et_afig
03-28-2012, 19:53
I've been dreaming of hiking the AT ever since a buddy of my father came back all rugged and scraggly one day while I was in high school. I decided to enlist instead of pursuing college due to a lack of finances and I'm expecting my contract to expire at the earliest in time for a '14 hike, however no later than a '15 hike. I've got a deployment coming up in June which'll drag me to December, despite how slow time feels to go by it actually goes by super quick. So instead of watching paint dry while we bob around in the water I decided to start planning a solid and 'plyable' schedule and gear list for when my contract does expire. That way I can just grab my rucksack and hit the Approach. I'm going to actually be hiking with a buddy of mine that works in my shop with me, we're both in awesome physical condition. I used to 'drag' him along with my while I went camping along the Florida Trail and Suwannee, but now he's pestering me as to when we're headed out again. He's all for it and we've already saved essentially what we're guestimating for our trip.
I'm trying to grab a list together now to settle on the pack, pad, and tent to buy and test while we have all this available time. I've already got a Eureka Apex 2 that I really enjoy however its apparently heavier than most people prefer. I have a Marmot Aspen pack thats frameless but I don't see myself comfortably taking that. We have a decent budget put together, but we're trying to spend no more than $1500 on gear. We're young and strong, we can handle a relatively heavy pack so we can give up a little bit of weight for a little bit of $$$. We've both stood armed watches at the southern most tip of Chile and the hottest and most humid day in Panama, so we can handle a little bit of cold and a little bit of heat. Hopefully that'll assist in suggestions.
I'm also trying to get my head around how the average thru-hiker on here did their mail drops. I'm much more attracted to the idea of picking up our mail drops at a respective city and then camping outside the city limits (I'm not a fan of paying $$$ for only spending several hours in a hotel), we're also planning on having our zero-days outside the city limits as well. Any suggestions on how you guys went through planning what you sent and when?
Every time we get stuck on this tin can out here all we can think about is getting that first mile. I just read 'Bisons' book and I've been grabbing up all the available literature that people have written about their experiences. We really both appreciate this!
I'm trying to grab a list together now to settle on the pack, pad, and tent to buy and test while we have all this available time. I've already got a Eureka Apex 2 that I really enjoy however its apparently heavier than most people prefer. I have a Marmot Aspen pack thats frameless but I don't see myself comfortably taking that. We have a decent budget put together, but we're trying to spend no more than $1500 on gear. We're young and strong, we can handle a relatively heavy pack so we can give up a little bit of weight for a little bit of $$$. We've both stood armed watches at the southern most tip of Chile and the hottest and most humid day in Panama, so we can handle a little bit of cold and a little bit of heat. Hopefully that'll assist in suggestions.
I'm also trying to get my head around how the average thru-hiker on here did their mail drops. I'm much more attracted to the idea of picking up our mail drops at a respective city and then camping outside the city limits (I'm not a fan of paying $$$ for only spending several hours in a hotel), we're also planning on having our zero-days outside the city limits as well. Any suggestions on how you guys went through planning what you sent and when?
Every time we get stuck on this tin can out here all we can think about is getting that first mile. I just read 'Bisons' book and I've been grabbing up all the available literature that people have written about their experiences. We really both appreciate this!