Plates, Weights & Measures

With the announcement of Shakedown Trip #2 completed, I’d like to focus on gear a little bit. However, before I do that, there’s one little tidbit of information to share. My vehicle registration renewal was due in May. I thought it would be an opportune time to obtain a new personalized plate. As I began searching through DMV’s selection of Special Interest plates, I found one dedicated to the Appalachian Trail! Easy pick there, but for the personalized part of the plate… I wanted something dedicated to my thru-hike in 2015. The plate only has 6 characters available, and the first thought that occurred to me was “THRU15.” I used the website’s tool to check availability – and it was available! He shoots, he scores! Without further delay, here is the proof:

Front Plate – THRU15

Rear Plate – THRU15

Now, on to gear. When I first started researching gear, I came across this really nifty site called GearGrams. It allows one to build a “Gear Library” that contains all the gear items a person might potentially take on a trip. Each item is assigned a category like food, sleep system, shelter, electronics, tools, whatever. The categories are customizable too. Additionally, each item can be designated as either worn or as a consumable. Food, water and fuel would be examples of consumable items. Hiking clothes and trekking poles would be examples of worn items.

Then, using that library, one then creates “Gear Lists.” You can have many gear lists. For example, I have a Summer Gear List, a Winter Gear List, a Shakedown #1 Gear List, and a Shakedown #2 Gear List. Why would one do this? Because it beats the hell out of keeping a spreadsheet. Actually, if one already has a spreadsheet of gear items – it can be imported into GearGrams! Pretty nifty. Similarly, one can export a spreadsheet from GearGrams.

The super-exciting-end-product is a report and a pie chart (based on a single Gear List) that shows total weight and a breakdown of the weight by category. Perhaps the coolest feature is that GearGrams will create a URL that links directly to one of these reports which you can then share with other people! The other person just clicks the link and BAM! There’s the report – no account needed.

There’s only one caveat to GearGrams, and that is that it requires Adobe Flash Player. Most PC’s have this, but some “smartphones” do not.

So, assuming you’re on a PC Let’s illustrate: Here is a link to my gear list for Shakedown Trip #1: Shakedown Trip #1 Gear List –  You can see that the report defaults to units of grams. That is easily changed – simply click on any of the drop down menus and change it from grams to whatever unit is desired, pounds for instance. Below is a picture of the report – but seriously, you need to click the link above so you can fully explore the gear list.

GearGrams screenshot of Shakedown Trip #1’s gear

So, the total pack weight here is 34.2 pounds, including food. You might recall that I measured my total pack weight for last trip as 32 pounds. I am not sure where the 2.2 pound discrepancy lies. It is either an error in the measurement I took of final weight, or a cumulative error of all the individual items’ weights. It seriously irks me, but I cannot get stuck on that. Taking the list above as boss, with 10 pounds of food, leaves me with a 24 pound base weight. Being that my target was a 15 pound base weight, I overshot by 9 pounds – that’s a 60% overshoot for all you math people out there! Yikes!

As I consider the various things I took, some can be eliminated based on experience gained to date. For example, in the first aid category, I had no idea if chafing was going to be a problem. I brought Vaseline just in case it was an issue. However, because the Body Glide product worked so well, the Vaseline is going bye-bye. Similarly, with my feet/shoes, I had no idea if blisters would be an issue. Since they were not, I can get rid of the moleskin (well, I’ll still take one sheet of it) as well as the foot powder. As a backup to water purification, I brought a small vial of bleach. Because my Sawyer Squeeze water filtration works so well, I’m nixing the bleach. For cuts, I had brought hydrogen peroxide as a cleaning agent and Neosporin as a healing agent. The more I think about it, the peroxide is redundant so we’re going to “eighty-six” that as well. All these small items don’t weigh much on their own – but they do add up.

I have created a new gear list for Shakedown Trip #2. Here is a link to it: Shakedown Trip #2 Gear List

GearGrams screenshot of Shakedown Trip #2’s gear

So, the total pack weight here is 24 pounds, 4 of which is food. That means I am now at a 20 pound base weight. Effectively, I have eliminated 4 pounds from the last trip. Most of that loss is in the form of clothing that I know I won’t need in June. A minor amount is from First Aid items that I consider redundant from the first trip.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me with a 24 pound backpack when I leave the car on Friday, June 20th. That is infinitely preferable to a 34 pound pack, and certainly preferable to a 60 pound pack from the previous life! And when I return to the car on Sunday, June 22nd it is even better, the pack weight should be about 20 pounds. If I have consumed all my water by the end, then it should be only 16 pounds. WooHoo!!!

This squabbling over 20 and 30ish pounds may seem obsessive, but one has to remember: When I did backpack style camping in my past life, my pack routinely weighed in at 50-60 pounds!!! Back then, I had no idea that light-weight options even existed. Even if I had known, I likely could not have afforded those options. So, going from 60ish pounds to 20ish (or even 30sish) pounds is like a dream. Seriously.

So there it is… A summary of where I am at with gear and pack weight.

Wandering On…

Kelly