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What are your trail shoes? Mine are so comfortable and dry so quickly it makes no sense to bring second pair.

I've known plenty of AT thru-hikers with $10K+ in expenses, even nearly twenty years ago. My AT hike cost me about $3500 in 2008. But I normally live inexpensively, had experience on other long...

A friend used Armor All on the front bench seat of his 70s Cadillac. His wife drove without a seat belt and on the first left turn she ended up hugging the passenger side door. Gladly no one was...

My climbing partner and I have several decades of experience together and have always worn similar gear. But he's a Nikwax guy, I'm a Snoseal guy. We never discussed it, certainly never argued about...

Ditto this. Tarptents are very common on the long trails. Freestanding tents need to be staked solidly anyway, sometimes with supplemental guys in higher winds. Ask my friend who had to fish his out...

One tip I like to give newcomers is to work up to a 100-mile trip in time off work. It will teach you a lot about food and fitness for a sustained hike.

I started doing that on the Colorado Trail...

Yes. Samoyed hair was long enough that the yarn worked fine.

Remember when Samoyeds were the fashionable breed, back in the 80s? My wife and I were into fabric arts then, with a spinning wheel and loom taking up a spare bedroom. A couple of neighbors and...

There are always a couple of bread bags (Bagtex) in my pack or pocket for emergency use in that shoulder area of cold rain/wet snow. They work for a few hours at least, on hands or feet. Maceration...

I'm sort of anal, and a recovering engineer, and I admit I never would have thought to ask that.

A BLM ranger showed me this trick. He started a fire on a snow drift for safety--the stuff really burns.

I see you used the words "effective, affordable." Good thing you didn't add "lightweight," because we all know you can have only two of those three features.

If you don't care about the weight,...

Two things I've always liked about GG are simplicity and price. But it's been a few years since I had to replace a pack and I don't know if that's still true.

I've always respected the...

I don't consider my food bag a "stuff sack." And the bag I use for small items of clothing is really my pillow in disguise.

An aside: "By and large" actually means "on the whole, everything considered." What's more interesting is that it's an old British nautical term. A ship can sail "by" (toward the wind), or "large"...

I didn't do any food drops on the AT and was happy with the decision. I mailed myself some shoes and socks twice.

Ditto on not using stuff sacks, and one trash compactor bag has always worked well for the stuff that needs to keep dry.

My choice after my first long trail, the PCT, was the challenge of the CDT rather than shorter or regional trails. I think it was Yogi who said something like, "You can hike one long trail, or you...

[QUOTE=Cookerhiker;2274068]More than gender-neutral - from my 2004 Trail Journal at Roaring Springs Shelter: " ...I made it before 6 and shared the site with Louise a SOBO guy (that’s right a guy,...

I look at some of my own post-hike ramblings and wonder what I was thinking at the time. It's like deciphering notes you wrote about a dream or a late-night revelation.

I enjoy them and to me they're part of the trail culture, even among non-hikers. Anyone remember "Pegleg?" He was a one-legged shuttle driver in Andover, ME about twenty years ago. I probably would...

A friend took a trail assessment class in Arizona and it covered some kind of standard. She tried to explain it to me but I wasn't interested. She wasn't impressed with it either.

When I think of...

Bicycle. Everywhere. You get some wind chill on the bike so it's cooler than walking.

Another desert hiker in trail runners here. I've also never bothered with gaiters. I always wear long trousers, and maybe the longer cuffs help keep the loose stuff out of the shoes.

I think some...

I like to plan on no zero days. I really enjoy trail days more than town days. So I hike accordingly. My long days are never more than 25% longer than my average days. So "miles per week" works well...