Pack List for a Sierra High Route variation

[kevin davidson]

Steve Roper pioneered a fantastic, often off-trail alternative to the JMT and it’s crowds, bears and (sadly) areas of overuse. It’s called the Sierra High Route and often has been the core of many journeys I have taken in the Sierra. I recommend it.

But I’m seeking out even remoter terrain–more consistently above timberline, more entree to incredible areas of great beauty and majesty and further removed from problem bears and boorish, well, whatever.

Due to popular interest in my food storage methods and my lack of faith in the goodwill of some of that interest, the journey’s locale can only be generalized to include somewhere in western N. America. Only 6 mi. will be trail–1st 4, last 2. There are 6 trailless 2nd class passes en route and a whole lotta elev. gain and loss.

So, here’s the gear list–out of format, sadly, from my spreadsheet—oz. followed by grams. It’s the skinout weight I value.

Clothing Worn
Hats Patagonia Airius (sunhat) 1.00 28.35
Clothing – Base Layer – Shirts Ibex Pacifica L/S Merino Wool 7.75 219.71
Clothing – Base Layer – Underwear Golite Terrain Shorts 4.50 127.57
Clothing – Wind Pants Montane FW Pants 4.00 113.40
Footwear – Socks SW Adreniline 3/4 2.05 58.12
Footwear – Trail Running Shoes Montrail CTC 35.00 992.23
Footwear–Gaitors Montbell Stretch Gaitors 1.60 45.36
Subtotal 55.90 1584.74 3 lb 8 oz

Other Items Worn / Carried
Trekking Poles GG Light Trek Plus 5.20 147.42
First Aid & Survival Wenger Esquire w/ aircore leash 0.75 21.26
Watch Suunto X6 1.30 36.85
First Aid & Survival Bic Mini Lighter 0.39 11.06
Lights – Headlamps & Flashlights Photon Freedom w/ neckcord 0.25 7.09
First Aide & Survival GG Mini Sunscreen SP 30 0.20 5.67

Subtotal 7.64 216.59

Other Clothing
Clothing – Wind Shirts Marmot Ion 2.80 79.38
Clothing – Insulating – Jackets Bozeman Mountain Works Cocon Pullover 9.30 263.65
Clothing – Raingear – Jackets Patagonia Specter Pullover 6.50 184.27
Clothing – Wind Pants Montane FW Pants 4.00 113.40
Hats Patagonia R-1 Balaclava (Windstopper) 1.80 51.03
Gloves OR Airfoil Gloves 1.90 53.86
Footwear – Socks SW Adreniline 3/4 2.05 58.12
Clothing – Base Layer – Pants Patagonia Silk Cap Tights 5.50 155.92
Subtotal 28.35 803.71 1 lb 12 oz

Sleep System
Shelters – Tarps & Floorless MLD Grace 1.0 Tarp ( Spinn-pro) 6.18 175.20
Stakes & Guylines BMW Lazr HI-VIS Titanium Stakes 6 1.42 40.28
Stakes & Guylines Bozeman Mountain Works AirCore 1 25 0.10 2.83
Bivy Sacks MLD Soul Bivy (custom) 8.50 240.97
Sleeping Bags – Top Bags & Quilts Nunatak custom Arc 10 oz. fill/2″ baffles 16.00 453.59
Sleeping Pads – Closed Cell Foam GG Nightlight–cut down 3.40 96.39

Subtotal 35.60 1009.27 2 lb 4 oz

Packing
Backpacks – Frameless MLD Revelation 3.60 102.06
Stuff Sacks BMW Spinsack Nano-Medium 0.30 8.36

Subtotal 3.90 110.42

Cooking and Water
Stoves – 0
Fuel Containers 0
Cookware Orikaso Bowl 1.14 32.32
Cookware Lexan Spoon 0.30 8.50
First Aide & Survival Bic lighter & matches in 4″ x 7″ Aloksak 1.00 28.35
Water Bottles Sportsbottle 2 1.80 51.03
Water Treatment Microdroppers (2)+ mix cup (containers only) 0.30 8.50
Bear Protection UrsaLite Bear Bag Hanging System 3.00 85.05

Subtotal 7.54 213.76

Other Essentials
Lights – Headlamps & Flashlights Photon Freedom Micro LED Light (with battery) 0.22 6.24
First Aide & Survival 1st Aid/Blister Kit ( in Aloksak) 1.00 28.35
First Aide & Survival DEET ( 100% in minidrop) 0.25 7.09
Sunglasses Native Eyewear Dash XP ( Interchangeable w/ Polarized) 0.65 18.43
Toiletries & Personal Care Dental Kit ( 2 flossers+mini brush+paste) 0.60 17.01
Toiletries & Personal Care Microdrop Purrel w/ ziploc (TP ziploc) 0.30 8.50
Toiletries & Personal Care Aloksak (sm) essentials bag 0.20 5.67
Navigation – Map NG Topo (WP stock) 1.00 28.35
First Aide & Survival Duct Tape mini roll 0.35 9.92
Subtotal 4.22 119.63

Consumables
Food 1 lb 3 oz (0.55 kg) / day ( * – from Menu ) 3.5 67.66 1918.05 4 lb 4 oz
Water Quart ( initial) 32.00 907.18
Fuel 0
Toiletries & Personal Care TP–shop towels .2/day 3 0.60 17.01
Water Treatment Aqua Mira (.1 oz./day) 3 0.30 8.50

Subtotal 100.26 2842.24 6 lb 4 oz

Weight Summary
(1) Total Weight Worn or Carried 3 lb 15 oz (1.80 kg)
(2) Total Base Pack Weight 5 lb (2.26 kg)
(3) Total Weight of Consumables 6 lb 4 oz (2.84 kg)
(4) Total Initial Pack Weight (2) + (3) 11 lb 4 oz (5.10 kg)
(5) Full Skin Out Weight (1) + (2) + (3) 15 lb 3 oz (6.90 kg)

If I decide to throw in my digi cam, add 6 oz. On solos, for some inexplicable reason, I often don’t.

I’m off tomorrow.

au revoir, mes amis.

[Steven Nelson]

Good list overall. How’s the UrsaLite system going to work above treeline (or are you just sleeping with your food…)?

[kevin davidson]

Hung from talus blocks or cliffs using handy local rocks for chocks plus I get a little bouldering in. I hate waking up to snuggling Marmots after food—I never sleep w/ food.

[Aaron Wallace]

Keep in mind that most of the northern portion of the High Route (from Blue Lake Pass to the Great Sierra Mine, then from Sky Pilot Pass to Horse Canyon) is in Yosemite, where depending on elevation an Ursalite would not be considered proper/legal food storage:
http://nps.gov/yose/wilderness/bfoodstoragem.htm
I’m not sure I’d want to restrict myself to camping in the few canister-not-required areas in Yosemite since they tend to be low–it is the *High* Route, after all :-)

Similar restrictions exist in the Devils Postpile area, too:
http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/recreation/wild/bearmaps/bearcanmaprushcr.doc

[Ken Helwig]

Great list, but the reality is that if a ranger comes upon you, and they ask you about you food protection, and you proudce the Urslaite bag system, or come upon you camping with your system hanging, they indeed will walk you out of the backcountry and hand you a citation. If I were to make a suggestion, use the Ursack with the liner. It weighs more than your system, but weighs much less than a cannister.

[kevin davidson]

aucun commentaire.

[Sam Haraldson]

Je parlerai en français puisque vous ne comprenez pas l’anglais. Je vois que vous aimez MLD et BMW. Votre liste est très bien pensée-dehors. Je ne présenterai pas ses observations sur votre utilisation de l’Ursack. Au chaque leurs propres.

[kevin davidson]

merci de vos commentaires aimables.
J’ai un autre voyage après ceci. je serai de retour après 7 septembre.

le silence par radio débute.

[Mark]

[digression]I’d just like to take this moment to thank all of the folks who participate on BPL who don’t speak English as a first language. This bout of French has thrown me for a loop. I really appreciate our fellow Japanese/ French/ Spanish/ etc. folks who take the time to share their ideas here.[/digression]

The list looks good. Hope you bring the camera, if only for us here in the forums.
-Mark

[Lorraine Pace]

Ja, ek stem saam, die Ursack werk.

[kevin davidson]

Je suis retourné

I will try to how you say écrivez escribe schreiben write in my très pauvre anglais to convey to you my beautiful badass tour (ahh, I love your colorful but quaint idiom Américaine) in your wonderful montagnes sauvages. Like all challenging endeavors, it was peigner la girafe but also pas piqué des hannetons. Useless but great (Français is very verbose).

About 150 km (95 mi.) in 4 days. This would not seem so very interesting except for the fact that only 12 km was done on trail. Significant route finding was required. Longest day was 13 hours, shortest, about 9. As I had earlier alluded on this thread, I linked up some Haute Route sections with significant rerouting to bring me to remoter and higher areas in the Haute Montagnes. The route essentially followed very near the crest along the boundry country of a noted American Nat’l Park starting at a bottomless dusty trailhead, not far as the petit oiseau flies from a prominent Obelisk and ending at a large motorboat strewn lake, a ferry crossing, followed by a hitch hike to dinner at my favorite funky resort.
Snow on some of the N or NE facing climber’s passes made for some interesting challenges. I decided at the last moment to not carry my Ice Axe, which would have pushed the weight carrying capabilities of the MLD pack I used a little too much (I should look into the Helix). This was generally ok except for a couple of off trail “passes”, on one of which I had to negotiate a pitch or so of 4th-ish class rock to get around an extremely steep and bulletproof snow gully, the other, I downclimbed some very steep talus before reentering a 20-25 degree snowfield executing a standing glissade in best style w/ trekking poles (flexxy!) helping me crank several sets of unlikely “turns” before a pert hockey stop at the bottom. This, at least, had a safe runout and was done in the afternoon w/ at least a veneer of soft snow on top.
The route, although it jumped across the crest several times was for long stretches essentially cirque-hopping. Many of the lakes had huge trout and if I were a fishing sort of homme, dinner was for the taking. No bugs and hungry fish. The night sky was fantastique. Nowhere could the skywatching privileges of tentless camping be better appreciated. The Milky Way was so vivid as to be able to make out it’s various whorls and contours and see it whirl across the night. Merde! Mon Anglais has come back in the form of La Prose Pourpre.
Soloing was fun—I go at my own pace, responsible to no one and get to indulge in vices like singing out loud selections from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m sure the resident Pika population has yet to recover.

The equipment I used on the trip performed well. I wouldn’t add or subtract significantly from the gearlist except for maybe swapping out food. Due to a shipping glitch, I was unable to get the MLD Revelation on time and so I subbed my Prophet 25. The pack felt weightless, thanks to a competently packed bag and well designed shoulder straps. The sternum strap stabilized the pack to my content. The Arc bag/ MLD epic bivy sack combo was all I really needed on the trip, there was no precip, and kept me snug down to the lows I encountered @ 28 degrees. Condensation was minimal.I wore my windshirt at night. A MLD tarp was pitched on 2 of the nights— one night was very windy w/ continuous 20 knot winds gusting to over 40. By rights, I should either have picked a more sheltered site or staked the tarp w/ more anchoring points but the tarp, though very noisy, did not tear.
The Montrails were fantastically stable and grippy. The BMW insulated pullover and the Montane Featherlite pants performed stalwart service. and were worth their weight in, well, Pertex.
The Suunto X6 was all I needed for navigation along w/ my custom topo.
My appetite never really picked up and I had to force myself to down sufficient calories—-I lost 10 pounds. Kudos to Trader Joe’s Golden Berry blend ( raisons, cranberries and blueberries), Wasabi covered cashews and Peet’s chocolate covered espresso beans— which were extremely satisfying on the trip. All hail the ubiquitous dried mango. I need to rethink my general energy bar and nut selections, for enhanced edibility under physical duress.
Thank you, Science, for Ibuprofen. It made for good sleeping on a non-inflatable pad.
My food hanging technique— rock chock hung Ursalite w/ barrier bag on large talus blocks and rock faces was as effective as any canister (for the umpteenth time) and well suited to the circumstances. The solution is not for everyone—-one must be a good boulderer and not choose places that will incite the local authorities.

As to the policies to compel the carrying of the boîte plastique d’ours, the canisters for the furry guys, in above timberline areas of no problem bear activities

---

Écrasez l’infâme!
By all means, fine people up the kazoo for sloppy food storage techniques but the bears that play around bear canisters and are ripping apart the hybrid Ursacks (now up to 3 in Yosemite, alone) are already spoiled bears and their behavior will not be modified. Ever. Except by l’morte.
As for me, I will carry a canister in areas of low or no bad bear activity, where legally mandated, Tous les 36 du mois. That is to say—Quand les poules auront des dents!

Now I expect that this philosophy will Ça va chier des bulles but so mote it be. I do respect the work of the SIBBG and I hope that approval of the hybrid Ursack in some form will continue to stand, if just for the sake of thruhikers. But the only way to dance SUL in this realm is the danse interdite (secrètement).

SUL backpaking—-C’est le pied. Meaning both that it’s great and (literally) “it’s the foot”!

cordially “Homme Sauvage” Davidson

[Miguel Arboleda]

This is the second time I’ve read about using, for sleeping, Ibuprofen (or somesuch) in the forums in two weeks. Could you please tell me more about this? Is it sleeping medicine? Or just pain medication?

[EndoftheTrail]

Ibuprofen is a pain reliever. It’s the ingredient used in Advil, Motrin, etc. Another type of pain relieving ingredient is “acetaminophen”, which is used in the ever-popular Tylenol.

It boggles my mind when people tell you how “comfy” their closed cell foam pads are… and then later you find out they have to pop pills to make it through the night! But as they say, HYOH, I suppose…

Just a general comment — not thinking of anyone in particular.

[kevin davidson]

Sometimes one is so generally muscularly sore and tight that a pain reliever takes the edge off to allow what would be a normally comfy sleep on, in my case, my closed cell pad. This was far from a normal hike in terms of exertion levels. Ordinarily, I sleep like un enfant on my Night Light or my Torsolite pads.

We won’t even get into the pills I pop (or rather, popped) when doing high altitude mtneering in the Himalaya or Andes.

[D G]

Hi Miguel,

I think this whole thing started with Glen Van Peski of Gossamer Gear recommending Tylenol PM. Tylenol PM contains Tylenol and more importantly, Diphenhydramine HCL (Benadryl), which causes drowsiness.

Dan

[kevin davidson]

Perhaps Glen brought the idea to the SUL community—- the climbing community has been in the know for many years.

Drowsiness was not an issue for me.

[Mark]

Ibuprofen is also known in the thru-hiking crowd as “Vitamin I”.

I found it has helped on really, really long days. I have taken it at night, not necessarily for pain relief at night, but for reducing and preventing inflammation so I can start strong the next morning.
-Mark

[Aaron Wallace]

> Due to popular interest in my food storage methods and my lack of faith in the goodwill of some […]

See, at first we thought your food protection was not going to be adequate, but you didn’t reveal your true method:

> singing out loud selections from the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

0.0 oz, unless you need notes to remember the lyrics :-)

[kevin davidson]

“…my lips are sealed
I’ll take the fifth
Nothing to see
Move it along
I’ll never tell”

[Miguel Arboleda]

Thanks for the replies… living in Japan sort of leaves me somewhat ignorant of medicines in the States. Seeing as even mild drugs are so often only perscription here in Japan I wonder if I can even get anything like Ibuprofen here! Have to take a look.

[Roger B]

Nurofen is the brand name used in Australia and Europe for Ibuprofen so you may find it under that name. If I recall correctly when I was in Japan in 2000 it was possible to buy Ibuprofen over the counter in the pharmacy (no prescription required).

[Miguel Arboleda]

I’ve been wondering about the place Kevin was describing. I just came across this account (I’ve been reading Chris Willett’s accounts for years) of a walk through the area. Lots of fantastic photos.

[Paul Tree]

By reducing inflammation, ibuprofen and the attendant extra water has helped my muscles with better recovery times. That is, less soreness and better strength on successive days.

[Aaron Sorensen]

Hey Kevin,
I just wanted to coment on what a nice list that was. Skin-out weight at just over 15# is pretty amazing for an of trail outing.
Since your list has obviously been a lot of work in the making, I know you said every thing worked good, but is there anything you would do next time for any imporvements or weight reductions?

[kevin davidson]

Some nice photos, Miguel, but although there were some convergences in their route and mine in the space-time continium I was blessed by better weather, few bugs and armed with better route finding skills (I’m cursed with this inborn knack…)— and a sparer prose style.

And of course, I had a much lighter pack.

[Author]

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