Did my first trip ever!

I must say, Chris, that you seem to have it together so well already that it is difficult to believe that you are a realtively novice backpacker.  Surely you must have been lurking here for a while, right?  But we absolutely love bloviating helping newbies, here, especially ones as excited as you obviously are!

Yes, you can cut ounces from almost anything on your spreadsheet, but the question is “Is it worth the money?”  And most of it probably is not, at this stage.  (We tend to discuss dollars per ounce as a metric, here, believe it or not.)  You’re correct- your best payoff is going to be those items you highlighted in yellow.  And, yes, buy a new pack last.  Are you looking for specific product recommendations, or just generalities?  If you want specifics it’ll help to tell us what you have rather than just the generic descriptions in your spreadsheet.

I’m one of the people who think that tent footprints are a scam, so you could lose half a pound right there just by leaving it behind.  Unless you tend to camp in some pretty extreme conditions a tent is going to fail in some other catastrophic way (or more likely you’ll replace it when it gets ratty) long before you shred the floor severely.  What you’ll get is pinholes, and those can be fixed just by smearing a dab of SilNet on them when you get home.  Well, that’s assuming that the floor is silnylon; you’ll need a different product for urethane.  But don’t get a urethane-coated tent, they are much heavier than silnylon.

FYI- there is a website called lighterpack.com that is a spreadsheet for tracking your hiking gear, and will break it down in various ways for you.  It’s easy enough to do this on your own spreadsheet, though.  But just so that you know the lingo, we often speak about “Base Pack Weight” (BPW) here.  That’s the weight of everything you carry except consumables such as food and water, and that’s what we judge pack weights by because the food and water is variable.  BPW what we fanatics try to get below 10 pounds.

You’re young, and youth seems to be a strong indicator for who can sleep well on just a closed-cell foam pad such as a RidgeRest or Z-Lite without needing more padding.  (BTW are you a back sleeper, a side sleeper, or a belly sleeper?  It actually makes a difference for sleep system recommendations…)  Anyway, you could try one of these out and see if they work for you- they’re pretty cheap, and they are certainly durable, and many are light.

If you need just a little more comfort you can do what I switched to as I aged:  I used a full length (72-inch) but incredibly thin (1/8-inch) Thinlight evazote pad from Gossamer gear, but also a torso-length (S or XS) Thermarest Prolite self-inflatable pad.  This works because legs tend not to need a lot of insulation or padding- only your torso does- and your head will have a pillow (or something serving as a pillow).  This is still reasonably light, and the 1/8-inch evazote is enough insulation for your legs and also provide some extra puncture-protection for the inflatable, as well as being large enough (but still light because it is so thin) to obviate the need for a ground sheet in a floorless shelter.  Both of these pads are comparatively inexpensive, and you can often find the Thermarest on sale.

You could use some other torso-length pad, of course, but those get expensive fast as they get lighter.  The ProLite seems to be in a sweet spot, IMHO.  A thicker closed-cell foam pad as a torso pad would work too, of course, and be even cheaper if you can sleep on them.

Later on I switched to a Thermarest NeoAir for an even better weight/comfort ratio, but those are expensive.

58oz for a solo shelter is indeed quite a bit out of the range that we fanatics here would consider acceptable for three-season use, but that’s a big purchase.  One much lighter option that can be done relatively inexpensively is to try a silnylon tarp, but it can take some practice to learn to pitch one well, and some people just can’t stand tarps.  Heck, a lot of people can’t wrap their brains around any sort of floorless shelter, which is a shame since I’ve long been a lover of pyramid tarps.  See here as well, if you want even more fanboyism.  I use a bivy to keep out insects and other wildlife, and I much prefer it to an inner net- it also replaces a groundsheet.

The recommendations for a hammock are worth considering, especially if you like the idea of finding remote spots away from other people, which you seem to.  I don’t understand why more people on the east coast don’t use them- there are trees everywhere back east, so no shortage of spots to pitch them.  (Here in the west where you’re more likely to want to sleep above treeline it can be harder.)  You can also pitch in places that no one would EVER consider putting a tent, like on slopes or over creeks.  The whole subject of hammocks would need it’s own discussion, though.  And you wouldn’t need a sleeping pad, but you should get some sort of under-quilt.  Hammocks can be cold because they offer no insulation between your bottom and the cold wind, leading to a condition known as icy-butt.  Using a sleeping bag doesn’t help, because laying on your insulation crushes it such that it doesn’t work.  Some people just lay a pad in the hammock, but that is usually cumbersome, and the experienced hammock users all seem to prefer under-quilts.

But as I said, that is all a conversation of its own- if you’re interested let us know.  There is also a forum called (aptly enough) hammockforums.net.  A feature-rich and truly light hammock can be expensive, though, when you include the under-quilt, bug netting, and tarp.  Jumping in can be quite a commitment.  Good brands include Warbonnet, Butt-In-A-Sling, and Dutchware.

Your “camp sandals” seem heavy.  A cheapo pair of rubber flip-flops is adequate, if you don’t want to wear your shoes all the time.  That’s what I do.

What is your stove?  How big is your cooking pot?  What kind of food are you preparing?

There is an entire forum here at BPL for buying/selling used gear, and it can be a great place to get some deals.  if you are risk-averse, stick with sellers who have several pages of posts here.  Or, there is also an entire forum about making your own gear, which can be incredibly inexpensive.

[/bloviation]

Definitely some weight to be saved in your sleeping pad.  Leave your wallet locked in the car and go to an REI and compare what you have with other, lighter options.  Put large pens, hiking poles, etc, on the carpeted floor under the different sleeping pads.  Trying on your side and see if your hips bottom out.  Take notes of your impressions, weights and costs.  And then leave.  Kick it around in your head, post here about it.  Consider if the $60-70 is worth the 2 pounds you’d save.  And/or look on Gear Swap for pads that worked for you and sell off the one you currently have.

Then there’s your sleeping bag.  If you can possibly spend a few nights with a quilt (it could even me a household quilt on a mild night – do so.  It took me a few nights to retrain myself to semi-consciously reposition myself under the quilt – kind of like my first few nights each season involve relearning to wiggle my butt back onto the sleeping pad without waking up.  Because if you find you like quilts (I prefer them now), that’s a several ounces and some volume to save and one less thing to buy twice.  You got a “$60 synthetic bag / 46 ozs”.  Two-pound bags (probably warmer) are readily available for $189-ish.  Quilts at or a little over a pound are $250-300 depending on 30F versus 20F temperature rating.  A mis-step some many people make is to save a pound by going to a lighter bag and then save the second pound going to the UL quilt.  Instead of waiting, saving a bit more money and doing it all in one step.

And, yeah, get a new pack last.  So you know what weight and volume to buy for.  And only after you’ve done some trips with the bear canister so you can factor weight and rigid volume in.

As for being in better shape?  Yeah, that helps a bunch.  It sounds like you had a great time, even in your current condition, so things are only going to get better.  You actually live in a fabulous place for getting exercise (unlike the burbs where you’re essentially forced to drive everywhere).  Get off the subway one stop earlier.  Take a flight of stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.  Keep increasing that until you’re skipping the subway for a 1-2 mile trip and just leaving a bit earlier to walk it all.  And taking 4-6 flights of stairs instead of the elevator.  If committing to other people is a helpful motivator, there are many groups who run / walk / bird-watch together in Central Park throughout the week.

Congrats on a great start and a great attitude about enjoying yourself in the outdoors.

Chris, Congratulations on your trip! HERE is a link to more links and info I have gathered over the years to help new people wanting to lighten their load. There are free videos articles and gear lists to help and several of them are on how to do it cheaply. Most importantly have fun and welcome to BPL.

I did get a general backpacking book but it wasn’t really “heavy” on the ultra lite stuff, lol. There was a couple paragraphs at the end about getting lighter gear. So I asked over at Reddit or facebook “what forums do you go to get one of those 15 lb packs?”…as my aforementioned shoulder muscles were making loud and angry demands. They sent me here. I wasn’t a mile into this adventure when I realized that I want this pack to be a light as humanly possible without dying of exposure. Lol. I didn’t realize that ultralight backpacking is seen as kind of a “specialty” type of backpacking. It seems logical to me that carrying the least amount of stuff would be the entire point.

I kinda figured that the answer was going to be going with a completely different system for the shelter and sleeping pad/bag/system than what the general backpacking book said. Because physics has its limits. My stove is one of those Isobutane pocket rockets by MSR. And I brought the smallest canister. And my cookset was $22 on Amazon (G4Free Outdoor Aluminum Cooking Set) but now I took out everything but the 4.7″x4.2″ pot which is for my mac n cheese and the 4.5″x 2.4″ pot which is my coffee cup now. The rest that came with it I don’t need. (Honestly I could probably get by with one and have coffee and cold breakfast.) I know there are lighter titanium ones but I didn’t realize when I got it people measure things in grams. I know now I can save weight there if I bought titanium stuff. But that seems silly if I am still carrying a full double walled tent and that beautiful warm, cushy, better than my couch, Thermarest Basecamp 2 lb+ pad.

I didn’t realize how much the ultra light stuff costs. But I will figure it out over time once I try a few things that work. I am retiring from winter sports (skiing and snowboarding is crazy expensive on paper but I always figured out how to work it into the budget with sales and tweaks…my stuff wasn’t the best or even good and I don’t go to the big resorts but I got out!)

Seriously though there should be a warning somewhere about general backpacking books and websites that have packing lists with WAY too much heavy stuff.  I don’t get why they even told me to bring a shovel and a knife? Or a bath towel? Fires aren’t even allowed outside of rings on state land in NY, I guess I should have put that together in my head myself before packing a 1/2 lb knife to gather kindling with. But I didn’t. Look at the REI packlist…they want me to bring a “collapsable sink or container?!” The coffee and the mac n cheese is all going in the same place. Why do I need a sink? Why do I want to walk back up to the spring to even get water to fill up a sink?  The books and gearlists you find online are must be for if you were backpacking with Dr. Who in the Tardis and can be in every climate, forest and soil type at once. Otherwise they are non sensical. People must read them and try backpacking and think…wow…this sucks.

The cost per ounce seems like a good metric because I know there are 25 oz double walled tents out there. But they cost a lot. The hammock and pad could be a much better options. And I admit I am intrguiged by the shelter with no ground sheet and regular foam + torso air pad system. Though I may be too chicken to field test that miles from a trailhead. No groundsheet sounds daunting. As does the tarp. I am kinda of afraid of being eaten alive by bugs which is a little embarrassing to admit.

But still this is all awesome information because at least I can make an informed decision about the trade off on weight/cost. I am going to take the lighter pack out next weekend and see how loud various muscles and ligaments protest.  Then I can make a plan on what to try next. I assume the $30 weekend hammock guy must have a hammock underpad I can borrow. Even if it’s a few $$ more. The hammock idea seems like it could be my best bet for when I have my long weekends to do a longer trips (like 3-4 day) particularly in the summer months. I did have a minor fear of tree limbs falling on me while stealth camping  but I examined the spot pretty good….still the idea got in my head. But I am 99.9% sure I can pull myself out of that (the bug fear is more like 60%/40%.)

I used to do a lot of car camping and day hiking years ago. My husband used to come with me all the time. He loved being in the woods. But 2 winters ago he got really sick and was on a ventilator which affected his cognitive function. So he isn’t in any shape to do more than car camping and only in good weather. But we did some hiking in the Sierras and Sangre de Cristos when we were out west and the Aidirondacks (he grew up just inside the park.) And until last winter I used to do all kinds of skiing and snowboarding so I still had my mountain fix.  I tried twice this season but the injury made it painful. And with my work/home schedule trying to reserve a campground with very short notice doesn’t work. I think North South Lake in the Catskills is booked every weekend until closing and reservations opened on Saturday. I realized that if I EVER want to leave my house again and have a good time, I need to carry my shelter and get to primitive campsites.

Also – I grew up in Maine so I therfore have a sort of natural state of grubiness. I used to go on trips with my college outing club all the time. The college had its own preserve in Phippsburg, Maine. And they had some kind of special access to camping spots at Baxter Chimney Pond so we did Katahdin every year. Always setting up a base camp then hiking during the day.

So I do have some familiarity and am not coming in totally cold. But the leap from car camping/hiking to backpacking seemed like a big one.  And like 75% of the stuff I rea ended up being pretty worthless and wrong. Lol. But I got a plan now. Another trip with the lighter pack, then I am trying the hammock! Then in the early fall, Northville Placid trail. I am gonna get this done. And I will totally post pics with my 15 lb pack doing cartwheels! Lol.

Don’t go too light because it might instigate a SAR event! ;^)

Seriously though there should be a warning somewhere about general backpacking books and websites that have packing lists with WAY too much heavy stuff.

Welcome to BPL Chris! The same thought went through my head when first learning about lightweight backpacking. For over 20 years nobody in my backpacking or climbing circles gave serious and deliberate thought to gear weight or to weight reduction. We all just took it for granted that a 15+ mile day backpacking is supposed to leave you feeling sore and exhausted at the end of the day. All the popular outdoor shops offered the same (heavy) gear, so no help there. It seems like most traditional backpacking gear focuses on durability and fancy features at the expense of weight, maybe for marketing reasons and to reduce return rates.

Might have been mentioned but I didn’t see it:  have you considered making your own gear?  I started doing this as a poor graduate student and never stopped.

Assuming you have access to a sewing machine you can save a bundle making things yourself.  Basic UL silnylon tarps or tents are pretty easy, as are synthetic quilts (cheap and might save you a lot of weight), synthetic vests or jackets, stuff sacks, ponchos, wind shirts and pants, etc.  Check the MYOG forum, or search the web for suppliers, patterns, advice, etc.

Sewing is really easy, I experimented and basically taught myself.  I’m sure you can as well.  Also, as all MYOG folks will attest, it is VERY satisfying to complete a trip knowing that you relied on gear you made yourself.

If you want a hiking book that specializes in UL and is a bit more in-depth than the two little books already mentioned try Andrew Skurka’s The Ultimate Hiker’s Gear Guide.  At the very least, Andy has the creds.  And you seem like the perfect target audience for that book, frankly.  It’s biggest value is that it educates you enough that you can avoid buying mass-market crap.  (Not that everything mass-market is crap.)  Andy pops up here now and then, and has done some pretty impressive stuff, though some people find that he comes across as very opinionated.  I don’t get that impression at all, personally.  It’s Ray Jardine that I find insufferable.

If you’re only really doing short trips (<5 days) one incredibly cheap way to lose a few ounces would be to switch to an alcohol stove.  But they tend to be best for people who like to tinker, so if you aren’t one of those you might just want to stick with your compressed gas stove.  They are also best for people who 1) only boil water to cook and never simmer, and 2) only want one or maybe two hot meals a day.  But you can make your own SuperCat stove and an aluminum foil windscreen very easily and cheaply, so there is essentially zero financial risk to trying it out.  The real weight savings is in that the fuel is liquid rather than compressed gas, so you can bring along exactly as much as you need and no more.  If this sounds interesting to you let us know, because alcohol stoves are sort of a favorite around here and we can easily get off into the weeds about it.  I tend to use a SuperCat myself, unless there is a burn ban.  Another option of course is to go stoveless.  Many here love Esbit stoves, which can also be damned light, and use solid fuel.  Both Esbit and alcohol can be problematic in very windy conditions, though.  If you play around and decide that you want a professionally-made alcohol stove Zelph makes interesting unspillable ones.  Trail Designs makes some of the most efficient ones, and they have the Zelph stove as an option, but the widely-praised TD Caldera Cone systems must be custom-sized to your pot.  If you want to spend obscene money TD can make one of their cone systems out of titanium so that you can either burn alcohol or Esbit or wood in it, and weighs <6oz without the pot.

I personally have come to the conclusion that unless you have ridiculous amounts of disposable income that titanium cookware isn’t really worth it.  (Not unlike cuben.)  Aluminum works just fine and can be damned near as light while being much less expensive.  I wouldn’t use titanium except that I had already bought a lot of it before I figured this out.  That being said, you should be able to do much better than 14oz for an aluminum pot, mug, and plastic spoon.  Look around.  And, actually, a plastic mug would probably be lighter, and also not burn your lip when you have a hot drink.  Do us a favor and weigh your items individually so that we can help you out.  Bear in mind that you have come to a forum where people have reviewed the Taco Bell plastic spork as a camping utensil.  We got us some extremists, here.  :)

Just off the top of my head, a GSI Infinity plastic mug is 2oz/$3, and a a LightMyFire plastic spork is 0.5oz/$4.  Open Country used to make an 8oz 2qt aluminum pot, but I don’t think they make it any more.  It would be too big, anyway.  A 1qt aluminum pot with handles should be at most 6.5oz/$20.  Olicamp makes one. That’s a 5oz savings over your kit for $27, or about $5.40/oz.  Not bad.  And you can find lighter pots than that.  Or, if all you do is boil water and do freezer-bag cooking then GSI makes a 1L teapot that weighs 5.8oz/ $24.

Pot size, then, is the next discussion.  How much volume do you need?  Almost everyone here cooks by adding boiling water to something and letting it set, rather than involved cooking.  If you do that then a 750mL-ish pot is just about perfect for one person.  Unless you are a truly dedicated soloist, though, I tend to recommend a pot around 1000mL.  This allows for a very generous amount of hot water for one person- enough for two courses and a hot drink without filling it absolutely to the brim, which can be a spill hazard.  But 1L is also minimally adequate for two people if you ever do decide to bring a partner.

To put this in perspective, the truely fanatical gramweenies (yes that’s what we call them) use either esbit or alcohol stoves with an extra-large beer can as their pot.  Such a can is 750mL and 32 grams (just pot- not incl. stove & windscreen).

Also, IMHO non-stick coatings are a scam.  None are very durable nor are they actually non-stick, especially on flexible thin-walled camping pots.  You can scrub almost anything off of a metal pot with a handful of sand or pea-gravel, especially if you just do boiling-water cooking, since you’ll never burn food to the pot.  Don’t worry about leaving trace dirt in it from the scouring, because the next time you boil in it you’ll sterilize it.  Heck, a lot of people do this thing called “freezer-bag cooking”, where they pour the boiling water into a freezer bag with the food, so the pot never gets dirty.  I have found the extra messy garbage in the form of dirty freezer bags to be more onerous than scrubbing my pot out, though, so I don’t do this any more.

Ultralight sleeping bags can be really expensive, yes.  But most other things can actually be cheaper than the heavyweight stuff, usually because they are made more simply with fewer frills.  A good example is backpacks.  Most UL packs are just simple top-loading sacks without tons of exterior pockets and aesthetic design features and whatnot.  Check out Gossamer Gear and Mountain Laurel Designs for just two examples- there are many others.  (Warning- I tend to be an MLD fanboi.)  Another example is shelters.  A truly light three-season freestanding tent will indeed cost you a ton of money, but a rectangular silnylon tarp is pretty damned cheap and also much lighter.  But that’s a big step to take, similar to using a quilt rather than a sleeping bag.

Regarding no groundsheet in a floorless shelter: I rarely have problems with bugs, wombats, or whatever.  But I’m out west where bug pressure seems to be less, at least where/when I tend to hike.  I know that mosquitos and noseeums back east can be aggravating.  Several manufacturers make simple, light bug bivies and I have found that usually a floorless shelter with a bug bivy is lighter than an equivalent floored shelter.  As an example, my usual shelter is an MLD DuoMid with an MLD SuperLite bivy.  The bivy only weighs 5.5oz.  There are also things called “mesh inners” or “mesh inner nets” but, though they do give you great modularity, then tend to be just as heavy as a floored shelter.  And personally, though, I use a bivy.  The bivy will include a silnylon floor, plus you could have that 1/8-inch foam pad down.  That’s very sufficient.  What problem do you worry will occur with that system?

But it looks like you are intrigued by the idea of a hammock, anyway.  Perhaps we should shelve the floorless shelter discussion until you figure that out?  Hammockforums.net !  The very lightest hammocks can get expensive, though.  On the other hand if you’re short and don’t weigh much it’ll cost less.

FYI: hammocks use an underquilt, not an underpad.  You can use them with a pad, but it is cumbersome and the hammock gurus all use underquilts instead.  It doesn’t have to be full-sized; many manufacturers offer 3/4- or torso-length examples for warmer temperatures.  Usually to use a pad you just lay on it in the hammock- I don’t think any hang underneath.

The Sangre de Cristos are my backyard!  (Metaphorically.)  Beautiful, aren’t they?  A knife-edge surrounded by lower ground, almost.  Hard to make a loop, though, or even a longer hike that doesn’t have ATVers all over it.  They’re mostly out-and-backs.

Sorry if I post irregularly.  I’m deployed again- to Africa this time.

Gear begins to sort itself out with experience.

The best thing I’m hearing in all of this is that you wanted to go, couldn’t find anyone to join you, but went anyway.  I see so many people that always seem to be perpetually waiting on someone or something in oder to make things happen.  Which says a lot about how much they really want those things.

Gear begins to sort itself out with experience.

The best thing I’m hearing in all of this is that you wanted to go, couldn’t find anyone to join you, but went anyway. I see so many people that always seem to be perpetually waiting on someone or something in oder to make things happen. Which says a lot about how much they really want those things.

I’m with Craig on this. These kinds of threads end up with people posting the gear that works for them… and probably won’t work for you. Experience will tell you what you like and dislike about a particular piece of gear. Once you determine what you need you can search for a specific item that meets your criteria; otherwise you’ll end up spending a lot of time and money on stuff that doesn’t work. Keep hiking with what you have and slowly replace things one piece at a time. You want to buy your second piece of gear the first time… in other words, people end up buying at least two items before they figure out what really works for them.

Craig and I generally are solo hikers and we tend to hike in similar places — deserts, So Calif mountains, and the Sierra Nevada; but we’ve done a few trips together with pretty light stuff. Each of us have our gear dialed in. Except for a mini BIC lighter, I don’t think there is one other piece of gear we both use that is identical to include tent stakes.

Great list.  It’s really not that bloated.  You could lose the footprint.  You could lose the camp sandals.  I would try a relatively cheap foam sleeping mat; if it’s comfortable to you, it’s so nice and simple and cheap and a lot lighter.  Almost everything on there can be reduced in weight significantly.  But I would take my time instead of trying to do it all at once.  Save a little and then decide what you really want to cut back on, weight-wise.

It’s a good point Nick, largely why I’m tired of extensive gear talk, especially when it comes to recommendations for specific products for beginners.  For example, every “recommend a pack” thread is quickly filled with testimonials for every single pack in production and we’re back to square one, possibly even leaving a beginner more confused than when they started.

Our gear may not overlap in actual items, but I know much of it overlaps in function and the attitudes that lead to our respective choices.  In this case, and especially for a beginner, understanding and learning about function and the thought process that leads to using specific products is likely more enlightening than people simply listing off what they carry.

n this case, and especially for a beginner, understanding and learning about function and the thought process that leads to using specific products is likely more enlightening than people simply listing off what they carry.

Yeah I agree I wouldn’t have thought of trying a hammock or tarp with no groundsheet without all you awesome people talking me through this. I just read one “Backpacker’s Field Manual” book and sort of had it in my head that double walled tent/bag/pad is how you do it. But at least now I have some things to try this summer – because living in NYC its possible to try these things out before committing to them.

But I do have a lighter pack now so I’m definitely going to take it on at least a day hike Sunday and see how it feels. And now I have gym goals too to keep me motivated!

I really really appreciate the help, like I said as a newbie you just follow a beginner book and a gear list and get out there and all of a sudden its like – there has to be a better, more comfortable way! I look forward to learning a ton with some experimentation over the next few months. And the more I get out there the more I will I will be self-reliant and experienced on the trail which will help when upgrading gear.

The Sangre de Cristos are my backyard!  (Metaphorically.)  Beautiful, aren’t they?  A knife-edge surrounded by lower ground, almost.  Hard to make a loop, though, or even a longer hike that doesn’t have ATVers all over it.  They’re mostly out-and-backs.

Sorry if I post irregularly.  I’m deployed again- to Africa this time.

OMG I LOVE the Sangre de Cristos. I’m going to “retire” there if I ever get to retire. The trail to Wheeler Peak through Bull of the Woods is STILL my favorite hike ever. Having grown up near the 100 mile wilderness (which is wasn’t called when I was a kid) and doing Katahdin every year – Wheeler Peak was my first hike out west and it literally BLEW my mind. Fond fond memories of that trip. It was truly transcendental.

Oh, so you’re talking about down south in New Mexico.  I’m up by the Colorado Sangres, near Great Sand Dunes National Park.  (Thus the bit about the range being a knife-edge surrounded by lower ground.)  Check out the traverse this dude did there.

I would LOVE to replicate that…

Craig/Nick- I hear you, but we can at least help keep her from making some of the mistakes everyone makes, eh?  (Lord knows I’ve got too much titanium…)  And she is clearly looking for ideas, so I don’t see any negative in giving them to her.  I’m trying to give multiple options.

I’m just speaking generally Dean.  I think your advice is really good because you’re taking the time to explain the reasoning behind your suggestions.

+1 on the last posts by Craig and Dean.

Wheeler Peak was my first western peak too.  That’s really a pretty area around Taos.  It was inspiring to me as well.

As for the ankle, check out http://www.backpackerpt.com, written by Jen Mitol, one of our members.  She has good exercises to strengthen your hips and knees, which helps a lot with the ankles, as well as a post on weak ankles.   The core muscles that carry your backpack may need strengthening to increase your stability. I used to roll my right ankle regularly when backpacking, to the point of falling down, especially when tired on the back, if I was pushing myself.  Using the exercises for knee pain has completely eliminated that problem for me, and I’ve ditched mids for low running shoes.

Good job getting out there!  I’m transitioning to solo hiking, after having a partner for years, and it can be HARD to motivate yourself to go out there.