We met this hiking couple who are 84 & 76 on the CDT this year. He is named Fixit and she goes by Third Monte.
They’ve done the CDT, the PCT twice and half the AT. They got tired of the Appalachian Trail and just how rough it is.
They were on the CDT for a second time.
Also ran down some other bloggers we met on trail:
Mitten gloves (gloves with caps that fold over and become mittens but that you can fold back and let you use your fingers) seem so perfect.
I just can’t get the gloves to work out for me.
As for beanies. I find that people who don’t sunburn and who prefer puffies without hoods really live in beanies. Many people get to where they sleep in them on and off trail.
Link on beanie. Lost mine and not happy with replacements I’ve found.
I find myself using beanies off trail. Especially since my wife likes the way mine looks.
But I’ve carried them on trail and just never used them.
Got to thinking about this when I realized I was wearing the beanie a lot recently and then ran into the mitten gloves while going through gloves in the coat closet.
I have a pair of military wool glove liners that I’ve ended up wearing around town instead because they are warmer.
I’ve worn them in polyester too. 32 degree $1.99 gloves — and you can’t beat the price.
https://www.gerryoutdoors.com/ is one of my favorite brands.
I’ve bought a lot of their clothing. I’ve liked it all. From time to time a Gerry item has been my favorite for the type of gear or what I or Happy6 have been wearing on trail or off trail.
The prices are great. $12 for shorts. They have had sreat inexpensive top layers.
But … there no guarantee that I’ll ever be able to find whatever the item I liked was ever again. That means no guarantee I can recommend something and a reader will ever be able to find it or buy it.
I’m still regretting I did not buy a second quarter zip top when I got one at Costco. They sold out and I see no more of them.
But when you can find Gerry in stock at Costco they often have great gear. Sometimes they have something else (err, gear I didn’t like and decided not to buy or donated to a local thrift store).
I really wish that the Gerry website finally worked. I found it a couple years ago and since I first found it I’ve yet to be able to get the website to work.
So yes. I like Gerry. Yes. I often buy Gerry. Finally yes, you may very well find Happy6 or myself hiking in Gerry. I just can’t guarantee that anything I like is available for me to recommend.
The IMUSA aluminum cups are really attractive. In either size they have a lot to recommend ten.
For a solo hiker they are light. Strong. Great heat transfer (aluminum transfers heat better than titanium). Built in handles. The smaller size can meet all your needs.
The small one isn’t quite big enough for a couple to use/share but for that there is the larger one.
Both are incredibly good deals. I carried the smaller one for a few hundred miles as we determined if the Stanco greasepot was large enough for us to share. The Stanco was big enough so the cup went home to save weight.
But I still recommend the IMUSA over Toaks (I’ve also had some Toaks cups —free from a hiker box). Toaks I passed on while I kept the aluminum.
Admission: I prefer a polished bowl titanium spoon over the slightly lighter aluminum one from Sea to Summit. But I don’t need the heat transfer with my spoon.
32 ounce capacity Stanco at 3.5 ounces (including modified lid) is what we use now or the same in titanium.
You can compare the 32 fluid ounce Stanco with the larger IMUSA cup. It has a total of 40 fluid ounces for the larger size (which Walmart sold me tonight for $3.08 with shipping).
The smaller cup at .7 quarts is only 22.4 ounces. IMUSA 1.25 quart cup.
Update.
The large cup weighs 3.6 ounces.
The titanium with the same form factor as the Stanco (without the lid) is 2.9 ounces. It weighs .7 ounces less —and is wider and flatter.
Bottom line: we will probably continue with the lighter, slightly smaller pot and live without a handle.
This is just a grab bag of matters relating to my hiking but ones that I’m not sure will interest most people.
I got hearing aids about a year ago and they were a real improvement in my life. Prices had come down about six thousand dollars (don’t get me started on what caused prices to be so high) and I was glad to go to Costco and get excellent quality hearing aids.
The question was what to do while I hiked. The answer is that I hiked with them. I got the travel charger, which can recharge when hooked up to power and that carries “three days” of recharges (it reliably gave me at least four recharges).
I’m so pleased by that. It was nice to have my ears while hiking.
https://www.soundly.com/blog/airpods-as-hearing-aids — that is the next step — using airpods as hearing aids. Should work well, as lots of people hike with air pods. The technology gets better and the cost and weight keeps going down. The one thing airpods have going for them is that they allow ambient noise to override the blue tooth uses of the airpods so that the user hears the world around them rather than having it blocked out.
There are times it is nice to block out the outside world. But usually I’d prefer to be able to hear. As it is, when I hike I don’t listen to podcasts or other things because I want to be able to hear what is going on.
I developed a chocolate intolerance that got bad enough twenty years or so ago that I quit eating chocolate altogether.
Eventually I ceased to react to chocolate and was able to eat it while hiking, and I started eating chocolate off trail too.
Well, the intolerance started to come back. As a result, I’m completely cutting chocolate out of my diet except while hiking since there are times chocolate touched calories are the only calories available.
Every tent after the Copper Spur has needed zipper repairs. The Triplex. The X-Mid Pro 2. The Off-Set Trio. Zpacks used to offer zipper repair.
When I finally decided to pay for it I discovered that now they just sell replacement sliders https://zpacks.com/products/silver-3-double-pull-zipper-slider and provide videos on how to use them.
https://zpacks.com/pages/zipper-slider-replacement. The difference is the repair was $50.00. The sliders are fifty cents each. That is a huge savings.
If the replacement silders work out as well as I expect, I’ll order more. If I had been thinking, I’d have ordered more when I ordered the ones I just bought.
So that is what is going on with the zippers on the Zpacks Off-Set Trio and getting them fixed.
As far as I can tell, every thousand miles or so, zippers will need some help from a pair of pliers or other repairs and sometimes the reparis just don’t take. Planning on replacement sliders is a great approach, and very lightweight.
We have a gear room (or actually a gear closet) now. Kind of neat. Next week I start sorting things more and revisting which item of gear are in my pack. I might as well make use of the opportunity while I have it.
As to gear, I don’t expect much of a change. I really expect to just organizing the “extra” gear and alternatives better and make sense of what I’ve accumulated. We can also consider gear to share with (give to) our kids.
This is my current list:
While we won’t need permits for the thousand miles of the CDT we have left, to do the 150 mile Sierra section we will need permits.
Here are the two links for all you need to know for local permits.
https://www.pcta.org/discover-the-trail/permits/local-permits/
As of 2‐1‐21, Inyo NF permits beginning at Kennedy Meadows are Walk Up Permits. Regarding locations that show as “walk up”, i.e. Trail Pass, Cottonwood Pass, Kennedy Meadows, www.recreation.gov states: “Due to COVID‐19, until further notice there are no traditional walk‐up permits. The same allotment of traditional walk‐up permits (40%) will be posted on www.recreation.gov every Monday for the following Monday
etc. Read the complete material at https://www.triplecrownoutfitters.com/uploads/b/2556a720-51d7-11ea-8796-f5da57ab01a8/80de8db0-64b1-11eb-930d-7d34e300260e.pdf
through Sunday.”
The Black Rock Ranger Station is in the Kennedy Meadows area, 15 miles from Triple Crown Outfitters. It is a seasonal Ranger Station. When open, Black Rock issues permits to cover from Kennedy Meadows (mile 703.4) to Cottonwood Pass (mile 750.2).
This link is also useful for local permits and what you should know:
https://www.postholer.com/articles/PCT-Permits-Reality-Check
Note that if you are doing under 500 miles you have to use local permits, the long distance permit is not available to you.
From left to right
Not pictured: Jolly Gear sun hoody (https://jollygear.com) and Black Diamond Alpenglow Pro. I like the not so “colorful” designs.
In the following picture I have 32 degree base layers. I started hiking in an Underarmor base layer. It wicked sweat really well. I later switched to 32 degree for sleeping in before I switched to merino blends when pure merino developed holes too quickly.
I also tried hiking with a bandana, hat and base layer top (especially the new military designed Silkweight) but eventually moved to a sun hoodie and hat.
Started with 32 degree, moved to some Amazon baselayers, then moved to merino and then to merino & capilene until I lost the merino top this year (in 2024). I’d had it for years.
Now I’m probably going to stick with Silkweight base layers.
Though 32 degree baselayers are very inexpensive (under ten dollars) and excellent for daily wear.
This is my wife and I fixing our REI Half Dome while camping. Not bad for a $25 tent.
We have come a bit with the gear we use.
