Can I get a shake-down?

[iliketacos]

Hey all, looking to do a NOBO thru in March. Here's my stuff so far-the weight is around 30 lbs. w/food and water:

MAIN:

Osprey 70 pack Aether: 4.9 lbs,73. oz (may be retired for a lighter pack at some point)*

Osprey pack cover

Pack liner: 3mil 40-gal contractor refuse bag

Contrail Tarp tent: 1.53 lbs, 24.5 oz..

Marmot Pounder Plus +25 Sleeping Bag - Regular: 2 lbs. 2 oz.,34 oz.

Cocoon Silk Mummy Liner: 4.7 ounce

Therm-a-Rest ProLite3 Sleeping Pad - Regular: 13 ounces (may be retired for different set-up)*

Sleeping Pad stuff sack: 0.7 ounces

Leki trecking poles

Nalgene CXC Big Bore Reservoir-2L, w/water: 5 lbs.,80oz

Katadyn Pro Filter: 14 ounces (I need to figure out what system I feel comfortable working with before I go)*

Aqua-Mira: 3 ounces*

REI MultiTowel Lite - Medium: 2 ounces

Nalgene Lexan Wide-Mouth Loop-Top Bottle - 16 oz: 3 ounces

Petzl Tikka Plus LED Headlamp (w/ batteries): 2.7 ounces

Minimag flashlight-1 AAA battery

A small walkman like radio-about 2 oz.

P-38 can opener

1 pair of shoe laces

Small SwissArmy knife/scissors etc.

Paracord: 1 each of 30',20' and 10' piece

Extra Batteries 3 AAA

Food Bag: Sil bag

Toilet paper: 1 small roll/I counted out about 2 dumps a day at 5-days

Tooth brush

Floss

1 Listerine bottle-small

Tooth Paste: small tube

Camp Suds: Campsuds small bottle

Sunscreen, small tube

Baby Wipes

Bandana

LDHA Thru-Hikers Companion-first 1,000 miles only

2 books w/out covers-small

Freezer bags 1quart 40 count

Prescription eyeglasses: 2 pair

Eyeglass mini repair kit

Medical Kit: Ultralight 3 oz.

duct tape 2 rolls @ 2' x 100'

Sewing/Repair Kit for tent and pack

Alcohol wipes

Safety Whistle

Lighter/matches: xxxxxxxx (haven't purchased yet)

camera:xxx

journal:xxxx

Pencil:xxxxx

Spoon:xxxxxxxx

COOKING FBC:

Jetboil Group Cooking System: 19 ounces (may be retired for different set-up at some point)*

Jetboil Jet Power Fuel - 100 grams x 2: 7 ounces

jet boil repair kit=1 gram

CLOTHING:

Boots: Vasque Wasatch GTX (I'm thinking of switching to trail runners when these bust out)*

1 Pair Short Gators

Coat: Patigonia Down Sweater 9.5 oz

Rain Top: Marmot Procip

Rain Bottom: REI Lightweight Rain pant

Long Sleeve Shirt: Patigonia Capilene 2

Long Sleeve Shirt: Patigonia Capilene 4

Short Sleeve: Patigonia Capilene 1

Underwear: 1 pair

Long Underwear: Patigonia Capilene 3 Bottoms

Socks: Ultramax Hiker 3 pair

2 Wool Hats, 1 for head, other for FBC

Floppy Hat

1 emergency back-up: Patigonia Capilene1: long sleeve 1 top/1 bottom

Camp Shoe: Crocs

Shorts: xxxxxxxxxx

FOOD:

8 lbs. Will be doing town resupply, no food drops, will try and figure it out on the trail-lots of FBC.

________________________

Much thanks in advance for your comments.

[mountain squid]

Looks pretty good. Some thoughts:

don't need mini mag and head lamp
if you take Aqua Mira (which I would suggest), something to dip water with
toilet paper in ziplock
hand sanitizer
maps
needle for draining blisters - maybe part of repair kit?
ear plugs
probably don't need emergency backup top/bottom
and I might trade 1 long sleeve for another short sleeve shirt

don't forget ID, credit/atm/phone cards and important phone #'s

Good luck and see you on the trail,
mt squid

[mountain squid]

Also, that is alot of hats.

What about gloves?

See you on the trail,
mt squid

[mweinstone]

i like your style. you dont have anything thats stupid. you are however carrying way too much weight. and its not the pack . its the junk. ditch all repair gear. you have 5 lbs of it. let stuff break and deal with it. at least build a kit as you go. dont carry tape and such. just cause it has so many uses dosent help you walk up mud.what helps is insuring your sanity. just the sheer number of items to be kept track of outweighs some of your reasonably carryed stuffs reasons for being carryied. in short. you lack faith. you have prepared for too much. if all your stuff was to be justified, crap would have to be breaking constantly. its a great kit for a soldier at valley forge. now work it and tweek it so its a fair kit for a couch potatoe. and as you learn and hike, turn it into a kit fit for hiker trash. that means doing without in order to feel light and free in your woods. the best of luck .

[1azarus]

i suggest you don't carry that much water...

[Jim Adams]

If you want to drop some weight, it wont be that hard.
Drop the mummy liner, pad stuff sack, mini mag, remove the core from your TP, underware, and 1 wool hat.

Replace the nalgene liter with a 32oz. pepsi, the rain pants with pair of zip off leg nylon pants and wrap about 20' (10 on each)of duct tape on the upper shafts of your leki's--eliminate the other 180'!

You already have paracord to use, you only need to carry 2-4 zip locks, and replace either the cap 2 or cap 4 with another short sleeve instead.

Put the batteries, more zip locks, and all of your repair and sewing kits into a bounce box. You wont need these things every day. If you only need your glasses to read an can hike without them, send the second pair in the bounce box also.
good luck and have fun!
geek

[paulbrown137]

you dont need the stuffsack for your thermarest, just stuff it in your pack

for carrying water - ask yourself do you need a hydration tube? if yes, consider the MSR dromlite, strong as hell, and light, even with the attached tube. I had a nalgene brand hydration kit and it leaked at the quick detach point. beware..... if you dont need a tube, try the nalgene wide mouth 1 L bladders. or one 1 L and 1 2L. They are light, and really durable. This is what I am using now. I've abandoned all attempts to find a hydration system that doesn't leak at some point.

for a filter, I've heard the katadyn hiker is just as capable as the hiker pro and it weighs less. if you are taking a filter, forget the aqua mira, or reverse that for an even lighter set up.

backup water purification - katadyn micropur tabs are individually sealed, simple, and light

drop the minimag. if you absolutely need a backup light. check out the photon lights.

radio??? learn to sign. yea it doesn't weigh much, but what about the batteries

a p-38 canopener means you are eating canned food - not the lightest approach. i might take one can of ravioli or something, but you can open that with a sharp rock or someone elses canopener :)

Shoelaces? dont you already have paracord?

paracord - just take a 50' length, make your cuts in the field

TP - at 2 dumps per day, make sure it is charmin ultra soft. i wouldn't worry about taking it off the roll. the roll is good firestarter, or last ditch TP :D

forget the listerine

are your eyes really terrible. i would say just take one pair of glasses, but thats up to you

eyeglass repair kit??? dont you already have duct tape?

duct tape. get the tiny roll from REI. it should be more than enough. you do not need 200' unless you are building a log raft at some point.

cut your repair kit down to a few oz. and the same for your first aid kit. I keep them together and have slowly cut it down from over a pound to about 8 oz. and I'm just as prepared.

i'll let everyone else tackle the clothes

but I will say a windshirt should be in there somewhere

[Appalachian Tater]

Great list and suggestions.

I carried a back-up pair of prescription glasses but wouldn't a second time. Only had one accident with my glasses actually falling off. And yes, I would have trouble getting off the trail alone without my glasses--it would be slow going. Get some tiny plastic hose from the hardware store and put over the earpieces--I think it is fuel line for lawn mowers. That's what the guy in an outfitter told me to do--the ones you buy have a string joining the two pieces of tubing which is better cut off, anyhow, or at least that's what he does and it worked great for me, too. And get some of that Cat Crap or similar anti-fog stuff for when it rains so you can still see. Make sure one of your hats or raincoat keeps the rain off your glasses, too. You will also need a cotton handkerchief used only to clean your glasses, and don't clean them when they have dried sweat--the salt crystals will scratch them. Keep the Cat Crap and handkerchief in a ziplock where you can get to it.

Start out with trail runners and switch to your broken-in boots for the rocks in Pennsylvania, then get trail runners back in Kent.

Print out Baltimore Jack's re-supply article to take with you.

You probably don't need a short-sleeve shirt at all in the beginning at all, maybe until Franklin or thereabouts.

You don't need more than two shirts total, one to wear and one dry one for camp and doing laundry, especially if you have other warm clothes like the down. Actually, you don't need more than one or two of anything. For example, if you have a precip, you don't need a wind shirt. You only need two underwear, one long, one short, if you need underwear at all. (Yes, you can wear the same underwear every day for a week even if you are usually a super-clean person.) Cheapy nylon shorts with built-in liner are great for doing laundry and can rinse out in a sink and dry fast.

Take something for chafing--baby ointment, body glide, olive oil, something.

Scrap the 3 oz Nalgene and use a 1 liter water bottle.

You don't need quite 40 ziplocks, but it is nice to have extras when you grocery shop. You can also use the plastic bags that come in a roll in the produce department if you need a couple to repackage food. A few gallon bags are nice, too, you can use them to group your smaller food bags into types of food or different meal groups, dirty socks, carrying water, keeping your food dry when you hang it and it rains, etc. The small ziplocks are great for keeping your daily guide pages dry in your pocket. Make sure your bags are freezer bags. Ziplocks are great. You can get them cheap in the Dollar General stores in the trail towns in the south.

You don't need extra batteries. You only need one light.

Believe people when they say you need to be ruthless in getting excess stuff out of your pack. You can do it now, or suffer until you eventually do it up the trail. Every pound counts and you can feel it every step of the way, especially heading up and out of town with a full food bag.

Crocs are heavy. Get some 99 cent flip flops or if you must have Crocs, get the much lighter knock-offs from Payless Shoes.

One fifty-foot piece of para cord would be better for bag hanging. A tiny carabiner or key ring is useful for the PCT method of bag hanging. (Mostly I slept with my bag in my tarptent because I got hungry in the middle of the night.)

Probably you don't need a can-opener. Cans are heavy. There are all sorts of protein foods in foil packs that you might not know exist--I didn't. You can get bacon, chicken, all kinds of fishy stuff, even oysters.

A lexan spoon works great and costs about 5-7% of a titanium one, weighs the same, and if you lose it, who cares?

The scissors on the knife are a great idea, you may also want some nail clippers. You may use the scissors more than the knife.

I used needle & thread, super glue, and duct tape, in order of frequency, for repairs. The little hiking rolls of duct tape are fine, if you need 200 feet, you should bail off the trail!

A small bottle of camp suds is too big, it will last the whole trail. Get a 1 ounce bottle for soap, a shampoo bottle from a hotel is fine, or a travel kit nalgene. You will have plenty of opportunities to fill it from hiker boxes. Similarly, a tiny bottle of hand sanitizer from the dollar store is fine, and can be refilled from hiker boxes.

Chapstick??

You need baby wipes, but not alcohol wipes, too. Keep the baby wipes in the original container inside a ziplock. You can pour a little alcohol into the baby wipes to keep your hiney shiney--"monkey butt" can be a problem if you have to walk all day.

Have fun!!!

[TinAbbey]

I would nix:
1 book
camp suds
listerine
eyeglass repair kit
maybe alcohol pads or baby wipes
shake down the contents of your med kit
2 hats
can opener
gators
1 roll of duct tape

but all that said, 30 pounds isn't bad (says I)

[saimyoji]

Don't forget at least 6 rolls of TP, 3lbs of liver and 6 gallons of canned water. :D

[murphyw]

<snip>
needle for draining blisters - maybe part of repair kit?
<snip>
mt squid


Always liked having a few safety pins with me. Amazing what you can "repair" with them. Can be used as zipper pulls. Can drain blisters. More than once I gave one or two away to someone else who needed them badly. 3 of them weigh just about nothing.

--Pi

[mountain squid]

will try and figure it out on the trail-lots of FBC.


For those of you who think 40 is too many:

I haven't seen anywhere you can just purchase 4-5 freezer bags, therefore if you plan to do FBC you have to carry alot of freezer bags. I usually purchase the smallest box, when I need them, and carry all of them. I suppose you could "clean" the ones you use, but that defeats the purpose. If you are going to clean something, you might as well dirty and then clean your pot. It would be easier. My dirty freezer bags become trash receptacles after using them.

See you on the trail,
mt squid

[Lyle]

Aqua Mira in stead of Filter

Leave Nalgene lexan home, use gatoraid or similar, or Platypus. If worried about needing a wide mouth for dipping, a ziplock works well.

Toothpaste and mouthwash seems like overkill to me.

Only one light source (LED preferred)

Too many spare batteries - one light source essential, radio isn't, so in a pinch you could trade out batteries.

Too many books, I would start with none, see if you really feel like reading at the end of the day, can always pick one up.

One piece of cord, unless you have specific use for all those.

2 foot wide duck tape...hmmmm :-) One roll should do you, or part of one. 200ft is a LOT of duct tape. Pull some off the roll and wrap it around your Leki's

Over doing the freezer bags a bit

Too many long underwear bottoms - one essential, two luxury

Emergency backup top unnecessary, already have three capilene tops

Just my opinions since you asked. Have a great hike!

[Zip]

I like all of the suggestions you were given. I just wanted to suggest 1 thing you might want to add. A collapseable one gallon water container is really good to have when you camp. You can get all the water you need with one trip to last you for dinner at night and breakfast the next morning. It only weighs a few ounces. Happy Hiking.

[hopefulhiker]

I used a Sgt rocks coffee cup with a lid over and over instead of a freezer bags for cooking. To wash you just put some hot soapy water in there replace the lid, shake and repeat with cold water to rinse..