6 days until I leave for the trail, so a last few things to point out before I go.  If you want to see where I am on the trail, the place to look will be on the SPOT Map.  This will be updated daily with my position, a short message, and occasionally pictures and links to the blog.

Having added it all up, it seems like my pack will weigh about 33lbs on day one of the hike, including 3 days of food, 1L of water and some stove fuel.  Once I get out of the worst of the snow, that will go down by about 7lbs on average.  The gear locker has been filled in (mostly), so if you want to get a visual sense of what I’ll be carrying, it’s almost all there.  If you’re more of a “numbers” person, I have a whole spreadsheet of gear here, but the meat of it is this:

For the first couple weeks, I will likely be carrying a few added/changed items:

• Change: Windshirt (115g) out, Montbell Peak Shell (311g) in
• Change: Regular baskets for trekking poles out, snow baskets in
• Add: BD Raven Pro Ice Axe (430g)
• Add: Kahtoola 10pt Crampons (589g)
• Add: MEC Power dry Long Johns (~100g)
• Add: MSR Lightning Ascent Snowshoes (1760g)

So I will be at almost exactly 23lbs for base weight (no food, water, or stove fuel).  I will hopefully be sending the snowshoes home quickly, and hang onto the rest for awhile longer just in case.

In the past I would have considered myself quite a snob when it comes to tech toys in the wilderness.  I prefer to hike with as little as possible.  On the PCT I carried a small camera and a headlamp (and extra batteries for both).  For the CDT, I’m adding a Kindle, iPhone, and SPOT Connect (along with batteries and charging cables).

The Kindle was actually the easiest one to justify to myself.  It has incredible battery life, claimed to be 30 days of reading, which I will be testing vigorously (I read a lot).  On the PCT I usually carried a paperback book, and occasionally two.  The Kindle weighs less than an average paperback. I’m no more concerned about getting it wet than I was for a book (for either, a ziplock will keep it dry enough).

The iPhone will be doing a lot of things in moderation for me.  It has relatively poor battery life and I am stubbornly refusing to carry any kind of solar charger (heavy).  I get ~16 hours of use every day out of it, so I figure with no WiFi, 3G, or phone portion turned on, it will last a week or two if I generally keep it off.  The main job of my phone will be to use its GPS – I have an app called GaiaGPS which contains the same maps as I have on paper, but can provide me my exact location along with larger area maps.  This is useful if I ever need to find a way out of the wilderness if I get in trouble.  Additionally, I’ll be using it to write daily journals which will be sent when I get access to WiFi or a data connection in towns.  Finally, it will allow me to get the lightest kind of SPOT, which uses Bluetooth to talk to an iPhone app.  I’m also looking forward to not having to beg for computer access when I’m in town.  An iPhone can do most of what I want – email, ordering gear, phoning home, etc.

SPOT Connect is a relatively new thing, a little cube of warm, fuzzy safety.  By itself, all it can do is send out an SOS signal via satellites which calls in the cavalry (aka a helicopter or SAR team).  When paired with an iPhone, it can send mini-status updates via the same satellites whenever I like.  My plan is to send daily updates from my camp each night.  Once I get hiking there will be a map you can view showing my expected path and where I am along it.

Overall I’m somewhat ambivalent about all this stuff.  I work with computers all day, and one of the joys of hiking for me is how it simplifies my life.  As I’ve gone through the planning process for the CDT though, I’ve discovered that the complexity of this trail relative to the PCT requires some compromises.  I was surprised by the demands of my family and girlfriend to stay safe in contrast to the PCT where this was never mentioned.  I suspect no one realized how remote and wild the PCT was until I started calling home and sending pictures.

Getting close to departure time, 10 days and counting.  Right now it’s looking like I’ll be spending some nights sleeping on snow, so it’s time to consider what I’ll wear to bed and how I’ll be keeping the cold out.  The biggest part, which I’ve already covered, is my sleeping bag.  After that, it’s crucial to have a sleeping pad that will stop the ground from leeching my heat away… Especially if that ground is snow!

For most people, sleeping pads are easy.  You can buy a piece of blue foam from Canadian Tire or any number of more technical foam pads depending on how cold you’re expecting things to be.  Unfortunately for me, I can only sleep on my side.  Side-sleeping on foam is not very comfortable for me, usually resulting in me waking up every 30 minutes to roll over because my arm is numb.  If only I could sleep on my back, I would be way more comfortable.

For the PCT, I used a Thermarest Prolite 3 Short, a kind of self-inflating air mattress.  I choose the short versions because I don’t mind having my feet on the ground and it saves a bunch of weight.  When it’s cold I generally am curled up in a ball anyways, so there’s no issue there either.

In the last couple years, there have been some great advances in air mattress technology, and on the CDT I will be taking advantage of it.  A Thermarest NeoAir is twice as thick as my old Prolite 3, weighs less, packs up more tightly, and is generally just way more comfortable.  Prolite 3s have foam inside, that I assumed provided the insulation.  NeoAirs are really just robust air mattresses, so I was somewhat skeptical about their insulative powers.  Having now slept on mine in enough cold conditions, my fears have been eased – the NeoAir seems to be at least as warm as my Prolite 3.

Other than that, if I’m expecting cold weather, I usually add some long johns, a merino wool shirt, and a toque to my gear.  I will probably start the CDT with all of these.  They aren’t the thickest versions (mid-weight long johns, very thin merino shirt, and a knit toque), but it seems to be enough to get me by.

It might seem like a tent is home after a hundred nights, but I am much more attached to my sleeping bag. I have a Western Mountaineering Megalite, which is a down mummy bag rated to 0C. Unlike a lot of sleeping bag manufacturers, Western Mountaineering is not kidding when they rate a bag. Their marketing people don’t knock off 15 degrees and let you freeze because it “looks good on the tag” or some other crap like that. I’m possibly a little bit bitter about some previous sleeping bag purchases…

Moving on! There’s always a debate when it comes to sleeping bags about whether they should be filled with down or synthetic. The main argument for synthetic bags is that they are cheap and stay warm when wet. Down’s advantage is that it is incredibly warm for it’s weight. I’ve found that synthetic bags lose their loft (loft is essentially the puffiness of the bag) very quickly, within 2-3 years they are nearly useless. My understanding is that if you never compress a synthetic bag, it will last a long time, but that’s never really been an option for me.

That leaves me with down bags, which I’ve always been extra careful to keep dry, and not compress more than necessary. My CDT sleeping bag will be the same as I used for the PCT, it still looks like new. One interesting thing I’ve learned from reading articles on backpackinglight.com (sadly, you have to be a member to read it) is that people have actually tested the idea that “down is worse when wet than synthetic” and discovered that it is only marginally true. Both perform poorly when wet, down is worse, but down generally dries out much more quickly.

The negative side of down sleeping bags is their cost. The loftiest down bags made by top-notch companies like Western Mountaineering, Feathered Friends, and Montbell all cost $300+ for a 0C bag. I’m willing to pay considering the use I expect get out of it (150+ nights in it and counting). I also appreciate that down is very compressible and light – the Megalite is 1.5lbs, about half of what my previous synthetic bag was.

I’ve ended up with a down bag that I am very careful with. When I get in my tent, usually the sleeping bag stays in its waterproof sack until I’m out of any wet clothes.  If the inside of the tent was wet, I usually mop it up as best I can. I have to be careful in the night and morning of not brushing the sides of my tent. These all seem like reasonable sacrifices to my gram-counting heart.