Your backpack is your house when you do a long-distance hike. So what kind of household items do you take with you? Are they functional, heirlooms, or luxury items? What is luxury in the wilderness? Just about everything.
The first 1000-mile hike I did with my brother Andrew (JJ) in 1996 left a lot to be desired in selecting gear. I have only myself to blame since I did most of the research for what we eventually took. It didn’t take long to figure out that we had taken many stupid things. Forty miles into the hike, at Mt. Laguna, we mailed home 37 items!
Here are some of the colossal mistakes I made:
Dana Designs Backpacks- 8 pounds empty weight (but like Cadillacs on the back)
Merril boots- leather, 3 pounds for each boot
Cookpot- stainless steel and heavy
Ice axes- packed for 1 1/2 months of desert travel in temps over 100F
The list goes on. Here are some of the items I am taking this year. If you click on the link it will take you to the product’s site:
GoLite Shangri-La 1. No floor (unlike pic), sets up with poles
GoLite Adrenaline, 20F, 800 fill goose down
Stuff sacks, lots of them
Vargo Decagon Titanium Alcohol Stove, weight 1.3 oz
Montrail Sabino- my walking shoes
The North Face Diad, lightweight rain jacket
Petzl Tikka XP headlamp
MSR Titan Titanium Tea Kettle, which I will try as a cookpot
iPhone 3G: a revolutionary phone device
Unlimited extra juice for the iPhone
1,365 of these
My chemical water treatment
Lightweight wind jacket
North Face Convertible Pants=shorts and long pants
Hiking Poles double your stability in snow, rivers, and on trail
That is a serious sleeping bag. Hope the first night is treating you right.
Bro! Serious condensation on the outside. Not good. Hope to stay warm the night.
By now you’ve read that it didn’t. It’s a good bag though.