Tomorrow, I begin my journey on the Appalachian Trail. More appropriately, I begin my journey TO the Appalachian Trail, but I'm counting it as close enough!
Here's what my load out looks like as of 3:00 this afternoon.
Turns out, that's all you need for six months on the trail! In the picture, you can see many of the items I listed in my "gear" post a few weeks back, including the Eureka Solitaire tent (second bag from right), my old sleeping bag, my cookpots, and the Sawyer Squeeze water filtration system. Some additions and modifications that I've made since that post include upgrading to a ThermaRest ProLite sleeping pad from this piece of garbage, investing in some quality hiking clothes, stealing a Carhartt beanie from the lost and found at work (sorry, Jared), and getting a decent first aid kit together.
I've also made some serious changes to my cooking system. While I had been originally planning on packing a homemade alcohol stove along the lines of the stuff found over at Zenstoves, I've found that my ability to construct these things is, at best, sub-par. In light of the many crushed soda cans, small cuts, and grumbled curse words that went into my efforts, I've decided to
go with a prefabricated alcohol stove by
Here's a beautifully scored and ridiculously long-winded demonstration of how a Trangia stove set works
Well, you've got to love the Swedes! However, since I have neither the desire to spend $300 on fancy Swedish products nor the patience to deal with them (IKEA is my nightmare), I've gone with a much simpler (and cheaper) setup which only utilizes the BURNER portion of the Trangia cooking systems, demonstrated below.
And here's the bag I'm supposed to fit it all into :/
Actually, there's quite a bit of "dead" space in the bag. The total weight right now is about 30 lbs.
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