Gearing up

I've never been a real "hardcore" backpacker or gearhead. I did a good bit of backpacking growing up, but gear was never the main focus; we bought our gear for cheap at the fleamarket or garage sales. Not to mention, in the past few years I had only done a couple of weekend trips and had been able to get by without a lot of gear and specialty clothing.

Gearing up for this trip has been a long process and a steep learning curve. I basically had to start my gear collection from ground zero as I decided that what I already had wouldn't fit my newly-formed gear philosophy.

I read Beyond Backpacking by Ray Jardine, a huge proponent of lightweight backpacking (also, that guy and his wife, Jenny, are super hardcore. He lists all of their major outdoor adventures from the past 50 years on his website.). His philosophy in a nutshell: Pack light and you will enjoy the trip more and be capable of walking faster. Therefore, you won't have to pack as much food, and therefore your pack will be lighter, and therefore you can move faster, and so on... Seems like pretty sound advice to me.

I watched with horror as Mike Clelland ripped apart people's gear lists on the BackpackingLight.com forums, telling them to ditch the toilet paper and use sticks instead! That seemed extreme to me (which isn't to say I haven't learned from his suggestions).

The one statement that made the biggest impact on my philosophy was to this effect: We carry gear to assuage our fears and make up for lack of experience.

With that in mind, I came up with this "philosophy" which guided my gear buying decisions:

1) I'll go as light and high quality as I can...
2)... For a reasonable amount of money...
3) ... And try my hardest not to pay full price
4) I will truthfully acknowledge where I am inexperienced and buy gear accordingly

For example, a lot of ultra-light backpackers use a tarp for shelter, since it can be so much lighter than any tent. I've never used a tarp as shelter before and I'm not confident in my ability to put up a sound tarp-shelter in every situation, let alone in the middle of a storm when I am potentially on the verge of hypothermia. Plus, I'm not okay with spiders or mosquitoes, so a floor and walls are a must. Recognizing this, I researched single-person, fully-enclosed backpacking tents. I read a lot of reviews and gear lists and came up with my top three candidates, ranking them by weight:

Gossamer Gear's The One
Henry Shire's Tarptent Contrail
and Henry Shire's Tarptent Moment

Once I had my list, I haunted the used-gear ads and gear swap forums on Backpacking Light (BPL) and Whiteblaze (the Appalachian Trail forum). I found a nearly-new ONE for sale for $200 (30% less than retail) and purchased it from the owner. And that is how I came to have my tent.

A similar story with my stove. A home-made soda can stove was not for me! I didn't want to go starting any forest fires on accident (it's said to have happened with this type of stove), and I wanted to be certain of having the fire-power (and simmer ability) to cook up the delicious meals I'm planning. So I bought the Snowpeak Titanium Litemax stove from REI with my 20% off coupon and got some cash back from couponcactus.com. It makes up for my inexperience, only weighs 1.9 oz (plus the fuel canister), and I didn't pay full price. So I met all my criteria with that one.

I have most of my gear now (a big, huge thank-you to everyone (especially my parents!!!) who really went all-out for me at Christmas time), and I've been meaning to put it all in a spreadsheet and tally up the weight. When I get that done I'll post it here, as long as you promise not to send the link to Mike Clelland!