Gear!

Alrighty. Here goes.. this is everything I plan on taking on the Appalachian Trail with me. It’s currently totaled at a base weight of 20.9lbs (total weight without food or water).

First up: my backpack that’s going to be the holder of all the things. I learned a tough lesson when hiking the JMT: weight matters, including the actual weight of your pack when it’s empty. My JMT pack was 6 pounds by itself 🤣 Rookie mistake. This one only weighs just under 3 pounds. Wahoo!

I’ll be carrying my old trekking poles that I got off of Amazon in 2016. They’ve treated me well all these years, and unless one breaks, I don’t see the need in replacing them. They weigh a pound together, with duct tape wrapped on them, but that weight isn’t included in the total pack weight since they’ll be in my hands. I’m also bringing an umbrella-which happens to be my luxury item, haha! When my friend Andrea and I hiked the Camino de Santiago (550 miles across Spain), my most glorious possession was an umbrella during the relentless pouring rain. You vastly underestimate how wonderful it is to not have water constantly dripping in your face for hours and hours on end.

My tent is single heaviest thing I’m carrying (4 lbs). It’s a MSR hubba hubba 2 person tent. I know it’s not cool to have a stand alone tent, but to be honest, I hate having my tent rely on me to stake it perfectly to stand up.. lol

My sleep system adds up to a total of 2.9 pounds.. that includes my REI Magma Quilt, a sleeping bag liner, a pillow (princess remember), the stuff sack that holds all of that, and my sleeping pad that comes with a little air bag to help inflate it quicker. I also have a 3 ounce emergency bivy to keep warm on super cold nights. All of these things will stuff down in a trash compactor bag with my clothes bag to make sure that my clothes and my sleep stuff always stay dry.

The food “gear” I’m bringing includes everything that isn’t actually food or water. It all adds up to 15 ounces. This includes the 35L dry bag, cord, caribiner, and rock ditty bag to hang it, a jet boil to cook my food with, along with a fuel canister, a lighter, collapsible bowl, spork, and titanium mug, as well as a water filter. My knife is larger than you’d technically need, but it’s also for protection and will be on my person when I’m hiking, and I’ll have a little thing of pepper spray, too.

My electronic ditty bag has my Anker battery pack for charging all the things, Garmin InReach, headlamp with an extra set of batteries, my charging cords for my iPhone, garmin watch, battery pack, and InReach, headphones and AirPods. All of this (not including my phone or watch, bc those will be on my person) weighs in at 1.8lbs.

The toiletries and Med kit coming with me weigh in at 21 ounces together. The toiletries include a hairbrush, hair ties, a few Bobby pins, a folding toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss (my hygienist will be so proud), tweezers, a little hair groomer/trimmer (look, I can’t handle the idea of my unibrow making a comeback), qtips bc I have sensitive ears lol, chapstick, face sunscreen, earplugs, spray deodorant (it literally weighs an ounce AND keeps my underarms from chaffing-I could care less about smelling.. but I cannot handle raw underarms. Deodorant weighs less than body glide-so that’s how that decision was made), and a couple tampons. I have a roll of toilet paper and a thing of hand sanitizer, along with a few disposable masks and a baggie of baby wipes that will all fit in the “brain” of my pack and are easy to get to in a hurry (the brain will also have my little wallet with my ID, cash, & credit card, plus a little notebook and pen to write in if my phone is dead). The meds I’m bringing are a 3 month supply of my birth control, ibuprofen, Tylenol, Benadryl, Imodium, and in case I get sick I have a packet of Azithromycin (ZPack) and a medrol dose pack (steroids). The medical “kit” has bandaids, moleskin, tape, super glue, water purifying tablets, triple antibiotic ointment packets, alcohol swabs, and a couple sterile needles in case something looks like it needs to be popped (aka a blister or whatever 🤣)

And last but not least: the clothes!I’ll have a rain jacket and rain pants, a tank top and shorts to hike in, plus a long sleeve hooded top to hike in during colder weather. 2 sportsbras, 3 undies, 3 pair of socks (one pair will be specifically to sleep in). I’ll have a tshirt and a pair of leggings to sleep in, a pair of warm gloves and a pair of sun gloves, a warm headband that covers the ears, a regular headband and a full size buff (covers the neck to protect from the sun), sunglasses, a little camp towel, a pair of hiking sandals that I can wear with socks (I’m super cool, I know) and are also safe for water crossings, and finally, a pair of trail runners.

And I think that’s everything! Well, besides a 2L water bag and a connector for it so I can filter a larger amount of water at a time once I’ve made camp for the night.. I’m still waiting on Amazon to deliver it 🙂