iphone charger for the JMT

Marines in Afghanistan are now beginning to use flexible solar panels at remote outposts to charge the many batteries they use for weapons, communications, night vision gear, GPSs, etc.. The photo I saw showed about a 10' X 10' area covered with flexible solar panels at a post located overlooking a steep, wooded mountain valley.

This has helped greatly in keeping down the amount of fuel needed to power electric generators and thus keep down losses from ambushed fuel convoys.

Will we ever see small, light, highly efficient solar panels for backpacking?

Eric,

There are small efficient panels, mono-crystalline construction. With any panel, efficiency depends upon proper orientation to maximize solar collecting. Problem is using them when hiking, we are constantly moving in many directions, in and out of shade.

Now where you live, if you just hiked north all day in the desert you could do pretty well.

Tim,

You asked about recharging the iPhone while hiking. I just finished a six week hike in Turkey, and we used the iPhone to carry our maps.
(Trip Reports Part 1 and Part 2)

Here is a lot more information about how to use an iPhone4 while backpacking. AlanD and I did a LOT of testing of battery conservation, and this article documents everything we learned.

In Turkey, we were able to recharge in shops, since we were never more than 4 days between shops. We used all of the battery conservation measures I describe in that article. We used the iPhone 15-30 times per day for 30 seconds to perhaps 3 minutes per use. Our battery drain was between 7% and 20% per day. Based on our usage, we could have gone for 5 to 10 days between charges. We used the following apps:

1. Gaia GPS for maps. (There are no good paper maps of Turkey, as per government policy)
2.Turkish-English dictionary with audio
3. Birds of Northern Europe
4. GoodReader and ReadItLater (for reference material about places we were visiting)
5. Emerald Chronometer (for sun, moon, planet info)

We used Safari when we were in a cafe with WIFI and electricity in order to save more wiki pages (using ReadItLater) for the sites we were approaching.

Hope this helps, AmyL