Gear Review: Laundry List

hiker laundry by Rock Creek

Shoes - Saucony Running shoes (various)

I figure enough people have made the case for leaving heavy hiking boots at home that I don't need to reiterate the point. Far and away the most popular shoe on the PCT was the Brooks Cascadia trail runner. I swear, if I went too long without seeing that tell-tale crossbar pattern in the dust, I started to wonder if I'd somehow gotten off-trail.

Nevertheless, I wore Saucony running shoes all the way through, for the simple reason that that's what I'd been wearing before I started hiking. They're comfortable, widely available, and relatively inexpensive. I bought them from Big 5 Sporting Goods (in Sequim, Big Bear, and Portland), Amazon, and Zappos (delivered to Kennedy Meadows, Sierra City, Seiad Valley). That's right: six pairs of shoes. Many people could and did wear their shoes for longer, but I made a point of having new ones every 500 miles. Worn-out shoes took a palpable toll on the connective tissue in my feet and knees.

Somehow I never managed to find the same model twice, so I wound up with all sorts, but invariably I ordered shoes a whole size bigger than "normal." THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. If you listen to only one bit of advice from former thru-hikers, for the love of god, heed this one: ***buy big shoes***. At least a full size larger than you usually wear. I know how ridiculous it seems before you start walking, sloshing around with two canoes on your feet. But trust me. Trust all the folk before me. Buy big shoes.


Socks 

The sock-testing arrangement with Keen fizzled out by Kennedy Meadows. The logistics of asking a well-meaning but ultimately clueless 9-5 desk jockey to mail THIS number of socks in THIS size to THIS address NO LATER THAN such-and-such date were...problematic. Nice people, but clearly not at all prepared for what it would mean to run footwear-support for thru-hikers. And for the record, don't ever mail melty chocolate candies in the same FedEx envelope as a hiker's precious footwear. Disaster.

The socks themselves I found unremarkable. They weren't terrible, but they wore out, just like any other sock. The super-thin variety that I tested dried quickly after they'd been rinsed, which was good, but they also seemed to leave my feet pretty chewed...although it wasn't something I thought to complain about at the time, since your feet just get chewed in the first weeks of a hike, no matter what (I heard they modified this design later, making them more cushy).

In Mammoth I bought my first pair of Darn Tough socks, having spoken to other hikers who swear by them. And I have to admit, those are some motherfucking darn tough socks. Very thickly woven. This means they can be pretty hot, but on the other hand they never got any holes. They also never seem to dry, once rinsed. Anything longer than the period of time between breakfast and lunch is Forever to a thru-hiker; and these socks stay damp for DAYS.

In Burney I picked up two pair of Smartwool PhD Outdoor micro socks, and they did okay. Much lighter than the Darn Toughs, and dried much faster. They wore out, though, like everything; in Bend, I bought a second pair of Darn Toughs.

Ironically, upon leaving Bend the rain started to be a problem. That stuff I just mentioned about Darn Tough socks never drying was especially true once it had rained. Plants overgrowing the trail collected water, and for hours or days after a shower, the water continued to run down your shins and into your socks and shoes. Walking 20+ miles with wet feet causes the skin to macerate, the callouses to slough and crack. Very bad news.

So I collected the pair of DryMax socks from my bounce box in Packwood, because they dried so much quicker than the Darn Toughs. Not that I really had much chance to dry out during the last two weeks of the hike. Paul probably hit on the better solution for traversing Washington: a different pair of socks for every day, so that you can at least start dry, which is good for morning morale. The DryMax had holes before I reached the Canadian border.

I carried a pair of cushy SmartWool socks for sleeping in. Most of the time I didn't need them--through NorCal it was so damn hot that I was sleeping on top of my bag in nothing but my skin--but in Washington, putting on dry socks at the end of a wet, cold, miserable day felt practically holy.

Clearly, I have NO SOLUTIONS about socks. Just be ready to adapt. You march through a lot of different climates, and I doubt any one brand of footwear will cover every scenario.


Gaiters - Dirty Girl Gaiters

Superfluous. Wore these from Independence to Ashland, mostly because I liked looking at the cartoon fish pattern. They didn't keep the dirt or debris out, and ultimately they were just one more obstacle to getting my shoes off at the end of the day, so I sent them home.


Underwear - ExOfficio bikini

I had two pair that I wore in rotation. A lot of hikers, both men and women, dispensed with underwear entirely, but I'm a fan.


Trousers - REI zip-off convertible pants

I envied the women with hiking skirts, but I couldn't have worn a skirt any more than I could have worn shorts--I just sunburn too easily. There's no amount of sunscreen that would have kept up with the level of exposure we experienced. Full coverage was the way to go. So I wore long pants.

I started with a pair that were already eight years old, and had seen many other hikes. In Independence I replaced them with a more-or-less identical pair that I'd bought on GearTrade. The material dried quickly and the design included an adjustable belt that was useful for making sure my trousers stayed up after my ass had fallen off. I threw the pants out when I got home, of course--my clothes were so grungy from months of sweat and dirt that I threw everything out--but they worked just fine.


Undershirt - ExOfficio camisole

Bought on GearTrade. I wear a lot of tank tops in my normal life, but this proved superfluous. Ditched it in Belden. Should have ditched it sooner.


Shirt - Columbia Omni-Shade UPF 50

How on earth to you weave a UPF factor into clothing? Hell if I know.

This shirt lasted clear through my hike, so I give it my approval. It got pretty stinky--corroded was WeeBee's very apt choice of words--but it didn't wear out. Once again, long sleeves for full coverage, and light colors. (My hands still got burnt, but there you are.) I bought this shirt on GearTrade for a song, because it had a small stain on the front.

Scissors Crossing, in the barren San Felipe hills

Sunhat - garden hat

I almost never took my hat off. Essential piece of gear, and not just in the desert; there's a lot of burned-out forests and exposed ridges in northern California and Oregon. A sunhat will save your neck and face. And your brain. Again, something light-colored is best. A chin-strap of some sort is very important, too, because the wind blows vigorously in the desert. If your hat comes with a silly wooden bead on leather strings, as mine did, replace that bead with a toggle before you leave home.

This particular hat was just something I already owned, trimmed a little bit to keep the brim from colliding with my pack. Perhaps because it was made of paper, rather than straw, it lasted the entire trip without disintegrating, but it also shrank a little bit every time it got wet--midway through Washington, my hat wouldn't go around my head anymore, and just perched on top--but on the other hand, by then it was raining so frequently that I no longer needed a sunhat.


Sunglasses - Serengeti Georgetown

Also essential. Something with a bit of wrap might help to keep the dust out of your eyes, but you don't need anything fancy. I already owned these.

headnet in the Sierras

Headnet - Sea to Summit (Kennedy Meadows to Cascade Locks)

It was a dry, dry year. The worst mosquitoes that I experienced were in the Sierras, probably between Tuolumne Meadows and Sonora Pass. Most of the time, a headnet was completely unnecessary. Californian hordes had nothing on Alaskan hordes, despite all the bellyaching. Furthermore, it's my good luck that something in my blood chemistry is less-than-usually attractive to mosquitoes; they don't bite me as much as they seem to bite everyone else, and when they do, the resulting itchy welt is gone within an hour.

But there are also blackflies, which are much, much worse. When you want a headnet, you REALLY want it. It weighs almost nothing, so make your life easier and carry one from Kennedy Meadows northward.

For what it's worth, the "Insect Shield" variety of headnet did not make a perceptible difference.


Earrings - Lisa's Lovelies "Lil Curls"

Nobody cares what you look like on the trail, ladies (and gentlemen)--you smell so bad that it just doesn't matter. Ha! But you don't want your piercings to close up while you're in the wilderness, either. I found my solution on Etsy. No posts to poke you in the head, no backs to get lost, no hooks to catch on your clothes or hair.


Long Underwear - Smartwool midweight top and bottom

I packed my longjohns as sleeping clothes, but wound up wearing them very seldom for that purpose. Way too warm. Mostly they were "laundry clothes," a twelve-ounce suit to wear while my hiking suit was in the washing machine. That's silly. Eventually cottoning to this fact, I bounced them through northern California and Oregon, feeling dumb for having toted around all that wool for so long.

Thing about wool, though--it stays warm, even when it gets wet. This cannot be said of the rest of my synthetic ensemble. At the critical juncture when your synthetic clothes have gotten soaked through, you have no prospect of getting dry in the immediate future, and forward momentum is no longer enough to keep you warm, you start flirting with hypothermia. On these occasions, having my wool suit felt like donning a superhero costume. I AM NOT GOING TO DIE! Ha ha!

In a normal year, I would make sure to have longjohns through the Sierra, and from Sisters/Bend/Big Lake northward.

lots of warm layers at the top of Mt Whitney

Jacket - Mont-Bell UL Thermawrap

For the staggering majority of my hike, I didn't need a coat. The act of walking keeps you warm--very often, too warm--even in the rain. When walking isn't enough, generally it's time to consider setting up camp and getting into your sleeping bag. Coats are for chilly mornings,  high elevation, and buffering those uncomfortable shoulder-season conditions (see: sleet).

Down or synthetic, hooded or no, zipper or pullover, pockets or no pockets--there's a lot of quacking about these matters in the hiking forums, but at the end of the day none of it really matters. Just make sure you have a warm layer of some kind. I found this jacket on Ebay for $35.


Warm hat - homemade wool beanie

I made my hat out of a much-worn cashmere sweater that had come apart at the seams.


Gloves - Possum wool

These gloves came all the way from Scott Base, the Kiwi station in Antarctica! The erstwhile introduction of land mammals to New Zealand continues to diminish native populations of flightless birds. In response, a few years back the Department of Conservation underwrote certain initiatives to counter the flourishing tribes of predators. What I'm saying here is they're making gloves and scarves out of the "harvested" possums, and selling them to tourists like me.

These gloves are great, but it was a hot summer, and I wore them only twice: summiting Mt Whitney, and hiking to the monument on the last morning.


Rain Jacket - Frogg Toggs (Campo to Cascade Locks)

Lightweight, disposable, and cheap. This is one instance where you really do get what you pay for--Frogg Toggs are garbage, scarcely one step above the gas-station rain poncho--but given how infrequently I needed any kind of rain protection for the first four months of my hike (and we had a lot more rain than the 2012 hikers), Toggs did the trick. Mostly the jacket lived at the bottom of my pack. I didn't bother carrying the trouser half of the suit.

Rain Jacket - Mountain Hardwear Epic Dry Q (Washington)

Leaving Jefferson Park in Oregon, Siesta, WeeBee and I got hammered by a thunderstorm that lasted all afternoon and through much of the night. It was cold and windy, and I felt fortunate for a chance to dry out the following morning, because I simply wasn't equipped for such weather. At Mt Hood, it happened again. We holed up at Timberline Lodge for the night, which was fun, but the turn in the weather pattern made me uneasy. I wanted my wool suit back. And I wanted some proper rain gear.

In Cascade Locks I switched out the cruddy Frogg Toggs for a coat and pants that meant business. I like the fit and features of the Mountain Hardwear jacket (which I got from Sierra Trading Post), but the Durable Water Repellency wore out under the hip belt and shoulder straps really quickly. And the sad truth is that even if the material is waterproof, it doesn't mean your jacket is rainproof. If it rains all day, you're going to get soaked. That's just the way it is.

Rain Pants - REI brand (Washington)

I wouldn't bother with rain pants anywhere on the PCT except Washington. Washington boasts a few distinctive vegetative features: trees wider than I am tall, mushrooms, and "carwash plants." The blueberries and thimbleberries and devil's club surrounding the trail get monstrously overgrown, and after a rain shower you are blessed with the singular agony of wading through them. The water runs in icy falls from your navel to your toes. Rain pants don't keep you dry, but they might keep you a little warmer.

Gear Review: Small Stuff

wild blueberries with breakfast in Oregon

Cooking Setup

Some people chose to go stoveless. Cooking broadened ever-so-slightly the variety of food I could eat, however, and that was enough for me. (You had better believe I'm planning a trail food review. Later.)

I made my own damn stove from a catfood can, and it ran on denatured alcohol or HEET gas line antifreeze. I cooked in and ate out of an aluminum grease pot, which came from Kmart. My little plastic cup was something I literally found at the side of the road, then cut down to fit inside the grease pot. I ate with a Sea to Summit Alpha Light aluminum alloy spoon (the short model) from REI, having realized before I set out that a plastic spoon would melt in the hot noodles and/or break in the peanut butter. Cup, spoon, stove and lighter fit neatly right inside the pot. I made a windscreen out of a turkey roasting pan, and it traveled wrapped around my fuel bottle. My bandanna worked as a pot holder.

Pros: Simplicity. The whole setup was ultracheap, ultralight, compact, easily replaceable, and very nearly unbreakable. No moving parts. The lighter I got in San Diego finally ran out of juice around Cascade Locks; everything else lasted the whole trip. Fuel was readily available all along the trail.

Cons: It's not very...safe. I'd accidentally set my socks on fire before I'd even started the trip, which should have told me something. The stove left scorch marks on the ground wherever I cooked--needless to say, I had to be careful about my choice of surface, avoiding dry leaf duff or needles. For the most part, unless I had a water source right at hand, I didn't cook. The fire is completely uncontrolled, so any breath of wind creates a hazard. You can't turn this stove off, or turn it down. The arrangement isn't terribly stable, either, despite my having artfully bashed the bottom of the grease pot to keep it from sliding off the stove--I wished for a handle on more than one occasion.

It's also a little slow--though it's fair to admit, too, that this was something I only really paid attention to when I was traveling with Paul, who could produce hot water in less than a minute with his JetBoil (which has its own set of limitations).

Bottom line: I think my homemade setup worked quite as well as the more expensive Caldera Cone alcohol stoves, but next time around (if there was a next time), for the sake of minimizing fire danger, I'd look into an MSR pocket rocket.


Knife - Spyderco Ladybug

Carrying oversized knives into the backcountry seems to be endemic. Some people men actually had machete-sized blades strapped to their packs or belts. Hmmm. (After a couple of months, this turned into a sign of a section- or day-hiker.)

I started with a serrated Gerber Paraframe with a three-inch blade, and that weighed three ounces. It was a hand-me-down from Paul, and not a bad knife (though it never actually fit in my pockets). Good for trimming sticks, cleaning fish, cutting up cardboard boxes, maybe skinning elephants--none of which I had any call to do on the trail. Mostly I needed to slice avocados or cheese, open recalcitrant plastic packaging, or cut athletic tape or my fingernails.

Honestly, the dinky little Swiss Army we all had as kids is all you need on the PCT. (It also has scissors, which get called into service more often than the blade.) I knew I'd probably break it in Real Life, however, so I bought the Ladybug at an outfitter in Mammoth Lakes, and passed the Gerber back to Paul, who in turn sent home his multitool. I like the Ladybug. It fits in my pockets.


Food bag - Seal Line Cirrus 10L dry sack

I started with a plain old plastic grocery sack, which didn't even survive the first day--the crows swooped down to pillage my granola bars while I was in the shower block at Lake Morena. So when I got to Mt Laguna I paid a visit to the outfitter and bought whatever he had that appeared lightweight and about the right size. This was it! It worked fine.


Water treatment - Sawyer 3-way Inline Filter

Pros: "Raw" water goes in, "treated" water comes out. I attached the filter to my Camelbak, and hey-presto, I could just fill the bladder and keep walking. The water filtered as I drank it. It's genius. No pumping or breakable parts, no measuring, no waiting for chemical reactions, no funny taste. If I needed more than two liters, I simply employed the awesome power of gravity to filter water through the bite valve into any auxiliary vessel (of these there were many). Unlike the hikers using chemical treatments, I didn't have to figure out the long-term logistics of water usage to determine when I would need to order refills. (Most outfitters--including REI--don't carry Aquamira in stores.)

Cons: Turns out the inline filter really does need to be backflushed, and it needs to be backflushed more often than a thru-hiker can realistically accommodate. My first filter lasted from Campo to Seiad Valley out of necessity (backflushed in Lee Vining, when my parents came down to visit), but it had noticeably slowed down long before I ordered a new one, and by the time I actually got it replaced, every drop was a struggle. I'm not kidding, it was like trying to drink a really thick milkshake, without any of the delights of actually drinking a milkshake. Backflushing it didn't help, at that point. I had to get a new one.

The backflushing device that they send with the filter, furthermore, is a fussy piece of crap. It's constructed to attach to a goose-neck faucet, such as you might find in a commercial kitchen--and let me tell you, those can be hard to come by, even in trail towns. I tried hand sinks in bathrooms, campground spigots, even a hose--nope, it's got to be a gooseneck faucet, or the device won't seal properly. And then the backflushing device that came with my second filter straight-up broke under the pressure of the water. Arrgh.

The inline filter is made of ceramic components, and cannot be permitted to freeze. There were a few frosty nights in the Sierra when I had to put it in a ziploc and tuck it into my sleeping bag.

Bottom line: I really liked the inline filter, but in spite of their confident "one million gallon guarantee," I don't think Sawyer has adequately thought through the ramifications of taking it into the backcountry. They haven't yet invented a way for a thru-hiker to administer the long-term care it needs. If you're going on shorter trips--say two weeks or less--and can clean the filter between uses, it will do you right, and I heartily recommend it. If you're thru-hiking the PCT, you probably want something else. I wound up using Aquamira for the last couple weeks of the hike, and returned both filters to REI.

Cambelbak at the top of Mt Whitney

Hydration - 2L Camelbak, plus a variety of smaller vessels as needed

I love hydration bladders, because they allow me to sip water all day, rather than guzzling quarts at breaks and then peeing it all out again. I saw a lot of Platypus Big Zips on the trail. Camelbaks are a good bit heavier than their Platypus counterparts, but they also seem to be made of stouter material, and I like that they employ a screw-top opening. No leaks, no punctures, no problems. Plus, I already owned this one. It lasted clear through my hike, and I plan to keep using it. (I did replace the bite valve twice.)

I went through a lot of auxiliary water bottles, depending on the environment. From Campo to Kennedy Meadows, I carried two one-liter Gatorade bottles. I ditched them when I found a one-liter Platypus in the hiker box at Kennedy Meadows. Three liters is a good working water capacity. Exercising a little foresight you can buy a few soda or Gatorade bottles for the 20+ mile waterless stretches in northern California and Oregon (Hat Creek Rim, Crater Lake, etc.), and then ditch them afterwards. Or you can get some Platypus bottles and bounce them from dry area to the next, as needed. Whatever.


Sleeping pad - Thermarest Ridgerest (cut to three-quarter length)

Pros: Cheap, lightweight, durable, disposable, relatively high R-value (that's the warmth rating).

Cons: Not very cushy.

Bottom line: Most people on the PCT had the NeoAir or the Z-Rest. The Z-Rest was a little too bulky for my taste, and I wasn't willing to pay for an ultralight air mattress unless I found that I really needed it to get a decent night's sleep. As it turned out, the sheer luxury of lying down, of not walking, was all the comfort I required, and if I wasn't sleeping like a brick house it was invariably due to other factors, like hunger or footsoreness. The Ridgerest worked just fine, and during the day it rolled up burrito-style inside my pack, to give it a bit of structure.

stream crossing in the Sierra

Trekking poles - Black Diamond Syncline

Initially I planned to use my Tubbs snowshoe poles, since I already owned them. Said poles employ an expansion lock to adjust the length, however--this means they twist, and my first "training" hike revealed that by the time you've twisted the poles tight enough that they won't collapse under the weight of your strike, you'll have a hell of a time getting them loose again. Pain in the ass if you plan to use your trekking poles to set up your shelter.

So I bought the Black Diamonds on GearTrade for $25, since they had flick-locks and no frills. (And the first thing I did was cut off the silly "ergonomic" foam handles.) They're not lightweight, but I never carried them on my back, so it didn't matter. They're sturdy and reliable. Many hikers in the light-and-fast mode found that they could go without poles altogether, but apart from the obvious usefulness on snowfields and in stream crossings, mine saved me from stumbles and near-wipe-outs on a daily basis. I'm convinced that they give an extra, upper-body boost on a climb, and help take some of the impact off of the knees on a descent, too. I found that I missed them when I was walking around in trail towns; I'd turned into a semi-quadruped.

The tips wore out in northern California, and I replaced them in Ashland.

The secondhand-cologne smell (Who is wearing cologne while doing anything with trekking poles? Ugh!) wore off during the second or third week.


Headlamp - Princeton Tec Eos

Neither the lightest nor the brightest headlamp on the market, but it's what I already had, and it got the job done.

Paul packing a BV500 in Bishop

Bear canister - Bearvault BV500

Fucking bear can. It's a beast: heavy, awkward, expensive, and probably won't fit all of your food. You will carry it from Kennedy Meadows to Sonora Pass. Pray that they do not become mandatory for hikers in the North Cascades.

Do the right thing, and get one. (Yes, I got checked in Yosemite. I did not, however, see any bears in Yosemite.)

Anybody want to buy a gently used BV500?

First aid

My first aid kit remained very minimal. I suppose it's possible that I just got lucky, but thru-hiking doesn't invite a lot of cuts, scrapes, or burns. You don't need the full contents of the medicine cabinet. Your principal activity is walking; be prepared to treat the hurts that come of a lot of walking. Anything serious--broken bones, snakebite, giardia, heart attack--requires leaving the trail for real medical attention, so there's no point trying to pack a bunch of bogus treatment.

You probably want to carry every kind of blister care under the sun for the first month or so, and keep some of whatever works for you in your kit just in case. For me this was Band-Aid blister pads--yeah, they look expensive from a civilian standpoint, but they work, and I promise you that money has no meaning in the face of a throbbing, howling blister. Apart from that, I carried a packet of gauze, athletic tape (I did not find duct tape useful in preventing blisters--it just leaves sticky messes on the insides of your socks) and Ibuprofen (I took Ibuprofen most nights, to quiet the electricity in my feet).

Because I am prone to skin complaints, I also carried a tin of Mac's Smack, which Paul had ditched in the Paradise Café hiker box. I found it useful for bug bites, sunburn, dust rash, monkey butt, and macerated wet feet. Good stuff.

The one other thing that might've been useful would have been some kind of stomach medicine.

Diva Cup

I'd never heard of Diva Cup until I started research for this trip and found it listed on the lady hikers' gear lists. It's not intended just for the backcountry, though--it's the next evolutionary leap in feminine hygiene. I strongly suggest practicing with the Diva Cup before going hiking (no different than your tent, your stove, or your pack). I like it because it doesn't leak, doesn't generate a lot of waste, and doesn't leave particulate matter in your cooch to produce yeast infections. It does require some water for cleaning. As it turned out, however, I only had my period once while I was hiking--in southern Washington, when I'd finally caught up to the caloric deficit, and where water was plentiful.

Communication - iPhone 3

I maintain that the iPhone is the best thing to happen to ultralight hiking...ever. Camera, video camera, phone, computer, timepiece, maps, compass, GPS, mp3 player, eBook reader--it does it all. The iPhone 3 that I carried, I should probably add, did NOT do all of those things. It didn't do even half of those things. It took lousy photos and sometimes allowed me to call my mother. It's an abandoned evolutionary inquiry, an extinct form of the current, more successful manifestation of the iPhone. Much frustration resulted. It was probably pretty of dumb of me to take it along when it couldn't operate any app presently on the market, but I didn't want to go out and buy one when I knew I wouldn't want to keep it. I imagine that most prospective hikers either already own smartphones, or are willing to go without them entirely.

Worth noting: Verizon offers significantly better coverage along the PCT corridor than AT&T. 

Solar charger - Bushnell Bear Grylls SolarWrap Mini

Because I only used my iPhone as a camera and a timepiece, for the most part I could coast between electrical outlets in trail towns without difficulty. I bought this charger pretty late in the game, and due to some unforeseen delivery complications I didn't actually receive the damn thing until Etna, when I was almost out of California, and almost finished with long stretches between resupply. But I did find that some kind of charging device is pretty essential if you plan to travel with an iPhone.

Pros: Compact; lightweight; durable; affordable. You can charge the charger directly from the wall while you're in town, or solarly while on the trail. Then transfer the charge to your devices (iPhone, iPod, whatever) as needed. Because of this two-step process, the charger continues to make itself useful on cloudy days. It's effectively an oversized lithium battery with a flexible solar panel wrapped around the outside. Sufficiently lightweight to hang on the exterior of your pack if you expect to hike in full sun. (Incidentally, although Bushnell suggests a carabiner for this purpose, a safety pin works just fine. Carabiners are good for belaying and car keys; they have no place on a thru-hike.)

Cons: Flexible solar panels are not the most efficient; it takes quite a lot of sunlight to produce a full charge. By "quite a lot" I mean two days of exposure.

I was so disappointed that the solar panel wraps instead of getting slurped up into the roll like a window shade.

Bottom line: The SolarWrap Mini kept my iPhone performing its principal roles of camera and alarm clock, but if I did it over again I'd want to take more photos, spend more time writing, and therefore need more power, so I'd try something else. Paul's solar charger, the Suntactics 5, proved vastly more efficient than mine, because its rigid panels charge directly to the device. He could top up his iPhone in an hour or less. On the other hand, it cost a lot more, weighed eight ounces, and due to factory defects, he had to replace it twice. It was also useless on overcast or especially smoky days.

The clever people of the world continue to cast about for a confluence of energy efficiency, durability, and size. There's something new every year. Shop around.

Navigation

Halfmile's maps: Halfmile has produced the most current and most accurate version of the PCT to date. They are free--you can print them or just download them into your phone--or if you want a complete, color printing of the whole trail, you can order it from these fine people. I carried Halfmile paper maps, divided into sections, clear through my hike.

He's also created a very useful iPhone app that works with your phone's internal GPS to tell you exactly where you are, and how far to the next waypoint (water source, campsite, road crossing, etc.). I recommend it. When I was hiking by myself, I didn't find the absence of an exact-o-meter troubling--it's not really necessary, you just keep walking until you arrive at some kind of landmark--but when I was hiking with Paul or Siesta, it sure was handy.

It's fair to observe that starting in central California, Halfmile's maps become noticeably more...hmmm...casual. The GPS data pertaining to the trail never wavers in its accuracy, but lots of stuff that would be nice to know about--water sources, road crossings, trail junctions--is not indicated on the maps. You won't die, you won't get lost--it's just frustrating, after you've 'schwacked off trail to a mucky little pond called Duck Soup Lake in order to get water, to find a signed spring not ten minutes further along. And as far as campsites are concerned, you're pretty much on your own after you've left the Sierra.

Yogi's guidebook: Like every guidebook ever published, probably, Yogi's book was out of date before it went to press. She issues updates regularly, with the voices of more recent hiker-commentators; my version was published in 2011. It was handy. I really think, however, that the guidebook needs a major overhaul. Never mind the fact that restaurant reviews from 2003 now belong on the cutting-room floor; a lot of things about the PCT have changed since 2007, when Yogi last hiked it.

Halfmile happened, for one thing. Yogi's notes and water information coincide with the mileage in the Wilderness Press guidebooks, and like it or not, most hikers (and the PCTA!) now abide by Halfmile's more recent set of waypoints. They're different. It's not off by much--maybe a mile at most, until you get to Washington, where the trail has been rebuilt around the Suiattle River--but it's enough.

The recession happened. A number of businesses (and especially resorts) have changed hands, or closed altogether. Some of the new owners are significantly less tolerant of hiker trash than their predecessors. This can affect your resupply strategy.

The smartphone happened. Yogi is pretty adamant about not catering to electronics, because they break, they get wet, they run out of power. Well, true enough, but paper isn't infallible, either. It gets lost, it gets wet, it blows away, it weighs more--and more to the point, people are USING electronics on the trail, whether or not she approves. If Yogi chooses not to produce an electronic version of her trail notes for sale, the present generation of hikers will simply find a way around it, and they'll do it at her expense. Already most of the information she consolidates for us--addresses, telephone numbers, operation hours--is now freely available (and probably more up-to-date) on the Internet. Even accounting for those too lazy to do their own research, a lot of folk took photos of the pertinent pages of her guidebook and uploaded them into their phones, sending them to friends and fellow hikers as needed. Yogi has labored to provide a candid, reliable resource to thru-hikers for many years now, and her contribution is valuable, but if she's not careful, her guidebook is going to wind up in the museum with the Wilderness Press.

And thru-hiking kind of "happened." For whatever reasons, the PCT is enjoying a certain celebrity these days, no doubt abetted by Wild. I lost track of how many people asked if I'd been inspired to hike by Strayed's shaky narrative. Christ, just wait until next year, after Reese Witherspoon has glamorized thru-hiking even further. In some ways, the more people know about the PCT, the easier it is to hike, because the raised awareness ensures that water caches are filled, for instance, and encourages drivers to pick up hitchhikers with backpacks. But as word spreads, the number of thru-hikers booms (as it did this year). The more people are on the trail, the more difficult it becomes for small trail towns and trail angels to extend their hospitality--lodging, groceries, goodwill--to each and every smelly, starry-eyed itinerant. At some point I think Yogi's guidebook may have to take some of this into account.

Wilderness Press Databook: I ditched it almost immediately. Last updated in 2005, it's a crib sheet based on the old Wilderness Press milage, which, as already noted, differs from Halfmile's, and since I was carrying topographical maps of the whole trail, the Databook was just redundant. 

Guthook's PCT App: Got an iPhone? Get this app. The end. I didn't have it, but Paul did. Guthook fills in the blanks.

Amelioration - the books

I know this will come as a surprise to everyone, but I couldn't maintain my four-ounces-or-less rule about reading matter. I don't know what I was thinking. Screw the weight. The brain really must have some recourse, some escape, if one is to maintain the will to hike.

I rummaged through hiker boxes or free-shelves in trail towns; in Ashland I went to the Goodwill, where I could stock up on books for every resupply box. I'm trying to remember what I read.

The Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha Christie
All Things Bright and Beautiful - James Herriot
The Land of Little Rain - Mary Austin
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
Blood, Bones and Butter - Gabrielle Hamilton
Very Far Away from Anywhere Else - Ursula LeGuin
Farm City - Novella Carpenter
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka
The Liars Club - Mary Karr
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
A Year in Provence - Peter Mayle
Bread Alone - Judith Hendricks
The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig

Gear Review: The Big Three

In choosing my armaments for this adventure, I found reading other hikers' gear reviews VERY helpful. I don't think I'm any more of a true backpacker now than I was 2668 miles ago, but five months was definitely plenty of time to find out which bits of my gear would take a beating, which would survive if I treated 'em right, and which were a perpetual source of anxiety.  I hereby bequeath to the next generation of hikers the benefit of my opinionated opinion, broken down into manageably-sized blog posts. Let's start with The Big Three.

Mariposa at the top of Forester Pass

Pack - Gossamer Gear Mariposa

Pros: Lightweight, affordable, and a helluva lot tougher than it looks. I was very pleased by division of space--the shape and variety of pockets attest that the people at GG pay very close attention to what their customers need. Overall volume, too, was just right--a seven-day stretch between resupplies meant my pack was maxed out, as it should be. A bear canister fits snugly, but it does fit.

I liked the removable back pad, which gave the pack a bit more structure, insulated my hydration bladder from, well, me, and pulled out to make a good seat, or the extra quarter of my sleeping pad when I needed it. (I actually lost the standard-issued grey back pad at Walker Pass and replaced it with a piece of Z-rest at Kennedy Meadows.)

You can't drag the Mariposa across rough surfaces (like squeezing between barbed-wire fence posts, or scooting over deadfall)--the material isn't suited to that kind of abuse--but it's surprisingly durable, and except for a few snags, it stood up to the thousand natural shocks of a thru-hike much better than I expected.

Cons: Just ain't very comfortable when it's full. I tried really, really hard to keep my base weight down, but it didn't seem like it was enough, the food and water consistently put it over the edge. There was never a point at which my pack rode so easily that it "disappeared"--with four or five days of food and a couple liters of water it was uncomfortable, and with a bear canister and seven days of food it was frankly miserable. Maybe I'm a weenie--maybe no pack is comfortable when full--but I adjusted and tinkered every which way, and invariably felt like the one thing I wanted was more padding in the shoulder straps. The weight never seemed to distribute correctly; my shoulders screamed clear through the Sierras. And by the end of the trip, my pack was coming apart at the seams in a number of places.

Bottom line: The Mariposa got me there, but if I were ever to thru-hike again (let me go ahead and register my intention NEVER to thru-hike again), I'd get something else. The Ospreys still look like heavyweights, the GoLites have a reputation for going to pieces after the first thousand miles, and Ray Jardine is still a lunatic, but I'd be game to try out a ULA pack. Maybe the extra ounces manifest in a better fit--and in the long run, that would be worth the weight. Unfortunately, I don't know of a single on-the-ground outfitter where hikers might try a few different ultralight packs before making a selection. You pick one off the internet and hope for the best.

Western Mountaineering UltraLite (blue one on the left) drying out in North Bend

Sleeping Bag - Western Mountaineering UltraLite 20* Down Bag

Pros: Unimpeachably warm, lightweight, compresses to the size of a soccer ball.

Cons: Expensive. Often too warm. A little spindrift, but no more than you might expect as a result of cramming the poor thing into a small bag every single day. And you must be vigilant about keeping your feathers immaculately dry.

Bottom line: It's down--pros and cons both stem from this fact. But it's the BEST down, so it maximizes the returns on the unavoidable inconveniences. A sleeping bag is not the place to cut corners.

Overall, it was a hot summer, and I firmly believe I would've traveled comfortably with the 35* version of my bag--simply adding wool sleeping clothes in the Sierra--up until the last two weeks of my hike. (At that point I was so cold all day that having this warm, dry ace up my sleeve was pretty essential.) I reckon it's up to the individual to gauge the trends in the weather and decide whether to brave a few slightly chilly nights, or buy a bag that's a little overkill in the name of covering all possible scenarios.

I'll probably never use this sleeping bag again, so I'm planning to get it cleaned and sell it on GearTrade.

TarpTent in the desert

Shelter - Henry Shires TarpTent Contrail

Pros: Lightweight,  affordable, sturdy, versatile, bucks the wind, sheds the rain, keeps the bugs out, easy to set up, and very spacious.

Cons: It's not a tent, guys; it's a tarp with training wheels, so it's not freestanding--I didn't actually find this a problem, but I know a lot of people who swapped out TarpTents for Big Agnes tents because of this.

Sometimes the square footage it occupied posed a problem, particularly if I was camping with other people.

On the last day I learned that it is undeniably a three-season tent; I had to whack the snow off the roof a few times in the night, since the accumulation was causing the ceiling to sag alarmingly.

Bottom line: This was the one piece of gear that I felt I got absolutely right. I love my TarpTent. During my traverse of the Mojave, a hurricane-force windstorm descended on the desert, and I carefully pitched it very low and taut, but grimly expecting to find it crashing around my ears in the middle of the night. It did not. It stood. That day I named my tent Elton--still standing. (PFffffffftttt, ha ha ha ha ha ha!)

A lot of hikers were content to cowboy camp unless weather threatened--I pitched my tent nearly every night. Call me crazy, but I just enjoyed sleeping in a tent, away from the biting ants. So I got pretty good at pitching it, and I'd have thought this was a no-brainer, but I saw an awful lot of feebly flapping Contrails, Hexamids, and Lunar Solos out there. Then the owners had the temerity to complain that their shelters were poorly designed. I figure if you can't be bothered to learn how stake out one of these creations properly--which means sometimes taking it down and doing it over, boo hoo--you might want to go ahead and get a freestanding tent.

I do suggest getting more stakes than Henry Shires provides--I carried four titanium shepherd-crook stakes from Gossamer Gear--one for each side, one for the drain-line at the foot (to keep rain from pooling in the center), and one extra.

Elton suffered a few puncture wounds along the way, probably a result of draping it over any handy tree to dry. A little tenacious tape took care of them.

My one quibble with the design is the velcro door, which was tricky to close from the inside, and loudly alerted everyone in camp when I had to climb out of my tent to pee in the middle of the night.