First Time JMT Hike …. Pack List critique plz.

Joby, for a newbie, you have a fairly complete, although rather heavy, gear list. One of the “10 essentials” that’s missing is a map, as part of the Navigation essential. It would be helpful to break down your list further, listing each item on it’s own row along with item weight. Some non-essentials that most people carry you might consider adding are a pocket camera, or a smartphone for photos and map redundancy.

Depending on your budget and goals, it would be very easy to cut several pounds from your 23 lb base weight with minimal reduction in comfort or safety. This website is one of the best resources for starting down the enjoyable and rewarding UL backpacking path.

More important than weight IMHO, would be to test out your gear on some shorter backpacking trips and refine your backcountry skills before starting on such a long hike as the JMT.

Joby, Is this all gear you own or are you about to purchase? If you are in the latter situation it would be really easy to shed several pounds off this list spending the same amount of money with a ULA pack and a TarpTent. Let us know and we can go through and make suggestions item by item.

Too much hygiene and first aid. Repackaging soap and water treatment into containers that are trip sized.

Agree that a more detailed list would be better for dissection.

Hopefully Link will post her master post of links on this subject.

A very minor adjustment to make that others may miss is to switch out that REI 311 waterproof baggie. I say this because I just got one from a garage sale last week, weighed it, and it was almost an ounce, whereas you can get excellent “Aloksaks” that are that size, equally if not more effective, and around .4 ounces I believe.

Why a 2 man tent? get rid of the foot print and go with a piece of polycro. no pack cover. go with a 2mil trash compactor bag inside the pack. your pack should be no more than 2.5lbs.your hygiene and first aid weight should be at least cut in half. use a bear vault weekender and cut 11oz. I used it on the entire JMT last year. I did the JMT last August and my base pack weight was 14lbs. with a tent, not a tarp.

As others have said, more detail please. Also how many miles a day do you plan to hike and how many food drops?

Your tent and pack are really heavy.  It’s hard to tell much from the rest of your list as you don’t list every item individually.  You should be able to get a pack for under 3 lbs and a tent for 2lbs.

Joby here is the link that Ken refers to in his post that I put together for new people trying to get their pack weight down GENERAL NEWBIE HELP  .

Here is another article

Simply Start Lightweight Backpacking .

Here are pages of gear lists for different trails, weather and parts of the country and world

Archive | Lightweight Hiking Gear Lists .

and this list is for specifically the JMT at half the weight of yours

Lightweight John Muir Trail (JMT) Gear List .

this is BPL member Adam Whites very nice trip report with gear lists at the end of the report

.YET ANOTHER JMT TRIP REPORT .

BPL member Manfred’s trip report with his and member Andrew Fahrland’s gear lists

JMT IN A WEEK .

I read what I wrote again and didn’t want it to come across too harsh.  The most important thing is for you to get out there and have fun.  Yes, you can go lighter on some of your choices, and that may increase your comfort on the trail, but the JMT is AWESOME, and you will have a great time no matter what.

Thanks Link.

Thanks guy for the comments and suggestions.

Gives me a lot of ideas and resources to check out

For some reason in my newbie help link the Oregon Field Guide Ultralight Hiking video link is down so if you want to watch it(it is worth watching) HERE is another link where you can watch it, it starts 8 min and 30 sec. into the episode. HERE is Lint’s blog

As noted above, I think it really depends on how much of this stuff you already own. If you own it already, I’d be inclined to keep what you have, just since what’s listed is primarily of a high quality, just coming from a different perspective than mine. If you’re buying, a few basic thoughts:

• Switching the tent to something like a Tarptent or one of the Six Moon Designs offerings (Lunar Solo/Skyscape) will save you a TON of weight and even more money. My personal pick if you’re going that route and still want a tent is the SMD Gatewood Cape/Serenity Nettent, although it’s a bit more expensive than the others I just mentioned by $20-30 or so. It’s a bit of a niche and isn’t loaded with livable space, but it makes for a very light double-wall tent that’ll take anything mother nature can throw at you. I don’t use my Gatewood anymore (and rarely break out the Serenity, but I have found that the modular components are better for packing up when it’s wet out, as opposed to the unibody construction of the Tarptent stuff.
• ULA Circuit is about half the weight of that Osprey (a bit more, depending on features you keep on), and is a bit cheaper, although not that much. In general, there’s a fair number of packs with similar carrying capacity and size that are a good bit lighter (in some cases 2.5 pounds or lighter) and are generally cheaper or at least comparably priced.
• You can get the same general functionality with a normal canister stove (compared to the Jetboil), at a fair bit less weight. If you already own the JB, ignore this and enjoy your speedy boils.
• I would ditch the laundry wash and Dr. Bronner’s – I sometimes like to carry Dr. B’s on longer hikes for things like showers in campgrounds/hostels, washing my hands when I get a sink with no soap, etc., but on the JMT, anywhere you’re going to be stopping already has these amenities sorted, so might as well save yourself the 5-6 ounces here.
• Rain cover- swap with trash compactor bag in your pack- lighter, way cheaper, and better result.
• Rope- if you’re actually carrying 0.3 lbs (4.8oz) for rope, I wouldn’t. I often throw about 25′ of Nite Ize cord in my pack at about an once in order to repair guylines/creatively lash stuff, etc., but even that’s overkill.
• Headlamp seems super heavy- you can get something in the 3oz range without even spending much money.
• 4lbs seems like a lot for clothing, but it’s a bit hard to tell. I’m not a fan of Crocs or alternate footwear in general, but obviously, there are people who want/like them. As noted above, the breakdown of what you’re carrying and the weight is gonna be important.
• I might throw in a headnet depending on when you’re going this year- decent chance of a proper mosquito hell thanks to the snow.

Ultimately, probably the more important thing is that I don’t really see any obvious omissions here, so you’re not gonna die in the woods bringing this kit as-is, and you’ll be plenty comfortable in camp (and probably not dying on-trail, although you could wind up with a bit of a slog after resupplies depending on what kind of food you’re carrying).  There’s just ample room to drop a fair amount of weight (at equal or lesser cost) without losing performance, especially if you haven’t bought some of the big stuff yet.

These things drive me nuts lol. Drop 2 pounds of camera/phone gear rather than spend mad cash to save ounces on a cook kit or tent or anything else.

These things drive me nuts lol. Drop 2 pounds of camera/phone gear rather than spend mad cash to save ounces on a cook kit or tent or anything else.

Chad, I think most of us were commenting from the perspective of if he doesn’t have some/all of this stuff anyway- if, say, the tent and pack haven’t been purchased yet, you could save 4lbs and $200 by going with a ULA pack and a Tarptent (just pulling those out of the air for this hypothetical although I’ve owned and used both extensively in the past). I don’t think anyone on here is advocating replacing hundreds of dollars worth of perfectly good gear with other stuff if it’s already been bought.

As far as camera stuff goes (not even on his list, actually), I think most of us tend to leave it alone when going through the gear list because it has a clear purpose for that person’s trip and most people know it’s heavy and choose to bring it for their trip. It’s a conscious choice and the people who do hike with any kind of a substantial camera, etc. are doing it because they want photography to be a part of their trip. Same goes for fishing, etc.

If you look at my newbie help link that I post for most beginners there are at least 5 tips links on how to do it cheaply, a lot of people bring heavier camera equipment ect. because it’s their hobby or livelihood and I leave that alone unless they ask for specific help in that direction(lots of youtube vloggers and bloggers who make posting one of their priorities such as WIRED ) .