Gearing up for tomorrow!

Holy moly. It’s here! In about eight hours, we are going to load up the car and Katherine’s parents are going to kindly drive us the 2.5 hours to the start of the trail. Pretty unreal! BUT, before we step foot on the historic trail, here’s a GEAR POST for all you gear nerds!

The photo up above is pretty much all of our starting gear, plus the food for one day. Our full packs will weigh around 35 lbs on day #1 and will only get lighter as we eat! Anyway, here’s the breakdown:

FOOD

This is the goods we’ll be eating on an average day. We’ve read that in the wintery/early spring days, you want to back about 2.5lbs of food per person, per day. We were also advised to take an extra days worth of food in the colder months in case we get stranded by snow or the like. So, that’s what we’re working with for now, though we’re sure it’ll change as we learn our own eating habits on the trail.

For breakfast (far left in the photo), we’ll have oatmeal with powdered milk and/or a childhood throwback — Pop Tarts! We may mix things up with a bagel and peanut butter as well. Lunch (center) will be crackers and/or bagels with cheese and tuna. We’ll probably put peanut butter on things too. Dinner (far right) this week is Annie’s mac & cheese with tuna or chicken — but we’ll probably add ramen and other instant pasta/rices when we resupply. And we’ll probably eat peanut butter. Throughout the day, we’ll be snackin’ on energy bars, dried fruit, nuts, and chocolate bits. And peanut butter… we like peanut butter.

CLOTHES (and water, and other misc gear in this pic…)

First of all — a big shout out to Georgeanna and Logan of Mountain Crossings at Neels Gap! These two are outfitters who hiked the AT a few years back, and they were instrumental in helping us get the right gear for this trip. Thank you, guys!

For hiking we’ll sport a light base layer, hiking pants, a layering shirt, a down jacket, a beanie, and fleece gloves with a waterproof shell. For the rainy days, we have rain jackets and rain pants. When we get to camp, we’ll change into a mid-weight wool base layer and a third pair of wool socks. This outfit will never be worn hiking to ensure we always have something warm and dry to sleep in (just say no to chills and hypothermia!). Some of these clothes will get ditched as the weather warms, meaning lighter weight as we hike. Woohoo!

For the feet: Katherine has waterproof trail running shoes, and Brandon has lightweight hiking boots. We will most likely go through multiple shoes as we go, so who knows what footwear we’ll have at the end. We both have Superfeet insoles, a must-have item according to long distance hikers. For our camp shoes, Bedrock Sandals generously gave us each a pair of their minimalist sandals!

Water and other misc gear in this pic: We each have a Platypus 3L water bladder with a Sawyer Squeeze inline water filter, and as of now we plan to bring an additional 1L bottle of water. When we bring an extra bottle or two will depend on water availability, which is generally pretty good for most of the Trail. In this photo, you can also see our basic first aid kit, toiletries bag, electronics bag, hiking poles, sunscreen and whistles.

CAMP GEAR

This photo has our essentials for setting up camp at the end of a long day. It’s all packed up in dry sacks, but here’s what we’ve got:

In the center is our AWESOME TENT — our home for the next few months! Gen from Yama Mountain Gear was so kind to let us to be ambassadors of his newly designed Swiftline tent. More pictures of our new home will follow, but it’s unlike any tent we’ve ever used and we love it!

On either side of the tent we have our Big Agnes Air Core insulated sleeping pads. Over three inches of air to sleep on. Yes. Please. Then, on the other side of our sleeping pads are our sleeping bags. Starting out in the early spring, we’ll be using super light, 15 degree down bags by Western Mountaineering. We’ll switch these out for a cooler bag in a few months.

Underneath you can see our cooking gear. From the left — we’ve got our denatured alcohol for our alcohol camp stove, which is right next to it. Then there’s our titanium pot with a top that acts as a pan — along with camp soap for washin’ dishes and SPORKS (not just for Taco Bell!) for eatin’! And then some knives to cut things and stuff.

Above all this we have some interesting tidbits. We’ve got TP and a large tent stake with which to dig a “cat hole” (you can figure this out on your own…), and the orange cord and carabiner will be used to hang our bear bags in trees so we don’t have any unwelcome visitors at night.

Oh, and…

Let’s not forget the Nalgene flask so kindly given to us by Katherine’s uncle, George. We’re using it to bring some… apple juice for cold, wet nights.

That’s it for gear! Gotta go enjoy our last night in a warm bed for a bit! Happy trails!