Final Equipment List for JMT

Tomorrow I leave for the John Muir Trail. Here's the gear that's included in my base weight (13 lb) that will need to provide me with shelter, warmth, first aid, hot food, and any other essential function. The weight of each item (or groups of small items) is listed in my gear list.

First we look at my sleep and shelter system

Weighing in at  3.6 lb, it includes (clockwise from the top)

• Enlightened Equipment Revelation quilt (30 deg, long/wide, 750 fill)
• Klymit Kush pillow and sit pad
• Borah Gear square 9x9 ft silnylon tarp with custom guyouts
• Thermarest Neoair Xlite (regular size)
• Polycro ground sheet (from Ace Hardware)
• 6 Orange Tough Titanium Stakes (6.5 in) from zpacks
• 9 Carbon Fiber tent stakes (6 in) from Ruta Locura
• Cuben stake sack (zpacks)

 Next are my Pack and Storage items

These items weigh in at 3.9 lb and consist of

• Bearikade Weekender bear canister (rented from Wild Ideas - they offer a great discount for JMT and other thru-hikers)
• Mountain Laurel Designs Exodus pack (with SPOT GPS Messenger attached to one shoulder strap)
• Lite Trail NyloBarrier Pack liner (lighter than trash compactor bags but still plenty durable)
• Hyalite torso pad - used as a pad / support for backpack

There are also two pouches attached to the Exodus' shoulder straps. One carries a 0.5L water bottle (for easy access) and my iPhone. The other carries my camera and my notebook.

That last item is a relatively late addition. Although it weighs considerably more than the cut-down CCF pad I've been using, it provides a measure of structural rigidity that CCF pad doesn't. And for part of the trail, I expect my pack weight will be up above 25 lb. With only the CCF pad, the pack is uncomfortable above ~22-23 lb. Use of the partially inflated Hyalite pad extend that range to ~27 lb. I'd probably do better with an airbeam kit from MLD, but time and money both militated against that choice.

Next are my trail clothes or other items worn:

 This category is actually the heaviest, weighing about 4.4 lb. I includes (clockwise from left)

• Leki trekking poles (so old they have wooden handles - try finding those at REI)
• Bicycle gloves (blister protection for my palms, and sun protection for the backs of my hands - essential due to my vitiligo)
• Cotton handkerchief
• Oiled cotton hat and sunglasses (the hat and trekking poles were both with me when I reached the summit of  Longs Peak 12 year ago)
• Underwear and polyester basketball shorts
• Merino wool t-shirt (Icebreakers)
• REI gaiters, with stirrup laces replaced by hook-and-loop sewn on the back (and corresponding pieces glued to the backs of my trail shoes)
• REI merino low-cut hiking socks
• REI sock liners
• Trail running shoes (Salomon XT Wings 3).
• Notebook and mini pencil (Rite in the Rain waterproof paper)
• Timex
• Maps in a ziploc (Tom Harrison Maps, supplemented in a few key places with USGS 1:24,000 scale quadrangles downloaded and customized) This is only the first 6 days worth - the rest are contained in resupply caches.

Next are clothing items carried for warmth or weather protection:

 These weigh in at 2.8 lb. They include (Clockwise from left)

• Warm jacket (Western Mountaineering Flash Hoody, 3+ oz of 850 down fill)
• Rain Jacket and pants (DriDucks Frogg Toggs)
• Fleece gloves (Columbia)
• Rain overgloves (Outdoor Research Versaliner shell, Pertex quantum fabric)
• Merino wool 1/4 zip base layer (Icebreakers)
• Wind Shirt (Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer, packed up in its internal pocket. The tiny piece of fabric does an amazing job of deflecting the wind and weigh only 2.2 oz!)
• Fleece cap (zpacks)
• Sleeping socks (REI low-cut, different color so I don't mix them up). Sleeping sock get hiked in the next day, while the other socks are drying out from being washed the night before.
• Microfleece base layer bottoms (REI)

Most of my backpacking has been done in Southern California, where temperatures are usually very moderate, and rain that is more than a brief shower is pretty rare. The addition or rain pants and rain overgloves are in recognition that weather in September can be quite variable. In addition, I've usually gotten by just fine with a Stoic Hadron down sweater and a pair of silk base layer bottoms. But if temperatures dip into the 20's, the additional warmth provided by the WM down jacket and microfleece bottoms may make the difference between a snug and comfortable night versus one spent shivering (or getting up to heat up some water for a hot water bottle).

My Cooking kit is shown below:

This kits weighs only about 8 oz. Clockwise from top left:

• MYOG (Make Your Own Gear) windscreen from aluminum flashing
• Can pot with flat bottom (from zelph's Stoveworks)
• MYOG caddy for cook kit from a Ziploc container
• Long-handled Ti spoon (Sea to Summit) to make it easy to get into the corners of those freezer bags
• Lighter and matches
• Fuel measuring cup (repurposed cough syrup measure)
• 1 oz and 4 oz fuel bottles with denatured alcohol (bottles from US Plastics)
• Lid for can pot
• Starlyte stove with built-in pot stand (zelph's Stoveworks)
• Cup / measure / caddy top

For filtering and carrying water I rely on this equipment:

This gear also comes in at about 8 oz.

• Smart water bottle (0.5 liter because it fits neatly in one of my shoulder strap pockets)
• Two 1-liter platypus soft bottles
• A 2-liter Sawyer Squeeze water bag
• The Sawyer mini filter
• Tube for attaching the filter outlet side to one of the platypus bottles (this just makes the filtering process that much easier)
• A cut-down water bottle used as a scoop to fill the dirty water container if water is shallow or slow-flowing
• Cuben fiber bag for the filter and scoop (and some other accessory items shown below)

Although some folks have complained about the Sawyer filters becoming clogged, or the bags rupturing, my experiences with them have been almost uniformly positive. I do backflush the filter on a regular basis.
 
The final category is accessory items:

For the JMT I'm carrying more than usual, primarily due to duration between resupply opportunities and desire to have a cell phone / backup map and GPS unit. This gear totals 1.6 lb

• Two ziploc bags - one for first aid type items, the other for convenience or other items
• Thermometer (Acurite) - I carry this to be sure I can measure the comfort limits of my sleeping system
• Comb - a necessity since dreadlocks are simply not an option
• Two extra guylines for my tarp
• Charger and cable for iPhone
• iPhone with several books and complete set of maps for the JMT area pre-loaded (using the free Gaia GPS app)
• Patch kit for sleep pad and pillow
• Earplugs
• Primary and backup light (Princeton Tec Pulsar, and a pinch light I got for free)
• Extra camera battery
• Toothbrush and floss
• Penny for opening bear canister (the handle end of my spoon also works)
• Extra hair elastics
• Toothpaste (blue), Dr Bronner's soap, and Sunscreen
• Swiss Army Classic
• Small container of zinc ointment 
• Small container of ibuprofen
• Tincture of benzoin (bottle of dark liquid) for blister treatment
• Two tubes of Bonnie's Balms lip treatment / climber's salve (primarily for my feet)
• Small roll of leukotape
• Roll of cotton gauze
• Small ziploc with waterproof matches, triple antibiotic ointment, several Blist-o-Ban bandages, several large bandaids, and several steri-strips 
• And course, my camera:

I love this camera. Takes amazing pictures, didn't cost an arm and a leg, and weighs in at 8.5 oz. If you're not dedicated to your SLR (and I can see why folks are), this is a fantastic little camera. If you don't believe me - look at the John Muir Trail banner photo - taken with this very camera.

This gear weighs in at 13 lb for my base weight. Given an expected maximum load of food plus fuel coming out of Muir Trail Ranch of nearly 10 lb., I can still keep my total pack weight right around 25-26 lb at most (13 lb base wt + 10 lb food and fuel + 2-3 lb of water carried).

Gear is all in ready to be be packed up tomorrow morning. Checklist is done:

Time to hit the trail!