Gear List

I have refrained from posting gear lists from my travels here mostly out of laziness, but partly because of a fear that they will be taken as absolute. The gear that I pack varies greatly from trip to trip. The type of travel, duration, terrain, and anticipated weather all factor into what I pack. On top of this, I always experiment with different gear and different configurations, seeking the best of both. Thus, my gear will differ even on nearly identical trips.

I should also note that I pack with an eye towards preparedness. That is to say that, for me, the only difference between 3 days and 30 days is the amount of food, and I’m not going to be carrying 30 days worth of food, anyway.

Still, people have expressed interest in what I pack, and I know that I do appreciate it when others whom I respect post their pack lists. So, here is the list from my last trip. The trip was 7 days long, and included about 85 miles of travel on dirt trails, paved roads, and bushwhacking. The route was never what I would call true wilderness or backcountry, meaning that I was always within one days walk of an urban area — and by urban I mean what is probably rural by most standards. The route also took me directly through small towns, which allowed me to restock on food.

I performed the trip over the last week of March. Days got up to around 45 degrees Fahrenheit, with nights around 35. Days were unusually dry (which meant it misted constantly, but didn’t actually rain). During the night, it did rain, but not terribly hard. On the first night, which was at about 1700 feet, it snowed. (The rest of the hike was through valleys and along the coast, so the elevation was well below 1000 feet.) In all, this pack list is a good representation of what I will choose to carry in Winter, not Spring. In the deep, dark of Winter, I will probably carry a few more layers of clothing and switch out some of the lighter garments for heavier ones, but, other than that, this list represents a more-or-less standard pack list for a one week journey in a Cascadian Winter, below elevation.

I do not have a reliable scale, so I cannot weigh my gear. All in all, I’d estimate the pack to be at about 45 lbs.

I’m compiling this list a few days after returning from the trip. I have already unpacked about half the items, so I may have missed something, but the bulk of the gear is certainly here. If you have any questions, or notice any stark absences, feel free to comment. Ideally, I would create a pack list as I’m packing, before the trip. Maybe next time…

The list is subdivided into two sections: what I wore on my body and what I carried in my pack. In the pack section, I decided to separate out what was carried in the lid (called an XTL), which detaches to become a man-purse and so also functions as a sort of escape and evasion bag (or a bail-out bag for the bail-out bag) and the body of the ZXR itself. Otherwise, I have not distinguished between what is carried in the main compartment, the slot pockets, or mounted on the belt. The clothing consists of three main insulating layers: a light wool shirt, a fleece vest, and a lightweight fleece jacket. These three would, of course, alternate between my body and my pack depending on where I was and what I was doing. During most of the hiking, I wore the wool shirt and packed the other two.

Worn On Body

• Smartwool Hiking socks
• Smartwool Microweight Boxer Briefs
• Ibex Woolies long underwear bottoms
• Patagonia Capilene Level 2 long sleeve tshirt
• Nemesis Hellion neck knife
• Atwood Tactical Whistle (worn on paracord around neck)
• Railriders Versatac Light pants

• Small bandana
• Ultimate Survival Technologies Strike Force
• K & M Industries Matchcase
• Hair tie
• Bic lighter

Kifaru ZXR

• Kifaru XTL

• Kifaru Standard Chamber Pocket

• Rite-in-the-Rain notepad (model 393-M)
• Lens cloth
• Hair tie
• Glasses strap
• Badger Healing Balm
• Purell Hand Sanitizer
• Jetstream ballpoint pen
• Fisher space pen
• REI titanium spork
• 2x spare camera batteries
• REI keychain thermometer