AppyTrail Thru-Hike Gear List

Looks a little light on the insulation side for a mid-March departure. You should be prepared for some 20* or lower nights that time of year. Not sure I'd be comfortable with that quilt/pad/clothing to provide a good night's rest in March/April. Should be great for the rest of your trip though.

Can your Blackberry store music? If it does, you could ditch the Ipod and its charger.

Good luck!

I was a little concerned with the insulation as well. What would you recommend to warm it up? I went on a 1 night trip just north of the smokies a few weeks ago where the temps got down to the twenties or teens, not exactly sure, and I had a pretty chilly night, i was only using a torsopad though, and I was camped on top of a bald at around 4,500ft. I got a little bit of sleep, but wouldn't want to do it again. Oh, and also it was the first year of winter, so the long night didn't help much either. I was thinking that maybe the fleece jacket would help a little bit if I brought it.

I'm not sure if my phone can hold music, probably. But I enjoy listening to music while I fall asleep, and I don't want to kill my phone battery.

Best way to know if the insulation will work for you is to go give it a whirl. TBH you might lie awake a couple cold nights with what you have but thats all part of the experience. Personally I find I get most of my 'chill' from sleeping on cold ground so I'd suggest another torso length pad to keep your core warm (GG Nightlight or just a Zrest short trimmed way down).

This is what I would suggest from my personal preferences:

Get rid of the underwear and just pick up some running shorts with a liner.

Ditch the convertible pants and just use your shorts and a pair of rain/wind pants. Or just use the convertable pants as your shorts and pants. On that note I would suggest a dedicated rain jacket until you're out of the time frame of cold rain. I like to just use shorts and rain pants, I find this warm enough for me. Shorts do well for me down to 30 degF while hiking. I'd use rain gear until it warms up and then rely on the poncho.

Don't worry about bear bagging. You can stay in established sites in bear country, you'll be required to in the Smokies, and those areas have bear proofing at the sights(GSNP, SNP, Jersey).

Dr. Bronner's, a bandana and some string is all I use for 'first aid.' Also doubles a way to keep your hygiene up.

And you have a TON of water capacity. You'll probably stop carrying water or carrying very once you realize how available it is. I'd suggest 2 1L containers of some sort.

Bivy and Ground Cloth? You might try just the bivy and switch to only the ground cloth once it warms up.
Don't worry about it too much, after 2 weeks or so you'll have it figured out and will begin sending home everything you don't need.

A few things- its going to rain… a lot. Get a rain jacket, (a few sets of dri ducks if i had to do it again), drop the E-poncho. Adds some top layer warmth as well. You can probably drop the fleece mitts and use socks if you really need to. Trade convertible pants for wind pants and a rain skirt or rain pants. + 1 pair of socks. Bring the fleece until the Shenandoahs. May want a bigger pot.
Biggest thing though, you may want to add a 45* bag to your system that you can send home in VA. It gets really cold. Most people warn for the smokies, but potential for cold is everywhere. Roan Mt was surprisingly cold. Looks good though, good luck

Thanks for the suggestions. I have a dri ducks rain jacket already that I might consider bringing for the colder months now. I'll probably try to make the wind pants from thru-hiker.com and try those out instead of convertible pants. And I think i'll take your suggestion and just make a really light summer quilt that I can use to add some more warmth for the colder months. Also, instead of bringing a dri ducks jacket, do you think that the poncho/tarp + wind pants and a wind jacket would keep me dry enough around the beginning?

If you had hiked last year, you wouldn't of needed much. But there is no telling. Last year was really dry and in '09 hikers got like 28/30 days of rain in June. There isn't a piece of rain gear out there that will keep you dry in an all day rain. I suggested the rain gear for the beginning for something mainly for warmth while you're hiking in those all day storms. I like my umbrella to try and stay dry rather than depend on rain gear.

I think the comment that no piece of raingear out there will keep you dry for a whole day is a bit generalising. Grundens will keep you dry in about any rain mother nature can throw, but probably not a good idea in warm weather and not very good if your producing much heat. This sort of rain gear will keep you dry pretty much no matter what but is heavy and very non breathable.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of attempting to stay dry to begin with.

how does it defeat the attempt to stay dry?

While protecting you from rain, not ventilating just causes you to sweat. Which in my opinion defeats the purpose. Sry that came off a little more sarcastic than I was going for.

IMO … in heavy prolongued rain parts of you will get wet no matter what ,,,

if yr moving fast and hard … youll also get wet from sweat …

the key is to be able to deal with moisture

I need to check my calendar, but I think we got 40 days of rain in June. +1 for the umbrella if its a rainy year. Perfect for drizzle, helps your raincoat in heavy rain. Any jacket will eventually fail or soak you in sweat or both.
I would recommend against a wind shirt. Its only another 3 ounces and tons of extra protection for a rain coat. Inviting your hands and lower arms to be soaked, water creeps up your arm through your base layer and gets under the poncho. Cold feeling. Maybe you could butcher the driducks for the sleeves. Sleeves + winshirt would probably be the same as a driducks though.
Wind pants would be fine with a poncho, maybe a kilt + windpants with a jacket. Just be sure they are not see through. I had a few fun instances doing laundery where I forgot my yellow thru hiker wind pants were see through.
One other thing- thats lots of down. Im not particularly careful and I was happy to be all synthetic more than a few times. You look better prepared to care for your things than I was though. Maybe a sythetic summer quilt?

oops, double post.

Yeah I was thinking of making a synthetic summer quilt to go with your recommendation of having it for the colder months. I just got into myog and a synthetic quilt would probably be a good project. I'll probably just bring along some rain pants and rain jacket I already have, and then once it warms up I can throw them out. I'll definitely try making some wind gear too.