PCT Gear List: What Has Changed?

First off, let me connect you with an article about what I carried on the Appalachian Trail, here.

Now that some background has been provided, let’s talk about what has changed.

The Big Three

I loved my Gossamer Gear tent and my Enlightened Equipment quilt so much that I decided to keep them in the lineup.

I did change out my Gossamer Gear Mariposa 60 pack for another though.

Here is why:

It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy my Mariposa. The opposite is actually true. Gossamer Gear makes a darn comfortable pack and, despite the 30 pound weight limit listed on the website, I have personally witnessed it hold, while remaining a comfortable pack, well over that on many an occasion and for lengthy periods of time.

Sure, there are things I don’t like about the Mariposa, but it served me well for the 2,201.9+ miles of the Appalachian Trail and the Amicalola Falls pre-trail.

For the real reason I’m going to be trying another pack, we have to go back to my second day on the Appalachian Trail.

After arriving at Hawk Mountain Shelter and pitching my tent in one of the provided spots, I stood around surveying the crowd that had collected inside the shelter. It had rained most of the day and the shelter was packed with mostly green hikers.

I noticed another hiker standing outside the hubbub. We struck up a conversation. One of the topics we talked about was our bags. He wanted to know how I liked mine and I took one look at his and loved it. We talked about switching bags for a few days. While this never came to fruition, I always admired his pack whenever I walked behind him.

What Was It?

It was the Hyperlite Southwest, in black.

I am a sucker for nice, crisp looking, black gear.

Becoming more curious about it, I spoke to other people with the same bag and got consistently stellar reviews throughout the entirety of my thru-hike.

I looked at the price once or twice and, deciding I would like the 4400 better than the smaller two sizes, wrote the pack off as a pipe dream because of its hefty price tag.

Fast Forward

Having met my girlfriend on the Appalachian Trail, it’s not too difficult to imagine that we live in two different states, pretty far apart. I visit as often as possible but my current job doesn’t afford me the ability to visit over the holidays or the weeks leading up to them because of a vast increase in workload. Because of this, her and I decided to do Christmas a little over a month early.

Among a great many other hiking related gifts, the final and largest one I opened contained a Hyperlite Southwest 4400, in black. I can’t think of a gift I’ve received in my entire life that I’ve liked better or been more excited about. I packed it the day after I got home and got it ready for our Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike.

My Knife

The day after I finished my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, the two other members of our tramily and our dog piled into a rental car and started driving home….

I’m not one for specificity.

If I can see your line of thought and understand what you said or meant to say, I don’t really care how it comes out of your mouth. That said, there are a few things I insist on specificity and accuracy about.

Those of you who have followed this blog for any amount of time know me to be a knife-head. Always have been, always will be. my greatest annoyance on trail was that my trail name, Bowie, had nothing to do with the knife I carried, the Nordic-style leuku, which won me that name.

…On the drive home from the Maine to Pennsylvania, I had a mind to fix that irksome detail. I contacted my guy who custom makes all of my knives and put in an order for a knife fit for one with the trail name of Bowie.

He obliged.

The Knife:

It’s big, it’s bold, its beautiful. It’s a clip point, 12 inch long, 7 millimeter thick bowie knife with desert ironwood handle scales, stainless pins, a stainless finger guard, and a heft that would make Jake LaMotta baulk.

Excessive?

Nah.

You have to be serious about a thing as sacred as a trail name.

Water System

Lastly, I changed up my water system.

On the Appalachian Trail, I bounced back and forth between a Katadyn BeFree 1 liter filter bottle and a Sawyer Mini attached to a regular LIFE WTR bottle which I would squeeze into another bottle as backup and drink straight from when water sources were frequent.

BeFree Filters:

The BeFree filters are incredibly fast compared to all other methods I’ve tried when it comes to filtering water. However, they clog quickly and then their speed diminishes greatly. There is also no real way to back-flush them and the methods of cleaning them listen on the bottle itself only work so well once you reach a certain point.

They are pretty expensive to replace also.

Sawyer Filters:

The sawyer filters are much slower but quick enough to avoid being an annoyance. You can also back-flush them provided you remember to pack out the provided cleaning syringe.

But when you attach them directly to a bottle, you are left with no other option than to pour out the contents of that bottle if you haven’t kept the bottle cap. Keeping the bottle cap tends to be inefficient because you don’t often need it when drinking directly from the Sawyer filter. This becomes a problem when you run into freezing temperatures though, especially at night.

In order to sleep with your filter and prevent it from being destroyed by freezing you then have to pour the water you collected and it is wasted. Not only that but you don’t have any for when you wake up thirsty at night.

My Solution:

I solved this issue by sticking with the Sawyer filter. You can’t beat the ability to backflush in the field. However, I bought a silicon 3L bottle from Hydrapak, the Plug-N-Play cap, and the corresponding male end plug that they make to fit the Sawyer Mini filter. This allows me to fill the bottle, plug in my filter, and then unplug it as needed without spillage.

I can now protect my filter from freezing at any time of the day or night, not risking getting myself or my quilt wet.

In Conclusion

I added a few things which I will only carry through the Sierras also. Those things are of course microspikes, an ice axe, and a bear canister.

Unless I am mistaken, the rest of my gear has remained the same as it was on the Appalachian Trail.

Extra: A More or Less Accurate Spreadsheet of My Current Gear

 

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