T -6 Days

Whenever going on one of these long hikes, it seems a requirement to put a photo of the hiking gear on your site.

So you asked for it, here it is.

I may get round to explaining what it all is at some point, but a few points of note….

• No boots. OK I forgot to include them in the photo. I won’t be going barefoot.
• No towel. A luxury that makes the cut on shorter trips, but not on these longer hikes – I am drip-dry.
• I have included both a mid-layer and a fleece, and also included my down jacket. I am still undecided here!
  • Midlayer is good to walk in and dries out quickly (14oz/400gm)
  • Fleece is better (warmer) in camp, and makes a better pillow (13oz/370gm).
  • Down jacket is really only for emergencies, if I get caught in gale on a mountaintop (10oz/280gm).
• My Kindle didn’t make the cut. Nice to have something to read, and it serves as a good map backup (PDFed maps can be read on it reasonably easily even though they are only monochrome). But too heavy. I’ll put a couple of books on the phone even though it is more power hungry.

Here’s what it looks like afterwards

18.5kg/41lbs. Hopefully it will get lighter – it has a lot of guidebooks in there initially and I always take too much food with me at the start.