Date: 2017-01-24
To: Gear info and advice for planning
Miles today: 0.0

Im currently driving across the country to a new life in California, missing the trail terribly. I got a lot of really nice comments from folks who'd been following our hike to help plan their own. I did the same thing when prepping for mine, and I realized in terms of listing gear and general advice I did an inferior job of it compared to my favoritw/most helpful journal I found. So if you haven't already, check out this guy Reese journal who hiked sobo in 2012 and left early August. He took like 4 total zeros and had higher average mileage so finished in around 4 months, compared to our 6. He also has detailed spreadsheets of gear and tech specs of everything. I never did that except maybe in passing, so for this last entry I'll try to list the major gear and advice. The big 3 are your pack, shelter, and sleeping bag/pad. My pack was a Deuter 65+10L. My shelter was a Hennessy ultralight hammock. And my sleeps was initially a Nemo 40 degree spoon shape bag, with a neoair xtherm airmattress, which later on I switched out for an enlightened equipment 20 degree over quilt and underquilt. I also hung on to my air mattress even though it was redundant with the quilts so I could sleep in shelters when I felt like it. I highly recommend all of that gear except the Deuter pack. It's around 4 lbs and if I had started fresh I would've got an ULA brand with around the same volume and weight max. That would've saved a pound or two. I never disliked my pack enough to just ditch it and buy an ULA though. The thing about packs is you should get one as light as possible, but only as much as your load allows. You can get an ultralight pack only if your base weight is ultralight. I was far from ultralight, especially with the 3 lb guitar. Speaking of which, I can't recommend the Cordoba mini nylon string guitar enough. It's still in great shape after the trail. Those Martin and other broomstick shaped travel guitars are twice as heavy and sound like crap. Those were my big items for base weight. Next most important gear item are hiking poles. Black diamond seemed to be the consensus best. They don't guarantee them, but often times they replaced for free if you tell them you're a thru hiker. For water, we had a sawyer squeeze with a 2.5L platypus bag. The sawyer squeeze filter is great, but their squeeze bags are terrible. Platypus seemed to be what everyone ended up with. Only issue with the water filter is it can't freeze or the filter won't work. We were able to forestall the freezing by keeping it in a breast pocket while hiking and sleeping with it at night, but eventually we screwed up and had to ditch them for aquamira drops. I really liked having a camelbak thing, the Deuter pack came with it, for drinking while hiking. Lot of hikers go with just water bottles, but with the amount I sweat being able to continuously drink was huge. Once it got really cold the hose froze, but I'd just fill my water bottle and keep that down the front of my shirt. Now for the odds and ends. I had 5 dry bags, a mix of sea to summit and outdoor research.  I had two food bags, one for clothes and one for my sleeping bag/ quilts. And one small one for electronics, paper, wallet etc.  In general, for all gear from expensive to cheap, get a name brand! Every time I got off brand anything I regretted it. From batteries to dry bags to plastic bags (btw nothing comes close to Hefty plastic bags, not zip lock, not glad etc). Anything that absolutely has to stay dry though, it's gotta be in a dry bag. The hefty or garbage bag liner are fine for short term, like TP or maps, but if it keeps raining, that'll get wet.  Now for food I started with a spork/knife thing, which was pretty useless and quickly broke. I highly recommend an extendable spoon, and that's it. Nothing we ended up eating needed a fork or knife. And a common thing to do was to buy a fancy freeze dried hiker meal, one that you add boiling water to and it cooks in the bag. Then use that to cook the ramen or knorrs side. That's where the extendable spoon came in handy. For cooking I had a Jet boil stove and canister fuel. In warm weather all fuel canisters were the same. In cold though, MSR brand was clearly the best. A water bottle that can withstand boiling water was also essential for coffee, tea etc, as well as gatorade mix, drinking civilized, and occasional scooping for poor water sources. I had a I had a Leatherman mult-tool with a knife, little scissors, pliers etc. An emergency blanket I never used. Other essentials I kept in my top lid were sunglasses, gorilla tape, bear bag rope, and in my dry bag: headlamp, gauze, auxiliary charger for cell phone, cushion tape, anti chafing cream, lighter. Lastly for clothing my bandana and paktowel were ways handy. Clothes I specifically recommend are Patagonia Capilene material, super quick drying, and darn tough socks which have a lifetime replacement guarantee which they'll do by mail or you can find a store that switches them directly. I had an extra pair of underwear and an extra pair of socks, but other than that I'd say don't bring extra anything. For footwear I had crocs for campshoes and fording and Vasque trail runners for hiking. Loved the Vasques. Seemed to last hundreds of miles longer than others. Remember to get at least a half size bigger than your normal size otherwise you'll get crazy blisters and your toenails will fall off. I got a full size bigger than normal and wore two pairs of socks and never got a single blister. Also remember don't bring anything cotton, only wool or synthetic. Cotton never dries and looses insulating properties when wet. Well, think that's it. Have fun! Oh yeah, and if it's feasible for you, switch to Verizon. It's universally better signal in all states.