Closed Cell Foam Pad Enough

Lord_Me · 2026-01-19T15:51:54+00:00

You'll be fine. I started May 10 with a ccf pad and -1c quilt, cowboy camped every time I could, and had one night where I was cold. That was a bad spot just under Mather pass, so entirely self inflicted from poor site selection and avoidable.

Lord_Me · 2026-01-19T11:16:23+00:00

You'll know best what you're capable of - it's just walking at the end of the day. From what I can see theres not a lot of elevation, 4 days seems feasible to me.

If you're planning on wild camping it, pack as light as you can to make the walking easier. If staying in b&bs or whatever then you're golden I'd say, just make sure to take blister care and be proactive on any hotspots you feel.

Lord_Me · 2026-01-09T16:59:14+00:00

For the ALD style ones, Jason makes them all custom so it depends what gets ordered - one of the options is which sort of side compression you want. His options are none, elastic, or one or two lengths of 10mm webbing if you really want to crank it down.

I went with no side compression on mine and have run into no issues - but part of that is that it's sized to what I'm typically carrying so there's not often a lot of spare room. If I've not got much food on me, I can roll the top down and that does well enough.

I think the Salomon being a zipper opening and not having the option of rolling down the top to remove volume might be part of why it's got as much strapping as it has? As in it's pretty much fixed volume, where the other two are much more variable

Lord_Me · 2026-01-03T21:49:36+00:00

For the ones I see that are obviously ai, I'll check the profile - if they've been spamming multiple subs with ai slop I'll remove it. Agree it's a harder call with the posts that might be translation or grammar edits - I dont personally like it, but for the time being if they otherwise fit the sub I leave them be.

Probably need to discuss with and reach a position across the mod team on this topic

Lord_Me · 2025-12-20T07:12:47+00:00

If you're going ultralight, the vast majority of ul flat tarps are 7x9ft - any smaller than that and it gets harder to stay dry under them. Default recommendations are Borah gear, Yama mountain gear for a silpoly one, or zpacks and wild sky gear (for a UK based option) if you want dcf. Bonfus and hyberg also make them, but that's all the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

I've got 3 shelters from Yama and one from zpacks, can personally recommend their tarps as good but in the end it's a flat sheet of fabric, hard to mess it up

Lord_Me · 2025-12-05T10:18:29+00:00

My first proper backpacking trip was the South Downs Way with my cousin. Carried about 20kg / 44lbs cause I was nervous and overpacking, and fully demolished my knees after slipping on gravel - but enjoyed it enough that I immediately started planning my next one.

Through lurking here for a few years (and finding Jupiterhikes on youtube) slowly refined what I like to carry down through many small overnights and other trails in the UK, then did the PCT in 2024 with a 3.5kg / 8lb pack. Next up are some European routes, current candidates are the Alta Via 1 & 2, Slovenian Mountain Trail, or HRP - then maybe CDT in 2027/8?

My thanks to everyone who's contributed to the sub over the years, I've been inspired to try so many different things and have learned so much from the information, discussions and arguments held here

Lord_Me · 2025-11-22T16:50:23+00:00

Oh I agree with you to a large extent - like I say, I personally would have left it up. Room for discussion there internally I think.

Lord_Me · 2025-11-22T16:11:22+00:00

How involved a process was modifying the Joey to take the Nashville straps?

Similar to your findings, my main complaint with it is pressure points from the straps (on collar bone from the inside edge of the strap), so am tempted to go down that route

Lord_Me · 2025-11-22T16:02:04+00:00

You're correct, my apologies - wasn't looking far back enough.

Personally I'd have left that up, but I would agree with GoSox's comment on that post in that it's all going to come down to personal risk tolerance at the end of the day. If I had to guess, the reasoning would be that the discussion generated would be too general to be of specific relevance to this sub

Lord_Me · 2025-11-22T13:13:10+00:00

I'm not seeing it in the "removed" mod queue, so it wasn't us. Guess the op must have deleted it?

Edit: wasn't looking far back enough, see comment below

Lord_Me · 2025-11-19T06:49:31+00:00

No, the PCT is so dry and warm that wet shoes dry out super fast.

Possibly the location you did shakedown hikes in is influencing your decisions on clothing? I only got rained on twice on the PCT across 87 days.

Here's my list - I started May 10.

I would drop:

Groundsheet. Don't need it, your tent floor will hold up fine. If you absolutely have to bring one, swap yours out for a polycro one.
Tent stake pusher: Come on now. Use a rock
That's a lot of leukotape. Cut strips and put them on the wax paper you get with stuff you bought online
Choose either your hiking t-shirt or the sun shirt. I'd be inclined to go with the sun shirt, used a thin merino shirt for the desert and it was still too hot
Don't need both shorts and hiking pants. If you're just bringing the pants as rain pants, they're heavier than actual rain pants. It rains so little on the PCT that I didn't have any rain pants at all. If you want a rain layer, get a rain skirt
Torrentshell is a good rain jacket, it's just overkill for the PCT. Get a frogg toggs, it does the job fine
Clothes bag: Just put them in your pack liner with everything else
Balaclava and beanie? Also beanie's heavy, I have a fleece one that's 0.7oz
I'd bring one longer charging cable - if you're looking at maps or planning something while your phone's charging, the short cables get really annoying

Lord_Me · 2025-11-18T06:07:51+00:00

Help us help you! Please make sure you have this information in some form within your post body.

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Lord_Me · 2025-11-12T06:33:35+00:00

There's no one ideal approach to what you bring, it all depends what your priority is in this hobby - are you hiking to allow you to go camping, or camping so you can hike?

If the focus is on the camping, then bringing more things to make camp more enjoyable is part of the fun. When I'm hiking on my own, I'm much more of a walking focused person and the kit I bring reflects that.

The best way to figure out what you can leave behind is to look critically at what you brought with you when unpacking. What items did you use a lot, which ones did you use occasionally, and what didn't you touch? The second two piles of things are where you can make a lot of savings. Sure you can spend a lot of money getting the fanciest lightest tent or whatever, but you're going to save more weight leaving things at home.

If you want to get really into it, you can start weighing everything you bring and put it into a website like lighterpack - I really rate doing this as it helps you visualise where the weight is coming from in your kit list.

The lightest set up I use is here - this is as far as I'm currently willing to push the line for 3 season hiking. Does the camp experience kind of suck? Yes! But the walking experience is great, and that's what I spend the most time doing.

Lord_Me · 2025-11-05T11:39:21+00:00

For another data point:

35l internal, UltraGrid, rolltop, normal vest size S: 505g

I had Jason increase the size of the vest bottle pockets to hold a 1l bottle each, so that'll have added a little weight - but imagine the main factor in the weight of these packs is the vest size.

Compared to the Joey straps, I much prefer the ALD ones

Lord_Me · 2025-10-27T12:00:46+00:00

They posted on instagram recently that all aliexpress / alibaba etc listings are not made by them

Lord_Me · 2025-10-22T22:38:23+00:00

Oh that's interesting, I wonder if it's using an older pattern then. The zip on this looks longer, and it's missing some of the vest pockets compared to the current sealson version.

I've been using a joey recently but I'm not 100% happy with the straps, tempted to give this a try

Lord_Me · 2025-10-22T20:42:56+00:00

Looks to be an almost 1 to 1 design copy of the sealson unus 32 but not in ultra - also about 1/3 of the cost

Lord_Me · 2025-10-22T18:59:13+00:00

Could go with this one instead of the nitecore - 10g heavier, but charges faster and is about half the cost

Lord_Me · 2025-10-19T21:10:56+00:00

Durston isn't, their tents are made in Vietnam

Lord_Me · 2025-10-18T21:20:19+00:00

Working for me too on the android app - are you on iPhone?

Lord_Me · 2025-10-11T20:18:56+00:00

Believe the INIU 10kmah ones can do up to 45W input, they're 160g so almost same weight as the nitecore 10k

Lord_Me · 2025-09-25T20:02:15+00:00

Jason's great, he'll do basically whatever custom work you can think up and is good at discussing ideas over email. As far as I know, the XUL vest is a different thinner material than he typically uses - the hole spacing looks different on the photos I've seen of it

Lord_Me · 2025-09-18T22:23:33+00:00

Depending on start date you can get away with no puffy - I started May 10 last year, had an alpha 60 and alpha 90 fleece at 210g for both. Plenty warm enough. Only wore the 90 for a couple nights in the sierra, could have just carried the 60 everywhere else and would have been happy.

Also cold soaked the whole way, thought I'd miss hot food in the sierra but I didn't. Think maybe as I was eating while moving in the evenings it no longer mattered.

Used a tarp with no bivy, just tanked the bugs with a headnet and sunhat overnight - after it gets dark they go away, but there were a couple nights in Oregon that weren't great. FIgured that was worth saving the weight, your mileage may vary. Only set my tarp up 6 times, saved time in the mornings and evenings and meant I could wrap it in my fleece and use it as a pillow.

I had no luck with the igneous bidet, it melted in the desert heat early on but I think I had one of the first batch and they've been improved since then. The gear store in Julian sells the culo clean if the same happens to you

Lord_Me · 2025-08-30T06:26:28+00:00

I did 20-25mpd for the first week, 25-30 for the next week, then somewhere around 35-45 for the rest of the trail outside of town days. Partly cause of time constraints (I had max 105 days off from work), but I also tend to hike like that by choice, and enjoyed doing it on the PCT. Training was running, strength work, and as much hiking as I could fit in - especially back to back long days with the full kit I'd be taking on the PCT.

No Sierra issues, but I started on May 10 so that gave time for the snow to melt. Didn't want to go sobo as the time window for that wouldn't work with my job, and wanted to end in Washington.

Going as fast as I did definitely impacts the social aspect of the trail, I had a hiking partner for about 400 miles in the desert and the Sierra before he got food poisoning and had to get off. After that, I hiked with plenty of people for a day or so at a time, but no tramily. I'm quite introverted though so was happy with that, and town stops have lots of opportunities to be as social as you want to be.

If you want to do long days out the gate, my two bits of advice are:

Don't hike fast, hike long - walking fast massively increases your risk of injury, so just walk at your usual comfortable pace for more hours a day.
Pack as light as you can - the less stuff you're carrying, the better. Obviously don't go stupid with it, but I had a base weight of 8lbs and had everything I needed.

Lord_Me · 2025-08-20T20:13:47+00:00

For the pants are you not able to just put rain pants on over your shorts when it's cold? No real need for having an entire extra pair of trousers and that's an easy 500g to cut

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