CDT list

After reading through your list it looks like you're worried about about being cold – I think a lot of your extra clothing are redundant. Dry ducks and a wind shirt, down pants and tights, I'd pick one and leave one at home. On sheer thru hiking principle, leave the trowel at home and just use a tent stake!

When are you planning on hitting the San Juans? Snow is certainly likely in May and June, the passes aren't as sketchy as the Sierra and depending on the snow pack in May you might not want to carry snow gear.

Hmm, I think you are right. Planning on hitting the San Juans in early June. Not worried about getting cold while hiking. I went for a hike for abut 3 hours today. Temp was 15 F with wind, and was walking on a 40" snow pack (90" in the alpine which is 90% of average). Had my runners on and a light pair of martial arts pants and was warm no problem. More worried about sleeping. have only had the golight 20 down to 28 F with the merino tights and EB down sweater. Was fine at that. I will do a night or two out in the snow and see how cold I can go like that. If all is good I will ditch the down pants. With the umbrella the wind hoodie should be OK. Haven't really tried out the umbrella scenaio yet and won't likely get much rain before I leave in late April. I am watching the snow pack closely and if it is ok by the time I hit southern CO I will just send the snow stuff home. I am also thinking of changing out the convertible pants for a lightweight pair of shorts and some lightweight wind pants, then I could get rid of the dry ducks pants. Worse comes to worse I can use the gatewood cape for what it is designed for. Doing that would get rid of almost one pound.
Also on the snow gear side I use sheet metal screws in my runners all winter long as we get a lot of ice around town. Might use those instead of the microspikes. Next icy day on the ski hill I will see how steep I can go. French Technique! NO not that kind. LOL.
Thanks for the advice.

I agree that you likely won't want down pants. I don't know what kind of snow year this is shaping up to be, but the idea of a NOBO sending home snow stuff while still in Colorado seems kind of amazing to me. I hiked SOBO in 2011, a fairly high snow year. The NOBOs were still dealing with substantial snow through the Winds.

I own a gatewood cape and net inner combo, and wouldn't have wanted that on the CDT, particuarly if you're also taking any other sort of rain jacket. You could probably get by with the GC as rain gear, as I think that the amount of bushwhacking you have to do is overhyped, or at least the type that requires pushing through a lot of brush or the like. Still, there are more places on average than on other trails for a flapping poncho to catch onto, putting both raingear and shelter at risk. The main thing for me is that, like on the PCT, you spend most nights in the shelter (I did cowboy camp somewhat in NM). So for me at least, it's nice to have something a bit roomy. When you add in the net tent, the GC combo doesn't save a lot of weight over a much more roomy, comfortable shelter. I find that net tent really constricting.

Yet OTOH, my recollection is of less bugs on the CDT than the PCT (again, my direction, my year). GC with no inner tent, just a head net, and a windshirt might be okay. I personally was happier on that trip with a light rain jacket that doubled as windshirt.

It's really hard to talk about conditions given differing directions of travel and year, but FWIW I think I only slept on snow a couple of times, despite walking on a whole lot of the stuff.

When you're counting up total weight, don't underestimate the volume and weight of the PAPER you might choose to carry. There tends to be more of it on the CDT. I carried Wolf, Yogi, BLM (mostly not, but a couple of times), DeLorme Atlas, and of course Ley maps. I also carried the newer "one route only" Bear Creek Survey maps, http://www.bearcreeksurvey.com/ for the portion that was mapped by them at the time (they have the whole trail now). Quite a conundrum there, but a good compromise IMO is to look for a place to print Ley in oversized format. Anyway, navigation really is more of a challenge on that trail, so it can be a lot of weight of paper leaving trail towns, depending on how many boxes you have (or how often you bounce resupply stuff).

Good comments and observations Brian. You are correct about the winter stuff. I may need it in the Winds. I will just bounce it along. Might need it in Glacier as well. Thinking about using a 5 gallon bucket for a bounce box? Indestructible. I bought the Bear Creek books and the Ley CD, as well as Yogi's books. No kidding lots of paper!
I have used the GC/net tent combo quite a bit and it works pretty well for me. I am short. I especially like just sleeping in the net tent when the weather is good and there are tons of bugs. Can still see the stars, accompanied by the whine and buzz of all the blood suckers. I have used a poncho tarp with less volume with good success, except in heavy windy thunder showers. The GC as a poncho has much more material and I think could be unwieldy and ultimately drive a person nuts if it was needed very much. It will be interesting to see how the chrome dome will work.
Maybe I should consider a different shelter.

I changed my shelter to a Zpack hexamid with cuben poncho ground sheet. Save 5.0 expensive ounces. ($100/oz)
Changed cooking system to TEA from sulak46. Save 4.6 oz Cheap ounces and tests well out in the snow. ($10/oz)
Changed down sweater to MontBell Ex light. Save 7.0 oz ($28/oz)
Ditching dry ducks pants and jacket. Save 8.9 oz (if combine with tent and poncho ground cloth. Shelter cost comes down to $33/oz)

Total change -26.5 oz

Getting there.

I looked at the weight of your micro-spikes. I hike in the North Cascades and use Grivel Spiders that are 4.5oz and cost under $40. I use them for traction in non-technical situations.

The list is finalized with all the little stuff. 8.9 lbs
http://Postholer.Com/journal/viewGearlist.php?sid=04cd8b694c558f3f216dfce3d7a2a4c3&event_id=1633

For the winter stuff I switched out the microspikes for kahtoola aluminum crampons. About 3 oz more , but more my style for what I want to do.