I recently completed a roughly 140 section hike of the Appalachian Trail beginning at Springer Mountain and completing at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. This hike was a "shakedown cruise" for my planned thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail next spring with my wife. All in all, the hike was a huge success in both testing/validating gear as well as testing myself on a multiple day hike.
For this hike I wore the following:
OR Hat
Sunglasses
Columbia Sunshirt/Kuhl Airspeed LS Sunshirt
Neck Knife
Nike running shorts
Darn Tough socks
Dirty Girl Gaiters
Altra Lone Peak 3.5 trail shoes
Garmin 220 watch
All in all my clothing choices performed well with no major complaints. I wanted to compare the Columbia vs. Kuhl shirt for next year's hike. I decided that the Columbia will be the one I go with--it felt better, dried faster and is a lighter color. The Kuhl shirt is a good shirt, just not what I wanted for the hike.
I did suffer through some decent blisters on my toes (inside of the big toes--rubbing against the smaller toe). I am trying to determine what caused it--the shoes are a complete size bigger; the socks were new and clean. I did use elastic laces on the shoes instead of regular laces. Combined with the weight of the pack and tough terrain, there are many reasons why this may have occurred. I am a decent runner, so I do have tough feet; just not there. I am going to spend some time this winter messing around with options and eliminating causes. It might be that I just need to build new calluses where there are not any now.
Backpack and associated carry items:
I carried my gear in a Osprey Atmos 65l pack. I chose this pack and size due to the reputation of the pack and the anticipated load requirement for two hikers. I do plan to carry more than my fair share of the load to help my wife's load--I want to keep her carry weight as consistent as possible. We are going through options right now, but an entry argument for the hike is looking like she will carry the tent, cookset, etc and I will carry the bulk of the food--as that weight will fluctuate far more than the common gear. More to follow.
Attached to pack were the following items:
Compass/whistle/thermometer
USGI Cravat
Hand sanitizer
ZPacks pouch that held the phone, headphones, guidebook and snacks
Right side hip pouch: headlamp, buff, multitool
Left side hip pocket: meds, marker, retainer and case, wallet
The pack carried everything well. No hot spots or anything. Some of the common "squeaking" associated with Osprey packs, but nothing major. I am pleased with its performance, and plan to use it on the PCT hike.
Carried in the pack's zipper pockets on the back:
Right side: Poop kit, first aid/repair kit
Left side: Personal hygiene kit, Outdoor Research over mittens, massage ball, rain pants
Elastic pocket: garbage bag, tyvek sheet, tent poles/stakes, sawyer squeeze, rain jacket
Inside the pack (bottom to top)
Clothes in a dry bag (silkies base layer, extra hiking socks, sleep shirt, shorts, gloves, down beanie, sleeping socks)
Enlightened Equipment 20* Revelation Quilt
Sea to Summit lightweight air mattress and pillow
Cookset
Electronics bag
Tent
Bearbag with food inside
Homemade coozie for ziploc bag cooking
Extra ziploc bags
Base weight was about 21 pounds, carried weight with 5.5 days of food was just under 30 with 2.75 liters of water. I know I was heavy, but we planned a resupply at the Top of Georgia (69 miles) and we were not sure how long it would take us to get there. I could have resupplied on day 2.5 at Neel Gap, but since my expected heaviest food carry on the PCT will be about 6 days, I wanted to see how much I used of that food.
Speaking of food, my daily menu was:
Breakfast (granola bars or oatmeal or poptarts)
Mid morning snack (some sort of packaged fruit)
Lunch (granola or beef sticks/jerky)
Afternoon snack (candy bar)
Dinner (rice w/ meat, ramen w/meat, mountain house meals)
Dessert (gummy bears, etc)
Daily weight of the food ended up about 2 pounds per day, which is common for what most people carry on the PCT.
I hiked with a buddy of mine from Louisiana. We agreed on this part of the AT as it was common ground between us. We ended up arriving within 2 minutes of each other. Pretty good.
Post-Hurricane Michael weather and temperatures were expected to range between high 30s and low 70s. Some chances of rain on some days. All in all, good hiking weather. More on the temps in a bit.
We started Friday afternoon and I ended up at the NOC on the follow Saturday. My buddy wanted one more night in the woods and came out Sunday afternoon.
Lowest day was 8 miles (first day, planned distance). Longest was an 18+ mile day.
Unless noted, all equipment performed at the level expected. I want to highlight some of the gear that either exceeded expectations, or did not. I will also add a little bit about gear that the jury is still out on.
Above expectations gear:
Outdoor Research Shuck Mitts. Awesome. Hiked one day in the rain, temps were probably in the mid 50s. These kept my hands dry without overheating. I wish I had these when I was in the Army.
Anker 22000 mah battery. Charged everything and anything. Heavy, but worth it. I will probably go with a smaller back, not because of this pack's performance, but just to save weight. The pack is overkill for my power needs.
AWOL's Northbound Guide. With a GPS watch, this was a very reliable source of information for everything. Directions, distances, sources. I cut the pages out that I needed for the trip.
Massage ball. Rolled on it every night and morning. Helped the feet significantly.
Camp shoes. So nice to air the feet out at the end of the day. Extra weight, yes, but so worth it.
Mediocre gear:
Sawyer Squeeze. It leaked from the get go. I probably overtightened it. But it was frustrating to have it leak. Supposedly sawyer is sending replacements, but they haven't shown yet. I will take care of it better next time, but it shouldn't be that sensitive.
Sea to Summit air mattress. Lightweight, but noisy. It got better over time--I am not sure if that was me getting used to it, or it softening up.
Stuff I am upgrading or changing, and why:
Anker 22000 mah battery. Charged everything and anything. Heavy, but worth it. I will probably go with a smaller back, not because of this pack's performance, but just to save weight. The pack is overkill for my power needs.
Puffy jacket. I made a tactical error with leaving my puffy jacket (Eddie Bauer) behind due to the forecasted temperatures. Mistake--I violated my own rules for bringing the puffy and my midlayer top. I bought a down jacket on the trail for cheap, but will upgrade with a Enlightened Equipment jacket to save weight and add variety to my cold weather materials.
USGI Silkies. I wore these at night and they did just ok--some nights I was pretty cold. Granted I was solo and my wife is a BTU machine, but I am going to try dropping them for my midlayer top and heavier running-tights style bottoms. Jury is still out, but I expect to replace them.
Neck knife. Too heavy and big for my needs. Going to replace it with a small swiss army knife.
Big sharpie marker. Replacing with a mini sharpie.
Elastic shoe laces. Going back to the ones that came with the shoes. More support and stability that way.
Headlamp. It worked well but did not agree with my battery pack. Going to go with a smaller, lighter light from NiteLite.
Sleeping socks. Going with some purpose built down booties from Enlightened Equipment.
Food. I am not food driven, but my wife is. We are looking at dehydrating options as well as better trail resupply options too. This will be an ongoing experiment.
Stuff I am dropping:
Sleep shorts. Slept in them once and just carried them the rest of the way. I will either sleep in my hiking shorts or baselayer bottoms.
Whistle/compass/thermometer thingy. Got a whistle on the sternum strap. Don't need the compass or thermometer. Gone.
Multitool. Even though it is small and lightweight, I never used it. History.
Emery board from the hygiene kit. For filing nails and calluses down. File on swiss army knife and nail clippers can do that.
Stuff I am adding and why:
Extra washers for the sawyer filter. See above.
Extra slide locks for various things. Broke the one on my bear line bag when it hit a rock.
Some sticky hooks for the pack to help me organize some things easier. To hang mittens in pockets, etc. Zpacks makes a neat little setup.
Cuben Fiber wallet. A ziploc bag was nice, but I need a real wallet. Much safer and easier that way.
Small pouch that attaches to the inside of the pack for personal stuff like meds and wallet. Keeps the hip belt pocket free. Zpacks has one I like.
Extra stakes. Will get lost, and I need another for the PCT Bear Hang method anyways.
Body powder. To help reduce itching, irritation, etc. Picked some up at Neel Gap and I would add a little every day to the liner in my shorts.
I am thinking hard about starting a PCT thread once we start our final planning and prep. Not interested in a YouTube Vlog or anything. But just something to help others as they prepare for similar trips and to update everyone on ours.
Holler if you have any questions.