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Helmuth, where on the JMT were those pictures taken? They don't look particularly familiar to me. But that's not surprising since I hiked it this September, walked over no snow (did see a few...

Maybe I'm just strange or lucky (okay, I'm strange, but that's beside the point), but I didn't have a gigantic appetite after my A.T. thru-hike finished. I ate well when I could while hiking -- half...

Quite agree, did all that except nero (depending what distance you want to stretch the term) and the pizza. It's also kind of fun in its own right to get a personal water taxi ride to/from WHL. :-D...

Agreed about don't sweat the small stuff. Get the reservation, have a few twenties or so and enough food to get you to Monson (worst case buy a thing or two at White House Landing), hike there,...

June 7 or 8.

General reasons: more daylight, fewer people in the long run (or the ability to choose to see more by temporarily slowing down, if you change your mind), less winter at the end, more...

My understanding, from other people who stayed there summer 2008, was that it was $50 a person (even for a couple in a single bed, in one case, no discounts). I don't remember ever hearing that that...

I'd say ten days' food to hike Katahdin and get south to Monson. If by WHL you realize you might not have enough supplies, get one or two things to tide you over for slightly longer. I would not...

This surprises me greatly. If there were two items I wish I'd had in Maine, they'd have been a head net and hiking poles. I don't think the head net would have been useful after Maine, but during? ...

What pace are you aiming to hit? I walked onto the trail at 21 from college, where the only exercise I did was frisbee for an hour or two once a week plus daily walking around a small urban campus...

I carried a 30deg the entire way. It was vastly too much most places except sometimes in the White Mountains and a few places in Maine, June and July. Late August, around August 20, I got a bivy...

Awesome. And yeah, the pockets aren't particularly intended to be "load-bearing"; I—personally—couldn't imagine backpacking with something in a pocket in the clothes I was wearing, outside maybe a...

Get a headnet, like everyone else is saying. Once you get south a bit, say MA or so, you can probably ditch it (same for bug dope as well, pretty sure I carried mine several hundred miles past its...

Oh, I see; I can believe that. Notwithstanding the terrain, I did start out aiming for 15/day (almost invariably stopping after 10ish to acknowledge reality), so you're probably right to assume I'd...

"12 days or even longer", that is.

I did this at Katahdin (although saying I wasn't in shape is only kind of accurate; I was healthy and not out of shape, but I hadn't put on a backpack in several months [and before that trip, several...

If you sleep warm, I expect 20deg would be stiflingly hot at night early on, given that I was very close to uncomfortably hot in my 30deg during the same period of my hike (starting June 2008). (I...

Not much to say -- Stratton's 180 miles from the northern end, Gorham's 300ish miles from the north end. I was in nowhere near good enough shape to be carrying 120 miles (10-12 days) of food through...

Get out and do several weekend trips, and ideally at least one or two week-long trips, before you start so you know it's something you're capable of doing and can enjoy doing for longer periods of...

You seem to be leaning strongly now -- but in case you vacillate, if you want solitude on the A.T. hike southbound and start at the beginning of June. Assuming a decent pace you won't be near too...

I think I remember slight open grassy bits in the forested area at the north end before the Notch starts, but memory is a bit hazy. I'm sure you could make something there work in a pinch.
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I came in around $2500 on mine, give or take, not including gear I had when I started (but including bits I bought along the way). It's not supremely difficult, just requires hostel-level spending...

Do you have a pack cover? It was essential during a number of rainy stretches for me. I can't speak to how well a jury-rigged garbage bag system would work; the long-term investment in a silnylon...

If you end up getting drawn into staying in shelters, a full tent may be superfluous. I did very well with a bivy sack from Palmerton south, and if I'd known beforehand I'd have skipped carrying a...

30deg will get you quite a ways; excepting early on, I didn't even use my 30deg most nights (bivy sack plus hiking clothes was it) until around September 20, a day north of Pearisburg. After that it...

Caveat: I speak from one season (2008) of experience, and I left Harpers Ferry at the beginning of September, not October. Anyway...

If I did fine with Polar-PUR, you should be fine with drops.
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