Ultra-Heavy Guide to Sustainable Thru-hiking

Gear

Always be sure to test your gear before you hit the trail! The lightest options may not always be the best for you – or the environment. Finding the gear that works best for you is a constantly evolving process. Often times talking to other hikers and gear heads is a great way to get new ideas. Short weekend trips are always a great time to test out new gear, or even camping out in your backyard if you’re pinched for time.

Water Bottles

Carrying plastic water bottles is a thru-hiker favorite. But transparent plastic can allow sunlight into the water, promoting bacterial growth. As all plastics will deteriorate under UV radiation, this is worth taking into consideration as most folks carry their water bottles on the outside of their pack. In general, the thinner the plastic, the faster it breaks down. Consider using a metal bottle that can be used for the entire duration of the trail. Beware of thin aluminum bottles that can burst if the contents are frozen. Stainless steel is heavy, but I’ve been using the same stainless bottles for over eight years and 5000+ miles, and they continue to go strong.

Trekking Poles & Walking Sticks

Trekking poles are another popular item among thru-hikers. It is estimated that around 90% all of thru-hikers use them. But they too have environmental and social impacts to be considered. If you have ever spent time on a popular long distance trail, chances are you’ve heard the clicking of someone’s else’s trekking poles from a good distance away. Or perhaps you’ve seen the rocks of these trails dotted and marked with the white scratches caused by carbide tips…

While there are few studies that look at the affects of trekking poles, most of this evidence is anecdotal. But a few simple steps can help mitigate your impact on trails. Consider taking the included baskets off of your poles (unless you are in snow country), as these can often catch low lying plants that grow along the trail. While somewhat costly, you can also super glue rubber tips onto your poles to help minimize the soil impact. Otherwise, I highly recommend the age old walking stick. Every trail legend in days of yore has used one. They are free to make, can easily last an entire trail (if you don’t loose it!) and tend to be less detrimental to the trail.

Especially if you have dangerous water-crossings to consider, a tall and sturdy walking stick can give you more stability than trekking poles, particularly when walking over make-shift bridges or downed trees. On one frozen trip to the Olympic Peninsula following a severe winter storm, my walking stick repeatedly saved my life as we navigated over downed old growth trees, covered in ice, plunging down to the freezing river below.

Thru-hiking checklist

This list is only provided as a reference. You may require more or less gear than is listed depending on your skill level, expectation of comfort, difficulty of trip, duration, climate etc. My “go-to” gear is always evolving! If you look at the gear picture for the start of our PCT hike, you can find an excellent example of overpacking. By the end of that trail, we were carrying about half of what is pictured.

The clothing you pack is greatly influenced by the climate, but generally speaking, consider limiting yourself to: 1 day outfit, 1 sleeping outfit, a warm layer, and a waterproof layer. Extra socks and underwear are the only “Extras.” I hope this list will give you insight into what can work for you. If you are looking for an in-depth gear breakdown, especially for shorter trips, be sure to check this article by our good friend Iron.

Stove & Fuel

Consider using a reusable fuel bottle with your stove to reduce waste on the trail. Partially used canisters litter many of our popular scenic trails and overwhelm hiker boxes, as no one takes the time to properly recycle them. Many such refillable systems are offered by MSR and Optimus. Our favorites are the Whisperlite, XGK, and Omnifuel.

If you still prefer to use the common canister setup, carry a nail! Recycling the canisters is very easy! Simply burn any remaining fuel in the canister using your stove (this is much better for the atmosphere than letting the iso/pro/butane aerosol out unburned). After you have emptied the canister of any residual fuel, use your nail and the nearest rock to punch several holes in the top of the canister. It can now be recycled! Without the holes punched in the top, fuel canisters can become an explosive hazard in recycling facilities. By making it visually apparent that there is no internal pressure or fuel in the canister, you make it safe to re-use. There are also devices such as the Jetboil Crunchit that act as a glorified nail to help you in your recycling endeavors.

While liquid fuel stoves use to be the predominant style found on long distance trails, they have lost popularity in recent years. As a result white gas is more difficult to come by. While many liquid fuel stoves can also burn gasoline, diesel, kerosine, jet fuel etc… the additives founds in these fuels dirties the stove much faster than white gas. Luckily Coleman still offers white gas in gallon and 32oz quantities, available at many of the big box stores on trail. I carried a liter sized bottle (pictured below), made coffee, breakfast, dinner and tea on a daily basis, and never ran out of fuel over the course of the PCT. These stoves are also extremely serviceable in the field, a big plus for long or remote hikes.

It is worth noting, that as of 2019, there are still many re-supply points along the Appalachian trail that sell white gas by the oz. Alternatively, you can refill your fuel bottle for less than 50¢ at any gas station. You will get funny looks, and will have to clean your stove more frequently, but it works and it’s cheap. Using the lowest octane available will make priming your stove easier. Lastly, be sure to keep your stove in a sealable bag. The odor of gas will permeate most cloth cases.

Buy local!

You have a lot of choices when it comes to the world of hiking and backpacking gear. Here in the United States, we have a lot of small, garage-based gear companies that still make gear to order and make it by hand! If you’re already going to spend a couple hundred dollars on a backpack, why not get one custom made? It may not be the cheapest option available, but you are supporting some great folks and getting top notch gear in return. There are also options for people who are interested in making their own gear. Below are some of our favorite brands and companies that we have personally tested enjoyed.

Garage Grown Gear – A great marketplace to explore many small gear manufacturers.

Ray-Way – Lots of high quality DIY projects, from tarps, to quilts, packs and knives.

Superior Wilderness Designs – High-quality, made to order packs and accessories, by thru-hikers for thru-hikers.

Xero Shoes -My favorite minimalist shoes! Bulletproof and built to last over 600 miles of trail abuse!

UnderGround Quilts (UGQ) -Extremely customizable, made to order tarps & under-quilts.

Food

Nutritionally sustaining yourself on the trail involves much more than caloric intake and protein. Often there is so much emphasis placed on these two components; that having a nutritionally diverse diet is left at the wayside. The effects are compounded by strenuous activities, especially over the long intervals associated with thru-hiking. Often times this lack of micronutrients results in joint, muscle, bone and skin problems.

Things to pay attention to:

Avoid empty calories and anti-nutrients! Eating highly processed foods with little nutritional content and/or low energy density leads to a fleeting sense of fullness. source. Constituents like Phytic acid can actually negate your well intentioned digestion. Phytic acid, commonly found in oats, and seeds has the ability to impair the absorption of calcium, iron and zinc thus promoting mineral deficiencies. However, soaking and spouting your grains can greatly reduce the phytic acid content. Source

Making your own food, or supplementing what you buy along the way are great ways to diversify your diet. Vegetables of every variety can easily be dehydrated and added to soups, stews, stir-fry, tacos etc. Some of our favorites are cabbage, broccoli, carrots, tomatoes and zucchini. Also consider carrying coconut oil and nutritional yeast, as both are worth their weight in gold for hiker nutrition.

Below is an outline of our food schedule for an 8 month hike. One unit of food is equivalent to one serving. For grains, this is approximately 3/4 cup. For vegetables, about 1/4 cup. In the past we have pre-arranged the ingredients into meals, but found that we had a limited variety of options. Instead, we now keep the ingredients separate, and create a very diverse menu on trail.

Food for Thought

It’s worth nothing that the schedule above is for a plant-based diet. While creating your own resupplies is an easy way to accommodate such a diet, more and more stores along the trail are adopting plant-based products. However, if you adhere to a gluten-free diet, sourcing your food on trail can be a lot trickier and more costly. Keeping sugar free is also incredibly challanging. I highly recommend creating your own resupplies if you fall into either of these categories.

As for the food preparation, all vegetables were cut up and dehydrated raw. Small beans, quinoa, and seeds were all sprouted and cooked prior to dehydration. Buckwheat groats were an exception to this as they were only sprouted and dehydrated. The groats make an excellent alternative to oats for breakfast. Rices, large beans and peas were simply cooked and dehydrated. Usually we dehydrate near the lowest setting ~120º F for about 16 hours. Everything is then vacuum sealed and stored in a freezer for maximum longevity. Proper storage is crucial, as there is great disappointment in shipping yourself food in six months time, only to discover in the backcountry it has spoiled!

Resupply Shipping Strategy

Unfortunately there is no inexpensive way to ship yourself a resupply. But following some of these guidelines can help reduce the overall cost.

Flat rate boxes offered by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) are usually the most cost effective means of shipping food. In circumstances where you will not be shipping the food far (e.g. within the same state) you can often get a regional rate box, for about half the price. This is especially useful for international hikers who regularly mail themselves resupplies further up the trail. The only setback to the regional rate boxes is that you have to print the shipping label online directly from Stamps.com or USPS.

Try to limit your resupply packages to the the items that you cannot buy on trail! There is no point to shipping yourself food that you could have bought at the local grocery! Items like chips, protein bars/ candy bars, nuts, trail, mix, jerky etc. can usually be found on trail and are not worth the cost of shipping.

In 2016 on the PCT, we pre-arranged all of our resupply packages into 10 day quantities and planned out where they would ship to over the course of our six month hike. This schedule quickly fell apart and we found ourselves (and our family) scrambling to re-organize our food so that it could be shipped out in the appropriate quantities. We are now using a different strategy where we have sorted all of our food into a few categories: Grains for dinner, vegetables, fruits, grains for breakfast, and lunch/ snacks. As we progress down the trail, we evaluate our how much we will need at our next resupply, and have the exact amount shipped out (e.g. 3 units of dinner grains, 2 units vegetables, 3 units fruits, 4 units breakfast grains, and 10 snacks). As this has all been pre-sorted, it makes it straight-forward for whomever is in charge of your resupply.

If you are an international hiker, this strategy obviously won’t work for you! Nonetheless there are still places where you may want to ship yourself a resupply box. Many folks in this category tend to find the nearest grocery store with a good selection of food (bonus if they have a bulk section!) and mail themselves a box further up the trail. If you are staying at a hotel, many of them have guest computers with a printer; this is a great way to print out your own regional rate label from the links above, and save yourself a little on shipping! You will have to ask the post office if they have any regional rate boxes available in order to make this work.

Minimizing your Foot Print

Minimizing the amount of trash produced on trail is one of the greatest challenges in sustainable thru-hiking. Most pre-made backpacker meals come in disposable containers that single use. Even making your own food usually requires storage in plastic bags. While we are still looking for better solutions, we currently save our vacuum sealed and ziplock bags for cleaning and re-use after our thru-hikes. Eventually when these can no longer be used, they can be recycled with plastic shopping bags, at centers found at many big-box stores (Target is reliable for this). You can find a recycling center near you at the link here.

Smokers – be sure to pack out your butts! Filters can take up to 10 years to decompose. In the right conditions, they also make an excellent ignition source for wildfires. Don’t be that hiker.

All About Poop:

Poo Flowers. Doo doo daisies. Shitter litter. No one enjoys a reminder of someone else’s defecation. If you are going to use toilet paper, consider packing it out! While there are some climates (e.g. warm and moist) where TP will quickly decompose in a few years if buried correctly, that still presents ample time for it to become dug up or exposed, especially in highly trafficked areas!

For good reason, most folks find packing out your TP unattractive. But there are few simple steps that can make the task more bearable. Consider using a double zip-lock. Masking the outside bag in duct-tape is an easy way to hide the contents, while adding absorbent and disinfecting powders (e.g. baking soda, borax, bleach, or kitty litter) can help cover up any smells. A little powder can go a long way, with a tablespoon being sufficient for a week’s worth of TP.

Otherwise, consider ditching the toilet paper all-together for a more natural alternative. Again this is highly dependent on your climate, but up in the Pacific Northwest, natural TP could be found everywhere. I recommend against using rocks, as they can inadvertently be picked up my trail workers performing maintenance; also, nobody wants to wipe there ass with a rock.

If you a regular individual who goes in the mornings, I highly recommend digging your hole the night before, when you set up camp. As the “Need-to-go,” often over powers the best of intentions to dig a proper hole, this is a simple and straight forward solution. But beware, I’ve had one friend report that his hole was stolen by a Boy Scout camped in the vicinity – a good reminder to keep those holes well hidden!

For more tips and tricks on pooping in the backcountry, check out this article by Backpacker magazine. As recommended by the Leave No Trace principals, always dig your hole AT LEAST 200ft away from any water source. This is one of the primary ways Giardia is spread!

For more information on minimizing your footprint, check out the Leave No Trace Website.