2019 Oct 8-20 New England Trail

  •   Category Price Weight
  • Clothes, Worn $109.95
    4.03 lb
  • Clothes, Carried $192.99
    1.93 lb
  • Sleep $159.00
    1.79 lb
  • Pack $1.00
    1.08 lb
  • Electronics $20.00
    0.91 lb
  • Shelter $226.00
    0.7 lb
  • Water $33.00
    0.35 lb
  • Ditty $4.05
    0.25 lb
  • Navigation $0.00
    0.2 lb
  • Kitchen $2.99
    0.18 lb
  • Hygiene $0.97
    0.14 lb
  • Toilet $1.00
    0.17 lb
  • Total $750.95 11.73
    lb
    • oz
    • lb
    • g
    • kg
  • Consumable 0.25 lb
  • Worn 4.03 lb
  • Base Weight 7.45 lb

Prev: 2019 Sep AT/CT-MA -- first trip I ever did UL, didn't really have it figured out yet but didn't do too bad...

Next: 2020 Mar 15-Apr AZT

Gear Temps 72F-32F, humid. Green tunnel sheltered from sun and wind. Water plentiful. Views were... less plentiful. Almost no resources on trail, but never too far from a road. Handful of shelters along trail, but so irregularly spaced I never used one. Only ~11 hours of sunlight per day and wanted to make the most of it, so I emphasized low weight and fewer stops. People I met were friendly, but I saw very few people on trail even in peak foliage season, except for popular spots on weekends (e.g. Heublein Tower). Shookdown a lot of gear and most of it worked great. Some failures were: Injinji liner socks -- I liked the fit, but they were too thick and took all day to dry out when wet, so I'm sticking with my REI liners... I'm on the lookout for even thinner socks. Got rained on 1 out of 11 days, I was lucky weather-wise. Frogg Toggs UL2 worked great, but I had nothing covering my running shorts and my legs got cold from the rain even while I was working hard. Wax paper also turned out to not want to release Leukotape when I had a small blister on my pinky toe, so I used duct tape instead, it was fine. Figured out the comfort rating of the quilt + all my clothes was about 35F. It got to 32F one morning and I was uncomfortable. XLITE torso-length worked fine, I put my legs on my food bag + pack. My inflatable pillow died after I stopped babying it. I actually liked it but hated having to pack the separate straw, I can live without it. Several items were overkill -- my power bank, my food bag, even my 40L pack was more than I needed. There is still room to shave another 1+ lbs off the setup and not lose much. I resupplied with 3-4 days of food, I would have liked to carry even less but logistically it would have required more planning and time than I enjoy doing :) Overall things worked out well -- pack, fanny pack, shelter, clothing layers, navigation. I used the paper maps way more than I expected, unlike traveling on the AT with Guthook. In the end though I still relied heavily on GAIA maps + GPS to stay on trail, especially in CT where there are lots of intersecting trails and insufficient blazing for a National Scenic Trail. Massachusetts infrastructure is much nicer, but there are still some spots where it is harder to follow the trail than it should be.