Equipment Used along the PCT

Prior stepping on to the trail at the Mexican Border, I spent a couple of labor intensive months making equipment. Nothing in the commercial side gave me the warm fuzzy's. Especially when trying to acquire lightweight gear. So in the end I made 3 backpacks, 2 tarp/tents, a sleeping quilt, countless stuff sacks and miscellaneous items. Not to mention a half dozen stoves and a few more stove failures.

For weeks my sewing machine was a constant blur. Scraps of silnylon, straps, etc. littered the downstairs. No place was safe from the proliferation of stuff.

In the end I generally made good use of what I made. What I didn't use, my son did on the 1000 miles of the trail he accompanied me.

Below you'll find a general review of what I carried and how it worked for me.

I started the PCT with a fancy custom backpack made from bullet proof Spectra cloth. It was the third pack, I'd made for the trek.

Regrettably the placement of the shoulder straps made the pack sit uncomfortably. Plus without a real suspension, it was hard on my bad back.

Still I suffered with it until I reached Kennedy Meadows. There I replaced it with the Kelty Gale Pack. It's not considered a real backpacking pack. With only 3500 cc inches, it's not big. Still I was able to cram 7 days of food in it.

I striped the pack down to get the weight to just under 3 pounds. For the most part the Gale worked out great. Though after awhile the hip belt wouldn't stay cinched up. So it required constant monitoring.

Also it's poor suspension, made hiking for periods longer than two hours difficult. Since that was my normal break time. Things worked out well.

Would I use it on another long trail? No. I've replaced it with the Kelty Flight. It's just as light, more configurable and has a better suspension.

For shelter, I relied on my homemade Tarp/Tent. At 24 ounces complete with tarp, poles, stakes and stuff sack, it's hardly noticeable in the pack.

The tarp is based upon a design by Henry Shires with some changes. Noticeably it's a bit longer, wider with a height of 42 inches.

In general, I rarely used any shelter, preferring instead to sleep out under the stars. On the trail, I used the tarp less than 10 percent of nights I camped out.

When I did use it, I was glad I had it. It is large enough to sleep two people with gear. There were several times when my son and I shared the tarp during rain storms in Oregon. In Washington, there were times I was able to stay drier under my tarp than my trail mates in their tents.

My sleeping system consisted of three layers. The bottom layer is a 3.5 X 7 foot sheet of Tyvek (4.0 oz). It is tapered and doubled back 2 feet at the foot. This overlap provides increased protection for the sleeping blanket against rain driven in the bottom of the tarp.

A 3/4 length Z-Rest (8.5 oz) and reduced in length to 40 inches, is used as the pad. The Z-Rest also doubles as the back pad in the pack. The Z-Rest were fine, except I replaced them about every 500 to 700 miles because they were getting pretty compressed.

My original intent was to use a custom blanket. At the last minute I switched to the Feathered Friends Swallow (35 oz) down bag. Stuffed with 800 fill and wrapped in the Nextec Epic shell, it was both warm and water resistant.

In Washington I spent a number of soggy nights and my down bag stayed dry through out.

My kitchen was compose of my Fallingwater Stove (1.5 oz) and Titanium Pot (4.0 oz). Except on the rare occasion, I used alcohol primarily for fuel.

The stove worked out fine, though by the end of Oregon it was beginning to fall apart and not burning as well.

When I started in Washington I switched to the Snow Peak Giga Power stove (3.0 oz). I felt I'd want more heat as the temperatures dropped. It worked well. I did have problems determining how much fuel I needed to carry.

For future hikes I'm going to try out the little Pepsi Can Alcohol stove. I've made a number of them and they seem to work fine.

For the most part, I just drank the water as I found it. When I did feel the need to clean it up some before consuming, I used a Safewater Anywhere sports bottle waterfilter. Since it doesn't have all the extra pumping parts associated with most filters, it only added a few ounces to my overall weight.

I carried it all through California. It worked OK, however over time it became more difficult to get water through it. In Oregon and Washington, I used iodine.

To carry all the water needed in the desert sections, up to six quarts at a time, I started with the MSR 4 liter Dromlite. In addition I had a Platypus collapsible container and an empty Gatorade bottle.

The MSR only lasted a couple hundred miles before springing a leak. I replace it with a couple more of the Platypus containers. They don't seem as rugged as the MSR, but lasted me the rest of the trip.

Not all days along the trail are filled with sunshine. Late season snow is not uncommon in the mountains of Southern California. Early Fall rains often attempt to dampen the spirit of hikers headed to Manning.

The Frogg Toggs' (16 oz) rain suite is both waterproof and breathable. Above all it's light in weight. An umbrella (7 oz) is used as a shield for both the sun in the California deserts and for light summer rains. 

A 100 weight Polar Fleece Jacket (14.5 oz) will keep the cool nights at bay. It can be used with the sleeping blanket to add a bit more warmth. A fleece hat (1.5 oz) and fleece gloves (1 oz) rounds out the cold weather gear. An extra pair of socks (4 oz) completes the package of carried clothes.

The umbrella idea sounded really well back home while dreaming of hiking through the desert. For me it did last long. I hated having to hold the thing up all the time. Plus I never seemed to get much benifit from it. Maybe I didn't use it right, but after 700 miles I ditched it. I kept my Royal Robbins cap with detachable neck protector. Once out of the desert, I removed the neck protector and just wore the cap.

In all I was happy with my choice clothes. That is with the major exception of my first pair of shoes. I had a pair of Solomon's shoes that were in good condition, so to save money, I decided to wear them out first. Big mistake! For 700 miles I was plagued with major blisters. It was only after I switched to New Balance 802's that my feet started feeling good. I wore them all the rest of the trail. Easily getting more than 1000 miles on a pair.

Memories are captured on an Olympus Stylus zoom camera (9.5 oz). This lightweight camera takes excellent photos and it's design does a great job shedding water and grime. All of the photos on this site were taken by this camera.

To record the hike in written form, I carried the Sharp TM-20 Tell Mail pocket computer. It's a mere 8 oz and can run for months on a couple of AA batteries. With it's built in modem, getting e-mail out to friends and family was fast and easy. Any pay phone would do.

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Things Carried and Ditched

We all feel the need to carry a few things, if only for the sake of safety sake. Afterall vertually every website an book on backpacking tells us not to leave home without them. In my case, the first thing to send home was the compass. It's a nice little item, the only problem is the maps that are in the quidebook cover so little area it's difficult to use a compass effectively.

The one and only time, I got off the trail, I knew I was traveling in the wrong direction. The fact that I was climbing when I shouldn't have been was a dead giveaway. To verify the fact, I wipped out my trusty friend and set about triangluating my position. After 10 minutes of not getting a good fix, I continued on. Knowing I was going in the wrong direction.

A short while later a sign stating my location and elevation of 9700 feet, 700 feet higher than I should have been. Convinced me to turn around. Least you think, "Well this guys and idiot, what does he know!", years ago I used to work in the woods where no trails existed. Traveling all day with nothing but a compas, map or aerial photo. So I've got a reasonably good idea how to use one. Just on the PCT I found it to be usless.

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