Here is a breakdown of the gear I used on my Wonderland Trail hike:
My gear all packed the night before leaving
- Backpack: Gregory Z.65 – I easily packed all my other gear into this. During a shakedown trip, and day 1 of this hike, my shoulders hurt like hell after carrying this for just a few hours. During days 2 and 3 I found that for me what seems to work best is packing the heaviest gear on the bottom and working up to the lightest gear. One day I was on the move for 11 hours, with no significant back pain.
- Tent: REI Quarterdome T1 – Plenty of length for my 5′7″ish body. Plenty of width for me to switch from laying on my left side to my right during the night. Plenty of headroom for me to sit up when I wanted to. Vestibule was ample for stashing my backpack, trekking poles, and boots under during the night, leaving more than enough room for me to get in and out. Not a lot of space to lay gear out inside, but if that is a concern you shouldn’t buy this tent. A few more pockets would be nice. On my next trip I’m bring dental floss to tie to several points inside the tent to hang things on.
- Sleeping bag: REI Halo +25 – It was a little on the narrow side, but I guess that is a trade off for light weight. This bag kept me warm with no issues. The first night was probably close to if not below freezing. I could feel the cold air outside the bag through the small opening left after cinching the hood down, but I was completely toasty. No complaints about this bag.
- Sleeping pad: Old Thermarest – I have an old full length self-inflating Thermarest pad that still works great.
- Clothing that I wore every day:
- Shoes: Keen Voyageur – No complaints about these. They may have been a bit light at times for some of the trail, but overall were a great choice given the varying terrain and my relatively light pack.
- Socks: I used some REI wool socks. I took two pairs, alternately wearing one while the other hung outside my pack soaking in the sun.
- Pants/Shorts: REI Sahara Convertible – I like these pants – the first “real” hiking pants I’ve owned. They are easy to convert from pants to shorts, have plenty of pockets, fit well, and are light weight.
- Underwear: REI polyester – One pair for the whole trip, which seemed gross at first but turned out fine. I would carry a third pair of socks before adding a second pair of these.
- Shirt: I took two shirts: a short sleeve REI synthetic, and a long sleeve mid-weight synthetic, changing them as conditions demanded.
- Hat: Tilley Airflo – Apparently I joined some sort of exclusive club by buying a Tilley hat. These things are legendary, and with good reason. It is comfortable, can’t get blown off when worn right, keeps the sun off when needed, and keeps the rain off when needed, and keeps its shape well despite rough treatment.
- Clothing that I packed/wore occasionally:
- Outlast Beanie – I wear this running in the winter. During this trip I mostly used it in camp at night and in the morning, and some days early in the morning while hiking. It kept me warm when I needed it, and is light weight.
- mont-bell Extremely Light Down Jacket – I quickly fell in love with this jacket. It weighs under one-third of a pound, but with 900-fill down is very warm. I was always comfortable when wearing it around camp. In fact, I want to put it on right now!
- mont-bell Torrent Flier Pants – Light weight, packable rain pants. I wore them once, on day 5, to keep myself warm and dry during a rainy descent through meadows. They were easy to put on and take off with my hiking boot on, did their job well, and packed down small when they weren’t needed.
- Novara Rainy Pass Bike Gloves – These have worked great for cycling, and I figured they’d work well on the hike and at a pretty light weight. This is the only piece of clothing I brought that I never used. On the few nights that it started to feel cold enough to put them on, it was time to crawl into the sleeping bag anyway. That said, I don’t think this is something I’d leave behind.
- Other gear:
- REI Peak UL Shocklight Trekking Poles – I like that these are lightweight, and they did their job well. The shock is designed to lock out, but mine never stayed locked out. Definitely something I wouldn’t want to be without – they helped so much during all the steep up and down hills.
- Ursack – bear/critter proof bag for food storage. At Mt. Rainier you are required to hang your food, but any bag will do. I chose to use this, and it worked well. I don’t think it was completely necessary, and there is a definite weight penalty to this versus just using my sleeping bag’s stuff sack. On the bright side, I could be confident that if any critters did manage to get to the hanging food bags, they’d probably dig into other camper’s supplies before mine, since they would be easier to get to.
- 3 liter water bladder, in my backpack.
- 1 liter collapsible Platypus bottle – for gathering/treating water
- Platypus drinking tube adapter/Camelbak filter adapter – I used this combo to fill my water bladder with the collapsible Platypus bottle without having to remove the bladder from the backpack.
- Steripen – for treating water – This worked well for me. However, I’m not sure it is the right long-term solution for water treatment. If the batteries die you are hosed if you don’t have extras. Seems like Aquamira is probably lighter weight, and more reliable. Ultimately it would probably be best to carry both for redundancy. During the first portion of the trip I also used water that Daniel filtered.
- Headlamp – Used in camp, mainly for reading or journaling in the tent.
- Extra batteries for headlamp – I didn’t end up needing them, but not something I’d likely leave behind.
- Map – used multiple times each day to figure out what points of interest were, where water was, how much further to camp, and what the next day would be like.
- Compass/waterproof matches/mirror/whistle/knife/etc. – emergency gear. Never needed, but not something to be without.
- Pentax Optio WP Camera – Waterproof point and shoot. I didn’t have anything but the usual issues. My only gripe about this camera is it doesn’t do well in low light, even when it seems light enough.
- 1GB memory card – 1GB turned out not to be enough. I spent time during my last three nights erasing photos that were near duplicates or didn’t look good. Next time, I’ll take the biggest memory card the camera can handle.
- Three charged camera batteries – I used all three.
- Thermarest patch kit – not needed. Not sure whether I’d take this next time or not. Maybe just one patch.
- Antigravity Gear stove set – this was Daniel’s stove, which he let me use nightly to boil a cup of water for dinner.
- iPod Shuffle – Before this trip I had never listed to music while hiking, but ended up really enjoying this on long climbs and descents. Having it at camp at night was also really nice.
- Journal/pen – for writing about the day’s hike
- Book – Jack London’s Call of the Wild/White Fang – I had never read either book, and figured it was appropriate for a backpacking trip. I thought both were great!
- Personal/Hygiene:
- Roll of toilet paper – I took a whole (double!) roll, not knowing how much I need. Seems like this is too important to risk running out of!
- Baby wipes – for ‘bathing’ after reaching camp each night.
- Hand sanitizer
- Sunscreen – I chose one from Jason’s Cosmetics, and never got burned.
- Insect repellent – I brought a lemon-eucalyptus variety, but never used it. There was only one occasion where the insect were bad enough that I might have wanted to, and that lasted only an hour while in a camp eating lunch.
There are two things I wish I had brought: earplugs, and my trail running gaiters. Daniel hooked me up with earplugs after the first night, which I was greatful for. The gaiters would have helped my feet stay a bit drier during the rainy day hiking through the meadows.
I think that is all! Overall I think I did a pretty good job packing. When I left the house with three liters of water and three days worth of food my pack weighed 32 lbs. I could definitely get lighter with a few different gear choices, but that will come with more experience.
