If you’ve been following my Long Trail progress this summer, you know by now that I am always fiddling with my gear list and experimenting with different weight, comfort, weather, and safety combinations. The gear list for my last trip from Middlebury Gap to Appalachian Gap is listed below.
I’ve also listed links to the gear lists for my previous sections because it’s interesting to see how the weight of my kit, as they say in England and Scotland, has evolved to match the wet weather conditions that I’ve experienced on the Long Trail, to date.
If you’re just getting into lightweight backpacking, my section 4 gear list below is approaching the ultralight side of the weight spectrum and is finely tuned to my body’s thermoregulation characteristics. In other words it’s not a general purpose kit, and you’d be best to add more safety options to it. But if you examine some of the choices made here, you can learn how to shave additional weight off your kit as you get more experienced with going lightweight.
Discussion
The base weight of this gear list is 32 oz. lighter than the one for Section 3. The biggest change comes from a gut rehab of my shelter system. Given the amount of rain on the Long Trail, I’ve switched to sleeping in trail shelters and only carry a tarp as a fall back option, eliminating a heavier tent. This weight reduction has given me some room to improve my sleeping comfort and I’ve added a Big Agnes Clearview air mattress, which only add a 2 oz weight penalty over a therm-a rest z-lite or torsolite ultralight sleeping pad.
You’ll note that I continue to backpack without a stove system. Eating real food instead of dehydrated mush has not only lightened my load but reduced the amount of food I need to carry if I bring calorically dense foods like PROBARs, logan bread, hard cheese, olive oil and hot sausage with me that are all yummy and don’t need to be cooked. Hiking without coffee has simply not been a problem.
In addition, I switched out my Six Moon Designs Starlite Backpack on this trip for the Gossamer Gear Mariposa which has become much more comfortable with a lighter load over high mileage days. But that’s only because my Starlite needs some TLC, so I’m shipping it off to Ron Moak at Six Moon Designs who has offered repair it for free. Thank you Ron and Six Moon Designs!
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