Wonderland Trail in late August

After a quick glance, I don't see any bear bag stuff.

I also use down and I live hear. I protect all my insulation so I don't have to worry.

I'm hitting the Wonderland the first week of Augsut. From what I understand, there are bear poles at all of the campgrounds so all you should have to bring is a weatherproof bag to hang your food.

That's my understanding as well.

(I can't say I'm sorry to not have to deal with the embarrassing mess that's me trying to get a stupid rope over a tree branch.)

I haven't hiked the entire WT, but at all the campsites I've been at at various points along the way, there were bear poles.

I guess I should have been more specific- bear bag equals waterproof bag to put on bear pole

Thanks for the reminder on that- I will definitely be snagging something waterproof for the bear poles. (Unless I want to get a serious head start on rehydrating my dinner.)

I had the Prolite Plus 3/4 pad and loved it. My only problem was that for a 3/4 pad weighing 16oz, I could either go for a more comfortable full length pad for the same weight penalty or go with a lighter 3/4 length pad. I'm still torn as to if I'll carry the Prolite 3/4 (11oz) or Exped synmat.

I recently purchased the LS Wildcats. I love these shoes but after reading a couple reports, I'm concerned that they may be too fragile for hiking. Not sure if I'm going to order some inov8s or just bring extra floss in case I need to do some field repair work on them. So far they've been great but I haven't really put them through their paces yet.

My hike ends on the 7th. If you’re interested, shoot me a PM in the middle of August if you have any questions about the trail conditions. Mosquitos can be night and day different between the beginning and end of August but I can at least let you know what I encountered.

Hi Ian,

If you don't mind, I'll definitely drop you a line in August to get your thoughts on the trail conditions…even with the gap between your trip and mine, it'll be good to at least get a sense of how things are trending. Thanks for the offer.

I had a similar conundrum with the sleeping pad, but my biggest issues are that I'm a pretty active side sleeper (which pretty much rules out CCF for me, even on really soft campsites) and I tend to get really bothered by cold/cool ground temperatures. I have a full-length regular Prolite that weighs about the same and used to be my go-to pad, but a few unpleasant nights in colder temperatures definitely left me scrambling for something with a bit (okay, a lot) higher R-value. My body goes flailing every which way while I sleep, so there's not a ton of point to trying to get my feet/legs to stay on a mummy taper. I'm not all that tall, so I fit most of the way on there and then just use my pack as a buffer for the last foot or so.

I have about 120 miles on my Wildcats so far and really like them, but I definitely share your concerns about longer-term durability. I'm not sure how founded they are, especially since they replaced a pretty hefty pair of boots (i.e. not a ton of experience with lighter trail runners beyond this season), but I can definitely see the potential for a problem.

The bear poles are nice and easy and you don’t have to worry about bears getting at your food. Rodents are a different story, though. I had something chew a hole in my cuben fiber drybag and get into my trailmix on WT last year. Only happened on 1 of 4 nights, so not sure how common it is. On at least one other night a person who was sharing the same pole as me had a rodent get into their bag.

I assume it was chipmunk or squirrel, but not sure. Maybe people here have advice on how to avoid this. I expect having tight wire mesh around bag would work, though that’s a little extreme. They do sell product for this at REI, though way larger than I would need: http://www.rei.com/product/846495/armored-outdoor-gear-ratsack-cache-food-storage-bag .

John, don't worry about the Wildcats, my have held up as good as most of the trail runners I've owned.
I have Inov8's and the Wildcat soles are holding up much better.
I did about 1000 verticle ft of unintentional scree skiing/sliding which there was no turning back from, that I was for sure my shoes were going to be shredded by the time I was in the clear. When I regained my composer and I looked down at them, they were just very dusty- that was over a year ago.
I just picked up another pair because its time to retire these to yard work.
YMMV
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