I spent a number of years as a costume maker and wardrobe mistress in the ballet world, where the dancers sometimes  refer to each other as “bunheads.”  When we were on the PCT both in 2005 and 2010, we noticed that most of us thruhikers at some point or other turn into GEAR heads.  I will never forget sitting on the big granite slab by Lake Edison, waiting for the VVR ferry to arrive, and it wasn’t long before the PCT and JMT hikers were taking gear out of their packs and comparing who had what and the merits of each.  When we meet nonhikers, they want to hear “trail tales” and could care less about our gear.

I am way too busy right now to make a spreadsheet of all our gear and how much it weighs down to the hundreths of an ounce.  But here are the basics:

BIG STUFF   Tent (duplex), Packs and Sleeping bags all from ZPacks.  Normally we use either a tarp or we cowboy camp.  But the CDT sounded like we should bring a tent, so we are.  We tried it on the Tahoe Rim Trail and it was fine (though I admit I prefer a tarp).  Packs–I love my old tried ‘n true, but ZPacks it will be, for saving weight.

WATER    Aqua Mira.  We tried the Sawyer Squeeze and it is tedious beyond belief.  We would rather hike than filter!  We tried it as an inline filter and about sucked our tongues out trying to get enough water flow. So where the water looks iffy, it will be Aqua Mira.  For carrying water, we each have a 3 liter Platypus, a 2 liter Platypus, and a 1 liter water bottle.

FOOD:  Pretty standard stuff.  Breakfast is granola, freezedried fruit, nuts, powdered milk, Belvita and Nutella.  We cook and eat dinner at noon, which gives us a midday rest and a chance to air our sleeping bags in the sun.  And, if any 4 legged critters smell our cooking, we are long gone by the time they arrive.  Dinner is freezedried stuff/Knorr with dried veges (from our garden!!!), added palm oil and finally cookies.  Supper is crackers and cheese or freezedried refried beans and dried fruit and more Nutella.  Snacks:  Snickers!

COOKING:  Esbit stove from ZPacks.  We used to use our tiny homemade liquid alcohol stove, which was great, but more and more wilderness areas now forbid liquid alcohol stoves.  We tried a propane canister and it’s too bulky and a hassle.

SHOES:  La Sportiva Ultra Raptor for both Fixit and I.   Great rock protection, excellent traction, very comfortable and tough.   THANK YOU to  Lady on a Rock (Rockin) for her blog on finishing the PCT last summer–La Sportiva shoes worked for her!  I used to always wear Vasque, but the Vasque shoes made now just do not work for me anymore.

CLOTHING:  I pretty much sew all our hike clothing and raingear using fabric I get from The Rain Shed in Albany, Oregon.  We wear long sleeved shirts and long pants (they are blue, by the way–if you see us on the trail, we are the couple with the blue pants) and I like the Sunday Afternoon hat.  We have down jackets from Mountain Hardware.  I made warm hoods and mittens, and we each have a longsleeved “polyphew”.

CAMERA:  I suppose we could use our phone, but we each carry a camera.  Fixit has a 2 AA battery camera (which is what we normally always use) but I am bringing a LI rechargeable battery camera as an experiment.  We will see how well it works out on a thru hike.  There are no places to recharge out in the middle of nowhere!

So that’s the basic stuff.  Of course there’s  little bitty things, too.  But right now I have to go work on putting supper stuff together.  Fixit is off where he always goes every Sunday afternoon–to Probation Camp, which is part of the juvenile justice system in our county.  The teen boys there are guys who ran with the gangs and got in trouble with the law.  At Probation Camp they have an awesome, outstanding program for helping those boys get their GED and learn a trade so that when they get out, they are ready for a job and hopefully will stay out of the gangs and out of trouble.  Every Sunday, Fixit and a friend of his go and sit on the porch to have a Bible discussion with any of the boys who are interested.  The basic format is “So, what do you think?  Got questions about God and stuff?” and it goes from there.  Fixit loves it!   Answering the boys’ questions is something he really enjoys.