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Gear: I have very
lightweight gear and it served me well during this trip, despite the bad
conditions. The weight of my pack, without food or water, was less than
15 pounds although it should be noted that my tarp-tent was big enough
for 2 as was my cooking pot. Indeed, after my hip strap fiasco at the
start of the trip it is funny to note that I hardly ever used it; the
pack just didn’t weigh enough to justify its use. Rather than
list my gear I direct the reader to the web site of a fellow backpacking
civil engineer, Glen Van Peski [www.gvpgear.com]. He makes and sells the pack that I use
and has a great backpacking website in general, including a gear list.
Aspire to his list and total weight of less than 6 pounds! My pack was
heavier since I used the “Cloudburst” model tarp-tent designed by
Henry Shires and available online also [www.tarptent.com]. The design is great and the
amount of space and bug protection for the weight is unmatched. I also
highly recommend the Rain Shield waterproof breathable shell jacket and
pants. The stuff is amazing and inexpensive to boot. I wore the jacket
almost all the time and pants at least half the time. It breathes much
better than gore-tex, is not a coating that will rub off, is comfortable
when worn directly against the skin, and weighs less than 10 ounces
(jacket and pants)! Additionally, the trash compactor bag I used kept
all of my gear dry, despite 2 days worth of rain. Just be sure not to
put things between your pack and the bag. About a week after the trip I
found my knee braces there; I didn’t lose them at Lake Edison after
all. I’m pretty sure my trekking pole is not hidden in there though. Also worth
mentioning is my footgear. I have never worn hiking boots and hope I
never have to. Instead I wore "trail running" shoes with
cycling socks that stopped below my ankles. While on flat ground and
uphill sections the shoes are very loose; I can pull my foot right out
without using my hands. Long downhill sections force me to tighten up
the laces to protect my toes from repeated contact with the front of the
shoe. Despite getting a hole in one of the socks the first day I didn't
get a single blister nor did I have to tape my feet in any way, despite
walking much of the time with wet socks and shoes. Food: Regarding nourishment, I took a very scientific approach to fueling my body for this trip. First I determined that my caloric intake was to be about 5000 calories per day (based on height, body weight, pack weight, and miles walked) and then created a spreadsheet [Calorie Table]* to figure out how much food I needed to meet that goal. All of the information you need is on the packaging of the food. For instance, one serving of peanut butter is 2 tablespoons, weighs 30 grams and provides 190 calories. If I have two sandwiches I may want 2 servings of peanut butter so the totals will be 380 calories and 60 grams or 2.1 ounces. Likewise, 4 slices of bread for the sandwiches may be 32 grams and 100 calories per slice. Add 2 servings blackberry jam at 1 tablespoon and 20 grams and 50 calories per serving and I have a lunch totaling 232 grams or 8.2 ounces and packing 880 calories. Adding in powdered milk and granola for breakfast, semolina elbow pasta with olive oil and shredded asiago cheese for dinner and I had about 2500 calories. Snacks made
up the difference. I brought a whole slew of treats such as: roasted and
salted mixed nuts, peanut M&M's, honey sesame sticks, Clif Bars,
powdered chocolate Ovaltine, powdered Gatorade, corn chips, bite size
pepperoni, and dried apricots. Each snack was stored in it's own bag but
each day I would measure out the daily snacks in a single common bag for
easy access during the day. To facilitate measuring my backpack kitchen
includes a plastic tablespoon and a measuring cup. With the exception of the pasta, I enjoyed all of the foods and would bring them all again. For some reason I was only able to eat about 2/3 of the pasta the first night and only 1/2 the second night. This perplexed me since I had made the meal at home to test it out and found it quite pleasant. Another surprise was with the snacks; in my two days on the trail I only ate 1 days worth of snacks, despite walking 45 miles and never suffering from hunger and fatigue. I can speculate that my body was still in an adjustment period, however their is no doubt that I burned far more calories than I consumed. * It should be noted that, prior to the trip while standing over my back of food, I decided that the amount of powdered milk I was bringing was ridiculous so cut it back to 1 packet per day. This lowered my daily calories to 4677, which still turned out to be way more than I could eat. Map:
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