Wonderland Trail Family Hike: Gearlists

[David Drake]

My wife, our 13 year old daughter, and I will be hiking the Wonderland Trail this summer. Our permit is for 9 days, 27 July-3 August, starting clockwise from Fryingpan Trailhead. We'll be picking up food caches at Longmire and Mowich, and will hike the alternate route across Spray Park.

I hiked the full Wonderland about 10 years ago, and have hiked the Northern Loop several times since. In 2011 (a big snow year) I hiked a figure-eight joining the Northern Loop with a loop around Mother Mountain (also crossing Spray Park). That was the first week of August–based on conditions this year, I doubt we'll see as much snow as I did then.

This will be the longest backpack trip my wife and daughter have done, but both are enthusiastic. In fact, hiking the Wonderland was my wife's idea (esp. if she could do it with a light pack), and we were pretty excited to get the dates and camps we applied for. My wife did tear her ACL skiing this winter after we'd decided to go, but surgery in early spring went well, and her PT thinks she won't have any real problems with our planned mileage.

Our gears list are below, and also under my profile (if text is too hard to read). Most of this is pretty set–a few of the worn clothing items are estimated weights, or subject to change. I'll probably try and make a bivy or mesh inner for the tarp my daughter is using-I've managed with just a headnet, but it's not the most comfortable setup. We'll treat our clothes with permethrin, and hope that (plus a little DEET) will take care of the few buggy sections. We're NOT camping at Devil's Dream.

I'm still a little unsure if 2 canisters of fuel will be sufficient (FBC cooked dinners and morning coffee), hence the alcohol setup as well. Or if rain pants are completely necessary. Any comments are welcome.

[Kate Moody]

Not to nitpick, but some of the items worn have weights, and other do not (sunglasses). I'm new to this whole thing, can you clarify?

Edit: most people don't include weights for items worn, like on your list, but you seem to. The only exception is sunglasses. Just curious.

[Ian]

In nine days you're sure to see some rain. I hiked a section of it with my then 13 y/o daughter last year. Our legs didn't get wet from the falling rain but from walking through the bushes that have grown over the trail. We mitigated this by having me lead the way so I knocked most of the water off of the plants and Emily followed behind me.

We both had wet legs but it didn't really bother us. She actually had rain pants in her pack but opted not to wear them.

[David Drake]

Thanks for looking, Kate and Ian.

No big mystery with the missing sunglass weights or presence of weight for worn clothing. I keep track of weight of worn clothing, and it's easier to reproduce my list with those weights than leave them out. And every year it seems like I struggle with a good solution to the sunglasses problem (I wear prescription glasses, don't really like the auto-darkening lenses I've tried, not too happy about carrying a separate pair of prescription sunglasses as it's one more thing to lose or break, clip-ons are always a kind of a kludge, etc). Long story short, I haven't settled on this year's inadequate solution to the problem, hence no weight yet.

Ian–yeah, mostly wet legs don't bug me. Plus, in spite of doing a trip to Rainier NP at least once a year for the past 12 years or so (would like to go more often, but I'm a few hours further east than you), I've had pretty good luck with weather. Which I'm worried makes me a little complacent. Until I remember a miserable hike from Dick Creek to Mystic Lake about 11 years ago, about 45 degrees and pouring rain, wearing lousy rain gear (heavy, too) and carrying too heavy a pack.

In the past, sometimes I just carried rain pants and shorts–used the rain pants for evenings and mornings. Now days I prefer long pants to shorts, so rain pants are less multi-use. Maybe the light nylon+DWR dance pants someone posted about a year or two ago would be a good compromise.

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