Soon 🤞

Start low risk. Bring a sleeping pad, quilt or bag and some kind of shelter and go from there.

Tell us more about your winter trips!

Happy October everybody! What’s going on with you? I’m planning a bit of hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a couple of weeks. Even though I live on the East Coast and GSMNP is the most-visited NP in the country it’ll be my first time.

For cold and rain consider Showa gloves (originally made for fishermen), I picked some up on eBay for under $20 and use them for biking in winter.

Great pics! Sounds like a good shakedown hike, lots of useful feedback. Fleece-wise a cheap, run-of-the-mill 100 wt 100% polyester fleece should weigh 8 oz or so and do the trick. For camp shoes drop the crocs and use bread bags as liners inside whatever you’re hiking in. Swap the wool gloves for polyester as it absorbs less water. How’d your puffy get wet?

Looks nice, great pics! Love hearing about the weather and wildlife, how do salamanders survive up there? How’d you hear about the wolf sighting? Sad to hear about the fire but it’s all too common.

Thanks hombre! It was the right call but it still feels bad to blow up my big trip for the year in one day, but I guess I put myself in that position.

Gear-wise:

• 1L water capacity: workable but stressful on 19 mile stretch from McKee to Leidy. One option would be to carry 2L, but the better option would be to skip McKee Draw and go straight to Leidy TH, then 1L would be fine.
• Midlayers: 5.5 oz Kuiu Peloton 97 + 1.2 oz poly imitation buff — worked but just barely enough. Would swap out for 8-9 oz 100 wt fleece + 2-3 oz beanie for additional warmth safety margin.
• Antigravitygear rain jacket 2: I’ve been testing this every chance I got this year and I trusted it. Performed well in the rain and the pitzips are awesome. The hood is somewhat awkward and works best with a brimmed hat.
• Nunatak SULO 30: warm down to light frost, maybe ~30F on first night. Coming from an Arc UL 30 had initial learning curve keeping my neck/upper torso warm the first night as there is no draft collar and adjustment is more barebones, but it is there and I figured it out. Non-gram-weenies will prefer the Arc UL for ease of use.
• Borah Gear Solo Tarp: I have a custom tieout right in the center of the tarp, this does NOT help for storm mode. I’d like a tieout near the foot end so I can lift the tarp off my feet when pitched super low. Why haven’t I thought of this before?
• Easton Nano 6” stakes: was worried the heads would pop off but worked great in the wind, like them, will use again. Might get the MLD-recommended 8” ones someday.
• MYOG ~35L 13 oz frameless hipbeltless pack: love thruhiking with a pack that compresses small enough to qualify as my airline “personal item” and fit under the seat in front of me. Really streamlines travel and the tickets are cheaper. 4 days of food was manageable but slightly uncomfortable the first day, better on day 2 after eating food down a bit.
• 5g microscissors: steel blades starting to rust after several years. could feel them straining to cut Walmart packaging. They’ve served me well but I will upgrade to beefier 2.5” Westcott titanium.
• Rain skirt: worked great in rain
• 30 ml hand sani: this is way too much for a few days, I’d like to find a bottle half the size that works with thick hand sani.
• Ozark Trail trekking poles: threw away one half, just used one. Had to crank the shit out of them to get them to hold. Don’t really trust them, but for $22…

Nice backup 😁 be safe, take pictures and let us know how it goes!

love the nature shots and the minimal sound, the guy has a tasteful aesthetic

Does the snow signal the end of the season for you or do you do winter hiking/touring as well? I only got a few decent pictures as my trip was cut short but here’s some:

Gabbro Pass, with snow still on it end of August. Locals said there may have been as much as 20 feet this past winter.

Locals fishing at Chepeta Lake

Sunset over SLC

My favorite picture of all was completely unrelated to the Uintas or SLC, it was a mother and daughter watching buffalo at Antelope Island State Park:

Sorry to hear you got rained on but glad to hear you made it out ok. My wife and I have lost a hiking friend years ago after a harder-than-expected Presidential Traverse with a friend who had gotten badly out of shape. Back then we didn’t really know anything and didn’t realize what we were getting into. But it sounds like you do know what you’re doing; is there an opportunity to limit trips with the casual friend to lower risk endeavors?

Terrific photos! Too bad about the knee pain, but glad you worked it out. I hope to visit the Sawtooths one day.

Welp, got rained/snowed out of the High Uintas just as I was about to go over North Pole Pass, the weather over Labor Day weekend was truly awful with 3+ days of cold rain, thunderstorms and the first snow of the season.

That’s really thoughtful of you!

I’ve had good luck getting trekking poles and stakes through in my carry-on, but according to the written rules they’re apparently not permitted 🤷

Mine comes in at about 250g fully loaded

As always Andrew Skurka has a well-researched and reasonable take on first aid kits, it’s the one thing he refuses to list a weight for.

I have given stuff away on the trail before.

Same here! I’ve given away leukotape, ibuprofen, ibuprofen PM, floss and needle and repair tape and gotten ibuprofen donated to me when I was suffering in the Sierra.

I actually beefed mine up in some ways (and pared it down in others)

That sounds right, adapating it to your actual needs! 😀

About 5 years ago my first aid kit was a gallon ziploc my partner prepared. It had boxes of band-aids, bottles of pills, bags of lozenges, multiple packs of moleskin, a fabric bandage, rolls of tape, a roll of antacid, etc. Whenever we would go on a hike, short or long, we’d pack it automatically. It weighed well over a lb and after reviewing it critically I realized there was lots of duplication and that I didn’t know what some of it was even for. I’ve managed to downsize that thing to a quart-size ziploc for use as a couple, but when I go solo I carry 20 ibuprofen, 3 Sudafed, 2 Loperamide and tweezers in a tiny baggie. I also carry a patch or 2 of leukotape, a needle, floss and mini scissors and one Ibuprofen PM per night. In the last 3 years I’ve used all of it at least once except the Sudafed and Loperamide (🤞). Additional risk mitigation is choosing the right trips at the right time of year and appropriate preparation.

this is a good point, differences in pressure and temperature might change the numbers. never take zeroes myself, i hike 24/7 so i don’t need a quilt or shelter 🥴

the answer is “it depends”; it was interesting to learn for the Toaks 550 w/o handles that it takes several canisters-worth of burns to save a lid’s weight in fuel — that is, from a weight-efficiency perspective for trips where you’re only using a single canister it is likely not worth carrying a ~16g lid to save a few grams of fuel. i wish the stock lids were lighter…