As COVID-19 skill building, I made a YouTube video! In the first of a series of videos I imagined while hiking the JMT, I present “How to JMT: Pack a Backpack”:
Future topics may include how to:
You can read more about the gear I used on the JMT and my gear philosophy (totally not fussed) at this previous blog post.
It seems like long-distance hikers, thru-hikers, ultralight hikers and outdoorsy people in general like to talk about gear too much. I think this is because (1) it’s easier to shop for gear online than to actually go outside and train in preparation for an objective and (2) reviewing gear and talking about gear and wearing and raving about sponsor’s gear is how all the “influencers” make money.
I feel very ambivalent about people bandying around numbers about how big the outdoor industry is and how it should have more political clout. As much as I appreciate what Patagonia does in sponsoring creative endeavors like The Dirtbag Diaries and fighting for Bears Ears, I don’t think that we can spend our way out of the environmental crises, no matter how environmentally friendly your camp shoes are. What we need to do is what they used to teach in elementary school back in the 80’s, before environmental issues were so politicized — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. (Patagonia realizes this too.)
The outdoor community in the United States is very white and very privileged. People often talk about camping and backpacking as if it is free! Outdoor gear is very expensive and obsession with the latest and lightest gear can make costs appear even more daunting and insurmountable for #unlikelyhikers just trying to get into the outdoors. Having the right gear is important. For example, having a sleeping bag that is warm enough and light enough and not too bulky will definitely be key to an enjoyable backpacking experience. But, shaving off a few grams from your pack weight by buying a $20 titanium spork?… Probably not necessary. (Full disclosure: I had said titanium spork and am still sad I lost it. Still hoping it will turn up.)
When I started putting together my backpacking gear in 2016, I did buy nice, fancy, lightweight “Big Three” — pack, shelter and sleeping bag — after intensively researching the interwebs. And, I have been really happy with those choices. However, the rest of my kit was developed over time by cobbling together stuff I already had (my tiny Thermos was initially purchased to be a purse Thermos for commuting to work) or by trying the cheapest option (I still use a BRS stove) and gradually buying more expensive pieces as I figured out what would actually enhance my quality of life on the trail, e.g. moving from a Chinese knock-off Thermarest Z-lite sleeping pad to a real insulated inflatable pad. If you are interested in putting together a beginner backpacking kit on the cheap, PMags’ blog is a great resource, as he says “[t]he best way to learn about backpacking is not discussing gear online or going to gear sales but is actually to get out there.”
Without further ado, here is my JMT gear list.
What I looked like camping on the JMT in 2017. My quilt is draped over my tent to dry out a bit over breakfast before we pack up.
– I started out with a larger aluminum pot, but figured out that I am pretty happy boiling about 600ml of water for dinner and a hot beverage (coffee in the morning and tea in the evening), so I upgraded to this little titanium pot which fits a small 4 oz fuel canister.
– NEW! Trying this out because silicon spatula sides sound good for cleaning out pot without awful scraping noise. Long spoons are popular for getting food out of the bottom of Mountain House meal bags. It looks kinda ridiculous next to my tiny pot though.I already wrote about my gear following my Yakushima Trek (read here), but Kiwi Sig Other thinks it’d be interesting for y’all to see what it looks like and how I pack. I’m just a beginner backpacker (lifetime 3 overnight backpacking trips) and made my gear choices based on other peoples’ great blogs and Youtube videos. On the Internets, newbies often post about all their gear and ask a more experienced community for a shakedown, but I haven’t ever weighed my stuff since I don’t have a scale and I think the key is probably to get out there with all your gear and figure out what works and what you can live without.
Here’s pretty much all the stuff I brought on the Shinetsu Trail, minus food and clothing worn.
All the things in my pack for the Shinetsu Trail. How did I fit it all in there? With food, too!
From left to right, top to down- ish:
First Aid Kit
I took Wilderness Advanced First Aid with WMA Japan in May (hope to finally write up a post about that experience soon), which led to beefing up my first aid kit. This is what I threw together for now.
What’s in my kit (roughly top to bottom, left to right):
This is a work in progress. I’ve got a swiss army knife and some other things in my pack that double as first aid tools. As with anything else in the outdoors, it all comes down to experience and your kit is only as good as your knowledge, so I highly recommend getting trained in Wilderness First Aid if you want to spend any extended period in the outdoors.
Here are some links I found useful about building your own first aid kit for hiking:
Electronics
Self-explanatory: iPhone charger, earphones, earplugs, spare batteries for headlamp, headlamp, external battery that charges my iPhone 5 SE 3-4 times.
Toiletries
Self-explanatory: Hotel disposable toothbrush, toothpaste, moisturizer, contact solutions, contact case, glasses (getting Lasik soon to so I won’t have to bring all the eye stuff).
Honestly, I didn’t use that face cream until after I finished the trip and I forgot to bring lipbalm. It’s probably generally humid enough in Japan in the summer that you don’t need to bring any moisturizer, sunblock will be enough. Here’s something I read recently that provides good perspective for women on how to let go of the need to groom and look good all the time: http://www.foxintheforest.net/be-wild-love-yourself/.
Paper things
Forgot to include this in my overview photo above, because I was using the contents to write my Shinetsu Trail blogpost. I carried a book, maps, a small journal and a pen in another ziplock.
Cook-set
Playing matryoshka with my camp cooking gear
I bought a new 750ml titanium cookpot for solo-hiking, but when Genna decided to come along, I realized that now I have the perfect two person cook-set, because the smaller pot weights next to nothing and packs neatly in my old 900ml cookpot. My two-person cook-set consists of:
Here’s what cooking dinner looks like:
Ready to go in the morning!
Oh yeah, I actually made the last minute decision to clip some 100 yen shop flipflops to the outside of my pack. It was definitely nice to have camp shoes (especially after a swim), but they are not essential. Up in the air on whether I would bring them again.
What hiking blog would be complete without a post about gear? On my Yakushima trip, I finally got to test out my “big three” pieces of gear that I collected in anticipation of my JMT hike.
(Disclaimer: I’m testing out some Amazon affiliate links in this post. So, yeah, I’m really cool and you want to be just like me. So buy all the same things I have so I can make money and never have to go back to a desk job.)
I believe this is the most popular pack for PCT and AT thru-hikers. I met a guy at the hostel in Kagoshima who had hiked the AT and who was carrying the same pack. It comes in purple, so I was sold. I have long torso, so I ordered regular length with a small waistbelt. When I carried it back from the US it hurt my back weird and I was worried I got the wrong size. However, I moved the waist belt up as high as it will go and now it fits fine. When I put everything in the pack, it was heavy to lift, but once on my back it didn’t feel heavy. I guess that’s what you want in a pack right?
I did lose my 1L Nalgene bottle from one of the side pockets in northern Kyushu (probably from putting it on a luggage rack on the train), but aside from that functionality seems good.
This tent appealed to me because it has no tent poles and can just be squished into its stuff sack, or anywhere. Also it is very roomy for a one-person ultra-light tent (no leaving pack outside under vestibule) and at $180 + $30 for seam sealing, it was cheap compared to other tents I was considering.
Some online reviews mention condensation issues, but I did not experience any, despite the rainy and humid conditions on Yakushima (but it wasn’t cold anywhere I used it). Other reviews mention a learning curve for pitching the tent right. The tent sets up with a trekking pole and minimum of 6 stakes. I got an extra stake and guyline to create more headroom and stability in the wind. I practiced setting the tent up once in Yoyogi Park before I left for my trip. Then I had a crash course in setting it up in a thunderstorm when I got to Yakushima and then a crash course setting it up in the rain with no stakes using rocks and concrete blocks when I arrived at South Village. At South Village, the next morning I did some adjustments to pitch the tent a bit higher to make the floor float properly and get more air flow, but I never got wet and the tent didn’t collapse overnight when I just hastily pitched it in the rain. The silnylon is a bit stretchy and billows in the wind but it’s quiet (doesn’t make any slappy noises), and since I put in an extra stake for headroom, the billowing didn’t bother me at all and I slept great. I was a bit worried about it not being freestanding, but now I’m not. This is a very comfy tent for people like me who like having good ventilation. May not be as good for people seeking warmth from their shelter (but not sure any tent provides that). Due to the shape, even though this tent has almost as much floor space as many 2-person ultralight tents, most of that floor space does not have headroom, so it really is only a 1-person tent, just with tons of room to spread out your gear.
If I buy a two-person tent in the near future (so Kiwi sig other can join me on some adventures), I’m considering the Tarptent Double Rainbow just because I like the name. I aspire to reach this level of stoke in the outdoors!
Perhaps my greatest enjoyment in life is sleeping, and this quilt is so light and warms up so fast it’s like sleeping in a cloud. I used this as my primary comforter all winter in Nozawa, when I figured I’d practice living without heat. After the first night in Shintakazuka Hut, I woke up and put on my still damp hiking clothes from the day before. I didn’t feel particularly cold even though I could see my breath in the darkness of the hut. Later in the day chatting with other hikers who had stayed at Shintakazuka, they complained it had been cold at night and that they had to get up and put on more layers. I wore a normal cotton T-shirt and some Uniqlo Heattech Extra Warm tights as PJs. I was never cold, so I guess my quilt worked great! I’m going to get a thermometer so that in the future I actually know how cold it was to gauge whether this sleeping bag is sufficient for the Sierras in early October.
The quilt was great for a place with climate as varied as Yakushima. Camping at subtropical sea level, I could unzip it flat and just put a corner over my belly. Here’s a great video about why quilts are better than sleeping bags:
For this trip I used the quilt with a cheap imitation Thermarest Z lite foam sleeping pad I got off Amazon
All my campsites were flat with no pokey things, and I was pretty comfy. With my superpowers of being able to sleep anywhere, I can even side sleep on a cheap foam pad. Listening to people blow up air pads and have to faff with deflating them in the morning at the huts makes me think I will just stick with a foam pad. It was also super convenient to just throw down and mark my spot on the ferry.
The only annoying thing is having a bulky thing strapped to the outside of your pack when the trail is super narrow and overgrown and you have to climb under trees or out of holes like on the Onoaida Trail, and I’m thinking of chopping it down a little so it packs better.
I hiked in my Brooks Cascadia trail runners, partly as an experiment and partly because I was travelling to Yakushima following a yakimono tour in northern Kyushu and clomping around in hiking boots would’ve been annoying for the other part of my trip. The good thing about hiking in trail runners was that Yakushima is really wet. Because most of the island is a giant piece of granite with a thin covering of soil, wherever there is trail, there is likely water running down it. The hiking your shoes dry thing advocated by Andrew Skurka really works. When I pulled into camp early the second day, I put my shoes in a patch of afternoon sun and they were completely dry in less than an hour. On the other hand, on the third day, going down the treacherous Onoaida Trail, my ankles really suffered from lack of support.
I bought a super cheap tiny canister stove
The tiny no brand Made in China stove worked great. I came up with a routine to boil 600ml of water at dinner and breakfast. I would pour 300ml into my little Thermos for a hot drink (coffee in the morning, herbal tea at night – actually one night I made umeshu oyuwari from some homemade umeshu generously offered to me by another hiker) and then use the remaining 300 ml for the hot part of my meal (instant ramen at dinner, two packs of instant miso soup for breakfast). So I’m now considering upgrading to this 700ml titanium cook pot
I brought way more clothing than necessary, but I used everything.
My basic hiking outfit was:
For outer layers I had:
PJs/camp clothes:
On the first day of hiking, going upward in elevation, I was really sweaty when I showed up at camp and couldn’t wait to get into dry camp clothes. (In the morning, putting on cold, damp hiking clothes was fine; they warmed up and dried right away when I started hiking.) The second day, hiking at high elevation, I didn’t get sweaty and probably would’ve been fine sleeping in my hiking clothes. But all in all, I think I’m going to be a hiker that carries PJs. The sleep comfort is worth it!
Other weather protection:
really do stay warm when wet. However, they totally get destroyed by velcro on my snowboard jacket, snowboard boots, etc. Not a problem for hiking, fortunately. (I also have a breath thermo balaclava
which I really like because it is really thin and doesn’t get too wet and gross when you breath through it.)Onsen kit: (That’s right! A third set of clothes! Totally not ultralight hiking! Brought this stuff in anticipation of having two chill days at the hostel.)
Water system – Sawyer Squeeze Water Filter
Trekking poles – I would have died on Onoaida Trail without trekking poles. I have PaceMaker Stix Expedition Trekking Poles
Toiletries:
made by the agriculture union on Toshima, one of the Izu islands that looks like a little cupcake floating in the sea. Why pay LVMH for a brand name when you can get it straight from the producer way cheaper. It also makes cool Tokyo omiyage since it’s technically a product of Tokyo.)Other camp goods:
so that I can use it to carry water and some essentials when I drop my heavy pack to go off on a side trail.I feel like gear wise I was very prepared. The first night I pulled out my headlamp and it wouldn’t turn on, but I was prepared with spare batteries. After this hike, the only things I would add to my kit are a thermometer, a proper orienteering compass (I have a crappy one stuck on my key chain), and a small packable backpack. As a final note, on the way back to Tokyo, Jetstar let me check my pack in (on a domestic Japanese flight) with my sleeping pad and trekking poles just strapped to the outside. (I left my fuel can and lighter at the hostel along with my unused wag bags for the next hiker.)
the journey is the journey
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A window into my year in Hualien teaching English at Fu Shi Elementary School as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant!
Two bikes, one life, and the whole world to see
Grand Enchantment Trail 2018 | Pacific Crest Trail 2016 | Colorado Trail 2015
write. adventure. craft.
write. adventure. craft.
Making Lemonade since 2011 | by Brendan Leonard
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