Gear Review

SWD Long Haul 40 – Absolutely adore this pack. The dual adjust hip belt was absolutely excellent and I can’t imagine wearing a pack without it. The fully loaded Ursack wouldn’t squeeze in horizontally which was really annoying though. I’m probably going to sell this one and buy my own custom one. Try to get some shoulder pockets, a bigger hipbelt and maybe some other fancy add ons.

GG Thinlight – This was an absolute pleasure to have on trail. Sit pad, yoga matt, used it as a ground sheet if it was rocky, etc.

Quilt – I don’t know how people use cold weather quilts without an insulated footbox. This really worked quite well but the pad attachment system started to fall apart on me. Its time to move on.

StS Etherlight XT – Loved this pad. So much better than huffing and puffing into my old neoair. The valve is awesome and it came with little Velcro things that hold the pillow in place. Gamechanger.

DD X-Mid – I cannot rave enough about this tent. My tramily and I would get to camp and I’d be pitched up before they were done pulling their tents out of their bag. Pitching tarp only was so handy for waiting out storms. The double wall made condensation a non issue for me while others suffered. Still so light at 30 oz. Always felt safe and secure even in nasty storms and winds unlike my old Zpacks. 10/10 Dan.

Bugshirt – Glad I brought my insectshield longsleeve. Versatility of rolling the sleeves up in the sun vs avoiding the mosquito hellscape when it got bad was awesome.

Socks – Really appreciated having three different thickness levels of socks for different weather. Three pairs was the perfect amount for me too.

Gaiters – I guess this worked? Looked rad too.

Hat – Having a widebrim was so nice for storms along with sun. Kept hail from smacking my shoulders, rolled a little rain off if you were huddled over your pack, etc.

OR Helium II – I don’t know. Kind of disappointed. Wet out on me once in that storm. It just doesn’t feel like much. Think I’m going back to the frogg toggs, was just trying to avoid not looking like a garbage bag but oh well.

ULA Rain Kilt – Wouldn’t bring this again. Constricts foot movement and is kind of annoying.

Melanzana – I personally didn’t wear this much when active but it was great sleep/camp wear. Was good the few times I needed it while hiking but obviously got hot quick on uphills.

Duluth Underwear – These were awesome. Totally get why people rave about these. Light and breezy, a little smellproof.

Repair – Going to start carrying tenacious tape and seam seal kit.

NU25 – Love this damn head lamp so much. Great battery, multiple options are awesome.

Ursack/Opsak – Who knows if this thing would actually survive a real bear attack. I heard of a few getting shredded on early segments. It was nice to have a little mental excuse to not have to hang food but if I was out in the wild with no foreseeable town access, I would not trust this thing without hanging it. The Opsaks were total pieces of shit. Maybe lasted two days before those seals broke. There is no way they are actually scent proof. Would trust a ziplock over that. Slept with my food a few nights, tied my food around a tree close by a few nights and if we were in high bear activity areas we’d actually hang it. Only had one encounter where we scared it off at night.

Platypus QuickDraw – This filter and bag were so awesome. Fast pour, works with the bag they give you and smartwater bottles. The little handle on the bag, the wide mouth, never felt too cold or at risk of being poked like the BeFree, it was great. Until the bag tore through normal use. Also met other hikers whose bags broke at the same point so its clearly a design flaw. Would not trust it for anything longer than two weeks. The filter was really damn good for the trail until I got to the farm land. Water there was actually mucky and I even prefiltered it with a bandana but it still significantly slowed down my quickdraw. I washed it out in Lake City according to the instructions and it helped a lot but didn’t get back to normal rates. I don’t know why all these companies can’t just make these backflush too. It would also be sweet to be able to screw a smart water bottle on clean side. Being able to tell if the filter had been compromised over freezing temps was very very handy. Overall, I think this filter will get the job done where water can be expected to stay semi clean. I would not take it on desert trail. My buddy used a sawyer which was slower but had it set up to work by gravity which I was a little jealous of at times. Might try something like that soon. By the end of the trail I was using a CNOC water bag which I would highly recommend.

Snow Peak Gigapower – This thing was nice but definitely suffered at times in the wind. Thinking I might get the nicer PocketRocket or the Soto Windmaster.

IMUSA mug – Also well past my time to upgrade this. Titanium would be really nice and eliminate the need for my hot hands bandana.

Electronics – The fast charger was super handy for quick day town stops. Would definitely recommend having this for thru hikes. The NB10000 was also super nice, never ran out of charge, was fast charger compatible as well, one port for my phone, one for my headphones. Glad I went with this set up.

Photography – I love photography and I know I brought heavy gear but this is part of why I’m out there. The a6000 has been such an excellent camera. I’ve been shooting for 4-5 years and have never felt limited until now. It is very very capable and I highly recommend this camera if you’re getting into the field. This lens setup was also very versatile. It was kind of annoying having to switch lenses every now and then but whatever. My buddy had made me a little cuben bag with foam to carry them in. The peak design clip was so good to have. It did however cause my left shoulder to become sore faster than my right. I also noticed sweat would get trapped and cause skin discoloration under that strap. But tbh, don’t see a better way to do this. The clip was also the same format as my tripod which was very nice. The tripod was a little heavy but I got a lot of use out of it. Probably wouldn’t bring it on another through though. Also, I initially kind of packed it weird which would cause legs to get loose while I walked and ultimately one segment dropped out somewhere in the Collegiates I would never recover. After I started strapping it in better, this issue would cease to exist. It also bore a hole through my bag. I think I’m looking at upgrading to the a7r3 soon.

Hygiene – Please do not hike a well used long trail like this without a proper trowel. Even with my Deuce of Spades, it was often challenging to dig a good cathole, I can’t imagine trying to do it with stakes or sticks. LNT. I also like the bidet system and would just use one wipe which was easy enough to pack out.

Overall Overview

This was my first thru hike so I had quite a few thoughts. This felt like a completely different beast than any of my previous trips. I went into this thing thinking ‘oh this will be a fun thing to do this summer’, but I got my ass kicked by this trail day after day after day. I totally underestimated how much getting to come back and recover makes a difference. Its like a marathon vs a 5k. Your main goal every day is to maintain your body and listen for any alarm bells. My concern going into this was how much I would like being outside for this long, but truthfully I loved it. I only zeroed in towns because my body wouldn’t let me keep going.

I had spent a year strength conditioning (mostly for other reasons) but I am so so so glad I did. I did zero cardio before I began hiking. Zero flexibility training as well. Moving forward, this hike taught me about how out of shape I still am. By week 3 my muscles were too weak to hold my tendons in place. I did not stretch right those first two weeks either. This is likely what resulted in my numerous knee/tendon issues. I need a bigger butt and I have to keep things loose from the get-go. Moving forward, I’m going to keep on strength training and pick up yoga once a week. Not doing enough cardio wasn’t a giant detriment but to be honest, I should probably just start doing this anyways cause being able to churn uphills near the end of the hike makes you feel like a beast. I plan on the PCT 2023/2024 and if I do it, I want to come in completely ready and not at risk of being pulled off from injury. I’m also going to switch to two poles which I’m hoping will also help my knees. I also will plan on starting slower instead of pushing 17-18 a day from the beginning. 10-12s the first week, 12-15s the second, and so on and so forth. Let the body break itself in. I will take stretching every morning and night seriously. Probably also get orthopedic foot inserts.

Also started to think about where I’m at and where I’m going in life. I always thought I’d have this big epiphany on trail and figure it all out so to speak. That didn’t really happen. I just found out that I really liked doing exactly that. I’ve kind of lived life in the pursuit of making an impact and working hard to build cool stuff that could further humanity but I think doing this opened the question of ‘why don’t you just spend your life doing stuff you want to do?’ Is that being lazy? I don’t really know. I felt very conflicted after I came back from the trail.

I’m also trying to live a little more sustainably for myself. I spent too much time partying and going out vs doing fun stuff. Going to try to join a climbing gym or something.

I ended up accepting that job I was interviewing for along the trail and am now moving to the other side of the country so that feels like a brand new adventure too. I went back and forth on this a lot and thought about it a lot towards the end of the hike and on my way back. If I stayed at my current position, I could hike the PCT 2023 worry free but there’s no guarantee of that at this new job. At the end of the day, I chose to accept potentially postponing that for a lifestyle change. I’m glad I did, otherwise it would have felt like I’m slipping back into the same ol’ post hike.

I highly recommend anyone and everyone try a long distance trail at some point. It was my privilege to have the health, time and opportunity to walk this walk. Till the next one, Gatekeeper out.