I meant to post this last summer after we got back, but if anyone finds themselves with similar questions, here’s how it went:
Shoes – I took mesh trail runners with dirty girl gaiters. Going into it, I still didn’t know what to expect, and wasn’t comfortable with any single sock solution, so I overpacked and took neoprene socks, thick wool socks, a thin pair of smartwool toe socks, a thin pair of regular smartwool socks, and rocky gtx socks. Crossing the glacial streams wasn’t like crossing normal streams where normally I’d just walk through the water and let my feet dry out — the silt is super fine and will immediately get through a pair of socks, then your socks are full of grit that rubs against your feet and causes blisters if you don’t clean them out. So the standard advice to just get your feet wet and keep hiking, didn’t work so well. I tried a bunch of combinations. First I just crossed using trail runners with my thin smartwool, but I lost a lot of time cleaning my feet after each crossing of dirty glacial water (which was typically at least a couple times a day). I tried crossing in just neoprene socks without shoes but you really don’t have good stability or traction (and the currents can get strong). I tried a few other combinations, in the end what worked best is this:
– Most of the time I wore liner socks inside goretex socks inside my trailrunners, with dirty girls over top. This was fine crossing anything up to low-shin level. My feet got damp from sweat but stayed mostly dry, and more importantly stayed clean.
– During a deep crossing, I’d switch to neoprene socks inside my trail runners. The water was frigid and the neoprene kept me not really “warm”, so much as “in less pain”. My neoprene socks generally stayed dirty so when we finished the deep crossing I would clean my feet and put the liners and goretex socks back on.
– Sometimes, like when we were playing on top of a ridge, I could do without the goretex socks.
– I used the thick wool socks for sleeping. I could have left the spare liners at home. The neoprene were nice but not essential.
– Every night I would clean my feet and wash my hiking socks in clean water, and every morning I would clean my feet again and apply Hike Goo. Never got a blister the whole week, which I thought was pretty impressive given my feet were damp the entire time and often covered in grit.
My hiking partner took waterproof hiking boots, full gaiters, neoprene socks, and a pair of mesh water shoes. For the first few days he was pretty happy and miraculously managed to keep his feet dry. However at some point mid-trip they got wet, then his boots never dried and his feet just stayed wet the rest of the week. The mesh water shoes also let grit in super quickly (not surprising) – they seemed cool for hiking in areas without so much schmutz, but weren’t a good choice for this trip. If I had to do it over I’d do trail runners + goretex socks again, and I think he’d do the same. My trail runners (Vasque Mindbenders) did get beat to hell though – they were old going into the trip, but they got pretty well destroyed and I threw them away before the flight home.
Bushwhacking: There was tons of bushwhacking, but no thorns or pokey things. So I wouldn’t consider Fogg Toggs, but I think you can get by with a little more fragile stuff here than other bushwhacking trips. I wore MLD cuben rain paints and they did get a small hole (the size of a sesame seed), but in general held up rather well considering how much bushwhacking we did.
Rain: There were downpours for maybe an hour or two every day, and drizzled half the rest of the time. So we were always wet. My hiking partner took a 5.9oz OneDirection jacket that was very light but wetted out after a day or two, so he spent most of the trip essentially without a functional raincoat and got very lucky that it wasn’t colder. I brought an Elite Designs Cagoule – it’s heavier than I’d normally bring, but I was happy to have it. It seemed to wet a little right under the shoulder straps by the end of the week but otherwise kept me dry. I brought MLD event mitts and was very happy to have them. My hiking partner made some Tyvek rain mitts which worked well for most of the trip (and were super cheap) but were disintegrating a bit by the end. I was also very happy with my MLD cuben rain chaps, which kept me dry under the cagoule, but breathed well and were never uncomfortable when it wasn’t raining.
Cooking: We were often above tree-line and everything was wet anyway, so wood stoves just aren’t a good option (even if they weren’t illegal). We used alcohol in the tri-ti with a zelph modified starlyte and had no problem.
Bears: we did see a couple grizzlies much closer than we wanted to, and a moose not too far from our camp. We followed standard procedures dealing with them and didn’t have an incident, but like they say – stay alert! And don’t put the bear spray in your pack. I didn’t end up spraying it, but I did have it drawn and ready in case the bear came a little closer (luckily he turned away at the last moment, while we were waving our hiking poles at him). I had the spray in a belt holster where it was easy to grab; if it had been buried in my pack I wouldn’t have had time to grab it if we actually needed it.
For canisters… We brought Ursacks and I have mixed feelings about them. It was my first time using an Ursak and in general I really liked them. Much less weight and bulk in your pack, so that was really nice. But when the vegetation is mostly low brush and crumbly rocks, it was really difficult finding places to tie the Ursak that really felt secure. We didn’t have an issue, but we used OP sacks inside the ursacks and there was no sign that the bear never knew they were there. I’m not confident he couldn’t have broken the trees or rocks to take it if he had actually known it was there.
Bugs: surprisingly weren’t much of an issue except for mosquitos at one isolated spot, where we ate lunch at a bog with a lot of standing water. I used an InsectShield shirt and non-treated headnet and had no problems. I brought DEET but never needed it.
Tent: we used the Quarter Dome 3 just cause it’s what we had available. It’s heavier than I would have liked but otherwise no complaints. It sounds like a pyramid (if we had one) would have been the best choice.
Headlamps: we left them at home, it never got darker than dusk (in late June), so there was absolutely no need for them. One night we hiked all night and around 4 or 5am the west was purple from the sun setting, while at the same time the east was red from the sun rising. (All with a herd of half-asleep caribou off to our right). Gorgeous.
