RainyDayKid's Bigass Backpacking thread

[rainydaykidParticipant 42]

This is at the request of a few people on this forum that read some of my posts about hiking and wilderness survival. Originally, I was posting in the Global Warming or not thread, but did not want to derail that post further, so I will put those posts here in addition to more information.

 

I pretty much introduced myself awhile back, so I won’t go into that, but I have been hiking and camping a long time. I have never had the peace and solitude anywhere else that I can get in the woods. I have also had an interest in wilderness survival and bushcrafting, because my style of hiking is to go out by myself in harsher that normal conditions for the most part, and be alone for most of that time. I do have medical training, I served as a medic with the 293rd MP Co in Mosul, Iraq, 2004. Other skills I taught myself over the years.

 

My style of backpacking is to be in the woods for weeks at a time, bathing and taking care of all my needs in the woods. I’ll come out for food. This thread isn’t really about survival hunting and fishing, though I have learned those skills as well. It is for long hikes(20+ miles a day) and being “self sufficient” other than getting food in grocery stores. I thru hiked the 2,185 mile Appalachian Trail in 2010, in 5 months. It was a very enjoyable experience, and I learned a lot from it. I will be flying out on 24 FEB to spend 8 months to a year out there. I am attempting to get my VA disability, and if I am successful, I will probably stay out there for years.

 

I’ll have to post my gear in another thread, as I am at my college library, but far more important than gear are skills. Things like being able to start a fire with wet wood, and in cold, rainy conditions. Building shelters, sharpening knives, wilderness hygiene, are all good and necessary skills to have if you are contemplating something like this. Go on youtube and look up bushcrafting, and wilderness survival, and learn, then most importantly, go out and practice those skills until you are proficient. Falling in a creek and needing to build an emergency fire when it’s 20 outside is not the time to start learning firecraft.

The following is from the global warming thread:

 

I’m currently taking a break from school, I have PTSD issues that don’t let me attend straight through, so I take a break and go live in the woods. So the environment is a topic pretty close to me. I see ugly construction projects and strip mines destroying beautiful forests, it’s pretty sad. People don’t understand that consumption doesn’t lead to happiness. Owning things means nothing, and almost everyone I met owns way too much. The fatbag capitalists have lied to us, and made us feel that we have to define ourselves by the things we buy and try to turn people into mindless, spending drones.

 

 

 

The first thing women ask me for the most part is what I do, as if my job defines me as a person. Women seem far more materialistic than men, but men are pretty bad too. We have to constantly fight this struggle to not buy things. Minimalism is the future. Hard for everyone to own everything they want when there are 10 billion people on the planet or more. It’s supposed to hit that around 2055 or so.

 

I’m going to be hiking and living along the Appalachian Trail, not wilderness homesteading. Different activity. There are various land places available cheap, close to small towns in the mountains. I wouldn’t build anything anywhere you didn’t own the land, it’ll get taken away.

 

 

I’m basically gonna be homeless and backpacking the trail and side trails, exploring. There is a lot of civil war history and revolutionary war stuff up north that I want to explore. I’ll take odd jobs, ect as needed in towns. I’m pretty handy with tools, and have done construction, renovation, and other random jobs over the years. I’ve heard of people bartering on the trail, I had a friend that traded some work to an outfitter in exchange for some gear he needed, fixed his roof and some random things the guy needed done around the store. It was a fair trade. I’ve worked up north a couple of days for an old hippie couple, some landscaping stuff and helped the guy finish a deck. In exchange, they cooked me delicious homecooked meals, gave me beer, and let me wash clothes and stuff.

 

 

 

Most people out there are great people, just be polite. For me, if I am still out there when I start running out of money, I will ask around. Already have a couple of prospects related to hiking, but I’ll get to know people in towns, kinda network things for later, offer to help even if I don’t need the money at the moment, if someone has a random job needs doing. I’ve had people give me food before as well, too much for them to carry, or a church group in the town I was in had cooked too much or something. I was always thankful to them and offered to help clean up or anything else that needed to be done.

 

 

 

Wasn’t going to start a thread, because not many people could fit everything they own into a backpack and just hit the trail for months at a time. It’s just a different lifestyle. I never wanted marriage, a house, the standard 9 to 5, ect. In exchange for the freedom, I have to put up with bugs, cold weather, and such. There is always a tradeoff.

 

 

 

If you are interested in some of the skills I found important, you can check out bushcrafting, wilderness homesteading, some of the survival stuff, starting fires in bad conditions, things like that. There won’t be a lot of hikers for the time and location I am going, so I will be pretty much on my own for at least a couple of months.

 

My gear weight is 16lbs base pack weight. This is enough to keep me warm and comfortable to 15 degrees or so. Generally, I don’t wear much while hiking, because you generate a lot of body heat. Walking full speed, I am fine with a windproof jacket(patagonia Adze is excellent), watch cap, polypro neck gaiter, and army glove liners to mid 20’s. I add polypro pants if it is really cold, generally only wear them at night or in camp, because they are a pain in the ass to take off(gotta take your shoes and outer pants off first).

 

 

Total pack weight fully loaded with food and water maxes out at 35lbs, though I generally stick with about 28lbs total weight. Food lasts about a week.

 

 

 

I use a 3L GI Camelbak with a Sawyer squeeze filter as an inline filter, they are good to 100K gallons, have a syringe for backflushing, and are about 20 bucks. I can boil water with a small cookpot if needed. I carry a Mora Robust carbon steel knife with a sharpener and firesteel. I won’t list all my gear for now.

 

I have a 15 degree synthetic bag(down can get wet) and if it is really cold, I make a leaf bed about a foot deep, put my pad and bag down, then fill the rest of the tent with leaves, then crawl into the bag. I can also fill my jacket with dry grass and leaves. I sleep with my water and filter inside the bag so they don’t freeze.

 

I carry about 10-15lbs food, just grocery store stuff, tuna packets, cookies, peanut butter, Lipton rice meals. Every ounce counts, so you don’t carry stuff you don’t need. I made most of my gear myself, or heavily modified existing gear. I sew and make things with tools, I made gear lighter, simpler and more sturdy by sewing(cutting pack straps short, rebuilding parts of pack, ect).

 

I only ran into one person I thought might have issues, so I kept hiking. Always be able to do a couple more miles if you need to when you stop for camp.

 

 

 

For the trail, you can be as cheap as you want. People stay in hotels to shower, sleep in a bed, I rarely did so as I enjoyed sleeping in the woods. I spent $2300 on my 5 month thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2010. Some people spent $6K plus. All a matter of how luxurious you want to go. I was planning on coming home, so I can do it cheaper this time, knowing the money has to last. Like I said, I didn’t do a lot of work, as I really didn’t have to. Hopefully my VA disability will go through, then it won’t be an issue. If this is the case, I’ll stay out for years, travel around the US, hit trails, and explore.

 

 

 

I didn’t carry a firearm, but I have a knife and hiking pole, and have done quite a bit of hand to hand training with a friend that has been doing it his whole life. Situational awareness is the key for anything, if it doesn’t feel right, get the hell out, and watch your back.

 

 

 

The hikers were all kinds, retired people finally getting to do it, college grads, some homeless people(rare), everybody was really friendly and helpful. I’ll be leaving Feb 24th, flying to Virginia, starting about halfway up, before everyone else starts, so I won’t see a lot of people out there for awhile. Not many people go camping when it is 10 degrees outside. Takes some skills to do it comfortably, especially with my medical weight restrictions from knee issues.

 

 

 

So you won’t be carrying anything for trade. There are towns along the trail to resupply at. I just got in and got my groceries and left, usually. Easy to spend a lot of money in town. I have a tiny MP3 player, ecig, and microUSB headlamp that I recharge with a small battery pack. I can charge all electronics if I stay in a cheap hostel, or in an emergency, in a gas station outlet for 30mins or so. I have a fast wall charger, better than the usual ones that come with phones. I like my music, hike or walk with it on sometimes, or at camp.

 

Also, I have long hair and a beard, which helps a lot with cold weather. I can wear my hair down, then trap it under my jacket as a scarf. I wear it tied back in the summer because it isn’t as hot. I can also sew with hair if I really had to, and snip off short pieces for a firestarter or to make fishing lures.

 

 

[rainydaykidParticipant 42]

GEAR LIST

Been in Waynesboro VA the last couple weeks waiting for the snow to go away. I didn’t feel like making snowshoes, so I stayed in town with various people doing work for stay. I did renovation and construction, remodeling stuff on people’s houses in exchange for room and board. I did hook up with this older woman I am staying with, but we both understand that it is temporary. I went through all my gear now and wrote down this list. Almost all of my gear has been heavily modified by me, sewing, cutting off zippers and packstraps, I basically rebuilt a 5.5lb 60L pack into a 3lb pack by resewing almost everything on it and rebuilding the frame and suspension system. Most big packs have all kinds of extra pockets, buckles, zippers and other random crap that they don’t need.

 

Ridgerest closed cell foam pad

Marmot 15 degree synthetic bag, cut down to a quilt

sleeping bag dry sack with sleep socks

ultralight running shorts(for laundry days and wearing in camp after hiking all day)

Hat with neck sunshade and sewn on rechargeable mini headlamp(Army boonie cap, heavily modified)

sunglasses

synthetic long sleeve tshirt, pants, underwear, and wool socks

2x Zamst ZK7 knee braces(expensive, but the best I have ever used, recommended by an Airborne Infantry friend with bad knees)

7’x3′ Tyvek groundcloth

2x Gatorade 32oz bottles with 1 ounce dropper bottle of bleach for purification

6’x8′ silnylon tarp with modifications added to wear as raingear, this is also my tarptent. I tie it off to a tree and use rocks, so I don’t carry stakes or tent poles.

high magnesium content firesteel and striker on keyring

Mora Robust carbon steel 4″ blade bushcrafting knife(modified, cut down the handle and sheath)

16 ounce cookpot

polypro neck gaiter, watch cap, Army wool glove liners

Underarmor poly hoodie cut down to zip up vest

Patagonia Adze jacket(warm and windproof)

Teton Sports 60L pack(heavily modified)

3 needles and heavy duty thread

ELECTRONICS( Sansa Clip+ MP3 player w/ 16GB SD card, Belkin 2.4A fast wall charger with cables, ecig 650maH battery w/30mL juice, Anker 3200 maH battery pack)

HYGEINE KIT(toenail clippers, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, ponytail holders, toilet paper, chapstick, orange bic lighter(so I can find it easily if I drop it)

 

I can live pretty comfortably with all this gear, it weighs about 14lbs altogether, I get food in towns.

 

I have found the less I carry in the woods, I am better off. It sounds like a lot of stuff, but it is well organized.

[rainydaykidParticipant 42]

Just weighed my pack after finalizing all my gear. With a quart of water and 10lbs food, my pack weighs 27lbs fully loaded, so not bad. Definitely room for improvement, but I can live with that.

[rainydaykidParticipant 42]

After doing 35 miles on the trail in 2 days, and from my previous knee injuries, and back trouble, I decided to go hardcore minimalist, and strip my pack weight down. This is my new pack list:

 
Ridgerest closed cell foam pad with groundcloth

Marmot 15 degree synthetic bag with dry sack

ultralight running shorts

Hat with neck sunshade and sewn on rechargeable mini headlamp(Army boonie cap, heavily modified)

synthetic long sleeve tshirt, pants, wool socks

2x Zamst ZK7 knee braces

2x Gatorade 32oz bottles with 1 ounce dropper bottle of bleach for purification

6’x8′ silnylon tarp with modifications added to wear as raingear, this is also my tarptent.

stormproof matches

polypro neck gaiter, watch cap, Army wool glove liners

Patagonia Adze jacket(warm and windproof)

Teton Sports 60L pack(heavily modified)

 

ELECTRONICS (wall charger with cables, ecig 650maH battery, 3200 maH battery pack)

HYGEINE KIT(nail scissors, toothbrush, floss, soap, sunscreen)

I’ll carry 32oz water and a max of 6lbs food. I am getting older, so I am done with mountainous terrain. I will be leaving for the C&O canal towpath hiking trail next week. It is nice and flat, and has frequent towns, so I do not have to carry as much food.

 

 

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