Gear
Reviews and field tests of some of the stuff I use
Leukotape is a rigid athletic tape with a durable adhesive that was designed for realigning the shoulder and holding muscles in place during athletic activities. It has been adopted and adapted by many thru-hikers for foot care. The goal is to replace blister treatment with blister prevention and overall foot health; to put it simply, Leukotape is used to entirely prevent blisters. I haven't had any blisters for several years, and that's with hundreds, if not thousands, of miles thru-hiked each season.
Leukotape is one step in my foot care protocol which includes the careful selection of suitable hiking shoes (usually trail runners), use of a balm such as climbOn each night, and taking time each day to air out my feet during long hikes. The first step is to try to reduce the need for Leukotape; STOP and clear out your shoes and socks if you suspect a small stick or tiny piece of gravel or anything else has made its way to your foot. Friction against the layers of skin is the cause of blisters - these tiny hazards are a leading cause of this friction. Don't worry about the five minutes it will cost you to clear out your footwear as it will save you much time and suffering later on.
However, even if you're painstakingly cautious with detritus removal it's still possible to feel a "hotspot" forming. There are spots on everybody's feet that seem to rub against the shoe more than the rest of the foot. My left heel is the spot for me. My left foot is just slightly longer than my right. I could buy two different size shoes for my feet, but the size difference is minimal and going up a size, or half-size, might cause other problems. The difference is enough, though, that on occasional hikes I start to feel a bit of irritation on the heel. It's at that point that I stop and apply Leukotape. The tape has a strong adhesive and will stay on the foot for a couple of days and often longer. I add tincture of benzoin for additional adherence and have had the tape remain on my for five days until I manually removed it. Once the tape is on the irritation subsides and I have no more problems with the heel.
Leukotape can be easily prepared for ease of use and storage in your pack. There's no need to carry the entire roll with you. There are just a few simple steps to cut small pieces of Leukotape and store it on release paper. The video describes these steps.
Going light is expensive. Going cuben fiber (Dyneema Composite Fabrics) makes it even more expensive. And many of these specialty items are not ones that you can buy with your REI member's dividend and 20% coupon. I spent several months looking into shelters. I read blogs and watched videos on tarps, tents, hammocks, and what have you. I studied cost comparisons, weight comparisons, durability comparisons, and so on. In the end I had to accept that there would be no single shelter that would be 100% perfect for me and be adaptable to all ranges of thru-hikes. There never will be a shelter that is 100% perfect - manufacturers should keep striving as that drives progress, but we have to accept that a 67% marriage is more realistic and something that we can live with.
That being said, I love my cuben fiber MLD Duomid with Solo Innernet. It cost an arm and a leg, but it's the only shelter I've used for the past several seasons. It's uber-light, maintains it's pitch all night even in bad weather, it pitches with my trekking poles, and is in as good of shape as when I first used it. I sleep warm and found that I benefit from the "floorless tent" pyramid design that allows more air to circulate. It provides much more protection than a tarp does. The Duomid size means that I can store my gear inside if the weather is poor. The solo Innernet provides protection from bugs and slugs, but is easily left behind (or simply not pitched) if conditions don't require it. I've had it in wind and rain and it hasn't started to sag or needed re-pitching in the middle of the night. I haven't had the opportunity to use it in snow, but there are plenty of online trip reports describing its performance in those conditions.
There are a couple of downsides, though both really have no impact on me. First, most shelters (some tarps are exceptions) get hot once the sun starts to shine on them; cuben fiber seems to heat up much more quickly than other materials. It probably would not be a good shelter if you like to take your time in the morning, have coffee in your shelter, and enjoy the setting while waiting for a later start to hit the trail. I'm usually up and on the trail by 8 am so this feature of cuben fiber hasn't negatively affected me. Second, cuben fiber does not fold as tightly as other materials. Other shelters will require less space in your pack than shelters made with this material. Again, this hasn't affected me as I store my Duomid and Innernet in the large pocket on the outside of my pack (another MLD product, the Prophet).
Pitching a Duomid takes a little practice. It's not as challenging to master as properly setting up a tarp, but it's not as simple as threading a couple of tent poles through a few hoops. I practiced in my backyard and found that I was getting good pitches within a small handful of trials. This video shows my current pitching technique. I intentionally slowed down my efforts for purposes of the video - I typically get the Duomid up in a couple of minutes and another minute or two for the Innernet (not shown in the video). An aside here: My search for the perfect shelter (67% perfect!) led me to viewing numerous videos and reading through blogs and forums. These sources were invaluable to me and allowed me to buy with confidence. Blogs and YouTube channels, such as Tony Hobbs's channel, provided a first-person look at the Duomid. Particularly, I found blogs and videos from people using these items in the field to be incredibly helpful. These items are expensive and the more information out there, the better. I consumed a great deal of information that others took the effort to share and the desire to pay it back is a primary reason for this website and YouTube videos (so blame them!).
Fabric composition is an important factor in selecting hiking apparel. Polyester (often polyester-blends) has long been a choice for hiking shirts due to its weight, moisture wicking ability, durability, and comparative affordability. Unfortunately, polyester's major downside is it can stink and start to stink quickly. A few miles on the trail and you start realizing that you want to keep your distance from others (due to both your and their polyester!). Polygiene is a product that was introduced a few years ago and slowly made its way into clothing in the U.S. market. It's a proprietary product that is embedded into clothing during the manufacturing process. It claims to significantly reduce body odor caused by sweat and polyester.
I decided to test this product when I was in Juneau, Alaska. I wore a Polygiene treated polyester-blend shirt on the hike up Mt Roberts and Gastineau Peak. For those of you not familiar with Juneau, there's a tramway that can take you up and down 1800 feet of elevation on the west facing slope of Mt Roberts. There's a landing at the top that has a cafe, gift shop, and interpretive center. The bottom of the tramway is in downtown Juneau with an easy walk to the downtown restaurants, shops, and hotels.
I skipped the tramway on the way up and started out at the trail head toward the north-end of downtown. It was a beautifully sunny day and the eight-mile round-trip hike raised a good sweat. My better-half had taken the tramway up and was the final arbiter as to whether I would be allowed to enter the tramway car to be closed-in tight with many innocents. There is no way I would be allowed to enter that car if I had a good hiking funk going. The short answer is, yes, Polygiene worked and I was allowed to enter the car and take a leisurely and scenic ride back to downtown. I didn't smell like cotton candy, but there's no doubt that there was significantly less hiking funk than any other polyester-blend shirt I've worn.
I bring topo maps on all but the most familiar routes. Their primary purpose is for my safety regimen, but they offer the bonus of considering spur routes and alternate trails if I come across them. I was never happy with the USGS maps as they are oversized and often covered large areas that I was not interested in. I then cut them down to the areas I needed so as to be easily folded into my map bag. I felt the cost was too high for the amount of map I was left with. This doesn't even consider the delay in procuring maps if I couldn't find them in-stock at my local gear store.
I began reading about custom topo maps a few years ago and was impressed with Andrew Skurka's method that he details on his website. I access Caltopo for maps in the U.S. and Ordnance Survey for maps in the U.K. Both sites allow me to frame the area I'm interested in and save them as 11x17" PDFs (A3 size for Ordnance Survey maps is close to 11x17"). I have memberships to both of these services and find the annual fees to be great values. I typically make topos at a 1:24,000 scale. I then upload them to a printing service (there's a FedEx shop near me) and pick them up at my convenience. I do one-sided printing (one map per piece of paper) as I often write notes on the backside before I head out. Full color prints cost about $1.25 inclusive of tax. You can lower cost-per-map further if you do two-sided printing.
One of the gear choices for thru hiking that I've still not found a fully satisfactory option for is eyewear. Currently, I wear my contact lenses with wrap around, polarized sunglasses. The sunglasses are worn when it's bright and I can quickly push them to the top of my head or place them up on my cap when I don't need them. It's a quick transition and this option provides 20/20 vision while protecting my eyes from bright sunlight. However, I have several issues with taking my contact lenses on longer hikes. I need to carry extra gear; namely, a case for the lenses, protein cleaner, storage solution, and re-wetting drops. Granted, these take up very little space in my pack and, collectively, add just an ounce or two to the pack weight. Nevertheless, they mean I have to track several more items when packing my gear.
Another issue is eye health. It can be dry and dusty on the trail which compounds the dryness that can come from wearing contact lenses. If my eyes become too dry then there is an increased risk of infection or other vision issues. The final primary concern is that these lenses are tiny and difficult to see. I often set up camp as darkness is falling and removing those small lenses requires a great deal of care. If I drop one of them I'll probably never find it again. I never have lost a lens, but it's a constant worry when I take them out at night and when I put them back in the morning.
I would prefer to wear my eyeglasses when hiking for these reasons. The problem is that I haven't yet found a good solution for dealing with bright sunlight. The clip-on and flip-up sunglass lenses I've tried let in far too much light from the top, sides, and bottoms. I have prescription sunglasses, but then I have to stop and change glasses (which requires putting them back in their case and safely stowing them) every time I transition from sunlight to moderate light, e.g., I walk from an open field into a forest. I'm not interested in laser surgery and ruled out that option many years ago.
My current plan is to revisit the possibility of flip-up sunglasses. They will attach to the bridge of my eyeglasses and I can simply flip them up (while remaining attached to my eyeglasses) when I don't need them. I will focus on lowering my hat so that the brim does a better job of blocking sunlight from entering from above. I don't know if this will work and there is a chance that my eyeglasses will tend to slip down my nose due to the fractionally increased weight. In the end, though, they only cost $10 and I think it's a worth a try.
Having said all that, I did wear my contact lenses on my last camp. Here's a video that shows my process for proper cleaning and storage when in the field. It's essentially the same as doing it at home but I need to be much, much more careful that I don't drop a lens.
When planning for a hike I pay close attention to my footwear. My hiking shoes need to be up to the demands of the trail without slowing me down with excess weight. I've found that, in most cases, less is more. That is, I've stopped wearing over-the-ankle Gore-Tex hiking boots and have transitioned to trail runners for nearly all of my 3-season hiking. La Sportiva Bushido have been my go-to shoes for the past few seasons.
This past month I headed out to Scotland with numerous short hikes on the west coast of the Highlands. I knew this would mean time spent on wet, slick Lewisian gneiss and other ancient rock of the Hebridean terrane. I decided to bring along a pair of La Sportiva TX 3 outfitted with Vibram Megagrip soles. A friend, an authority on mountaineering boots, confirmed that these soles would provide extra grip on slick surfaces.
I wore them on trails on the Isle of Iona, Ardnamurchan Peninsula, Isle of Raasay (near Skye), and Plockton. I was pleased with the results and will attest that the soles provided more grip than other trail runners I had worn.
