult to totally rely on a solid purchase for the major stakes holding up the tent (or its corners). Many light tents use hiking poles as a principal support and that cuts down both bulk and weight. Single wall tents harken back to the early days of pup tents. Condensation tends to form in any tent, in single wall tents it runs onto the floor of the tent. In double walled tents, the condensate runs onto the ground as is the case in the tarp/ground sheet combination. Tarp ground sheet combinations can be as light as 10 oz. Single wall tents can be in the range 15 - 20 oz. I choose the lightest double wall, free standing tent I could find. But it is not quite free standing, the inner tent needs two stakes to get the full length of the floor and the fly needs four stakes to pull it away from the inner tent. But since none of this is structural, rocks would work as well as stakes. Big Agnes Flycreek UL, 32 oz.Sleep -- Sleeping bag and pad are the principal components here, although I added a silk sleeping bag liner. The liner can function on its own as a light sheet on a hot night and will keep the bag clean (so that I don¢t have to wash it, only the liner). I went with a 30 degree down bag and an inflatable pad. There are also foam pads of various kinds from thin to 1 1/2 inches thick. But as a side sleeper I wanted more thickness. I am also carrying a repair kit. My 20 X 60 in. Exped pad weighs 14 oz, plus 1 1/2 oz. for the mini pump that keeps moisture out of the pad, which one ends up carrying as water weight after several weeks of use. My bag is Western Mountaineering, is down filled, and weighs 20 oz. The liner is 3 oz. Sleep system weight - 28 1/2 oz.Hydration -- 25 years ago I hiked in Baxter State Park with a aluminum Sierra Club cup on my belt. Come to a stream, fill and the cup and drink. These days there are a variety of pathogens in back country water that can have serious consequences. So one needs sanitation mechanisms. AquaMira drops generate chlorine, some people use iodine. The wait time for such treatment is 30 minutes. For faster fill ups a filter will eliminate most or all of the scary stuff. I will carry both the drops and a MSR filter. I have two, 2 liter plastic Platypus collapsible containers, for in camp use, and two liter Gatorade bottles that I will fill and carry in the side pockets of the pack. Hydration system weight - 20 oz.Cooking -- Some A.T. hikers don¢t carry stoves or cook pots. They live while on the trail on peanut butter, bagels, gorp, energy bars, jerky, nuts, dried fruit, granola, pop tarts, and chocolate. Since they will find a town every 4 - 5 days or so, they eat cooked meals while resupplying. I have opted for a stove, and choose between gas canister-type and alcohol. Alcohol is probably lighter, but it easily spills as I learned from trying one of these stoves at home. The canisters are 4 ozs. and should each last 4 days; I¢ll carry 2 at the start. The screw-on stove (MSR Pocket Rocket) is 3 oz. The cook pot is 3 oz. I am also carrying a titanium mug (3 oz.) just so I can have my rice and tuna along with some tea . The Cuben food dry bag/bear bag with 50 feet of cord, 3 oz. A stand for the stove, lexan spork, small Swiss army knife, add 4 oz. Cook system weight (without fuel) - 16 oz.Clothing -- Winton¢s basic recommendations -- go light, synthetic, minimal. For my summer start, shorts for daytime, long pants for camp use or on a windy day, no more than three pairs of socks, synthetic short sleeve shirt with one long sleeve top for layering, a down sweater (Outdoor Research) for when it is cool, and two pairs of synthetic underwear (Ex Officio). The down sweater is, of course, partly natural and is fragile and susceptible to failure if it gets wet. A risk in order to save weight over wool or polartec fleece. Tee-shirt, briefs and socks are CoolMax, which has worked well for me. The shorts are a NorthFace product that combine compression sorts with nylon outers, designed for long distance running to prevent chafe. The long pants are also runners¢ gear from NorthFace and weight 3 oz. I¢ll need a warm hat and gloves when I hit the White Mountains, but I will put them into a resupply box to be sent to Gorham. For the Maine section I¢ll carry e-Vent shell mittens (1 oz.) just in case of a cold rain. I¢ll also send Goretex rain pants and running tights (in place of the usual longjohn bottoms) for the Whites. For Maine, I decided to try out a Zpack rain kilt of Cuben (2 oz.) that doubles as a small ground cloth. Comes to my knees, will keep shorts dry easy to walk in. I also bought low e-Vent gaiters from MLD. The final item is the rain coat. Here there are several options -- I have hiked in a poncho as well as Goretex parka. The poncho kept the pack dry but wind blows rain in from the sides and it is not warm in windy conditions. The parka is clammy, since it is compressed between the pack straps in front and the pack behind. A new product by Eddie Cedar Tree Hinnant is called The Packa. It is a rain parka and pack cover that goes over the pack (and hence over the pack straps) with large pit-zips for ventilation. Made from e-Vent it weighs 15 oz., not bad for parka and pack cover (www.thepacka.com). All but The Packa fits in a Cuben dry bag, another 2 oz. Total clothes weight - 4 lb.7 oz.Add to all this some basic supplies like soap, minimal first aid, the first half of Awol¢s AT Guide, Southbound (second half to be sent later), my iPhone and back-up AA charger, headlamp, and 2 small bottles of 100% Deet, and the base weight comes in at approximately 14 lbs.Since my visit with Winton and subsequent web-based research, I have come to see that I could almost cut my base weight in half again by going entirely fabrics like Cuben and a tarp instead of a tent, and by scrimping on the sleeping pad and water filter. This would be a great gift to my knees, but as I looked over the options it looked like further significant weight gains would come at the expense of flexibility, comfort, and, perhaps, even safety. So I drew the line at staying just under my 15 pound goal. With food, etc. for 5 or 6 days, I will carry under 30 pounds and probably closer to 25, which to me is truly remarkable.General note: a good list of the many companies that make ultralight gear can be found on the ULA website.