Gear List

In addition to the food the young men have already received and any other treats they may want to bring please use the following list of clothing and gear and get your son to pack up the essential items

Clothing

Outerwear

• waterproof/breathable jacket
• waterproof/breathable pants (optional)
• fleece jacket or wool sweater
• synthetic or softshell hiking pants
• synthetic shorts

Base Layer

• long sleeve T-shirt
• underwear
• shortsleeve T-shirt

Footwear

• boots (extra sneakers optional)
• wool or synthetic socks (3)
• liner socks (2)

Extras

• sun hat
• bandanna

 Gear

• internal or external frame backpack
• convertible or four-season tent
• down sleeping bag (-30° to 20°F)
• closed-cell foam (or inflatable) sleeping pad
• white gas stove and fuel bottles
• lighter and waterproof matches
• cookset
• eating utensils, bowl, cup
• flashlight or headlamp w/extra batteries and bulb
• 32 oz. water bottles (2)
• water treatment (filter, tablets, or drops)
• pocket knife or multi-tool
• folding saw or wire saw (optional)
• compass or GPS (and map)
• sunglasses
• first-aid kit with personal medications
• chemical heat packs (optional)
• stuff sacks
• assorted zipper-lock bags
• bear-bagging rope
• insect repellent
• sunscreen (SPF 15+)
• lip balm (SPF 15+)
• toilet paper
• wet wipes

Parents Meeting

Here is a link to the presentation material we shared at the parents meeting.

Presentation

Even More Essential Gear: Sleeping Bags and Tents

Rest is essential on a backpacking trip. Without rest the fun and good memories become more difficult to produce. So in order to sleep well at night, or during an afternoon snooze, you must be warm and dry. A good sleeping bag and tent will give the warmth you need to sleep even if the temperature outside drops below freezing or you are in the middle of a wicked rainstorm.

While trekking across a section of the Wind River range my cousin and I ran into a nasty series of storms. At one point I had about 1 inch of snow/hail accumulated on my shoulder. Once we were able to set our tent up, get out of wet clothes, and into dry sleeping bags we had a good, and much needed nap. On another trip, my dad and brothers backpacked in the Uinta mountains for five days. Of the five days it rained five days. Despite the rain, they were able to get the rest they needed because they had dry sleeping bags and tents.

Sleeping Bags:

So what constitutes a good sleeping bag?

• keeps you warm even in freezing conditions
• packs well in or strapped to your backpack
• does not add too much weight to your pack

I can tell you that the canvas bags with cotton insulation are poor choices for backpacking. These are heavy when dry, extremely heavy when wet, difficult to put in or on a backpack, and even more difficult to dry out should you drop it in the lake or let it get rained on.

A typical backpacking sleeping bag will look something like this:

The fill material should be goose down or some synthetic chopped fiber like Hollofil. The bag should also come with its own stuff sack so the thing can be rapidly packed and unpacked.

Tents:

Backpacking tents should also be lightweight, able to keep water out and easily stow-able on or in the backpack. There are many good brands out there, the problem is finding one that is not ridiculously expensive. Places like REI make lots of money selling ultralight tents to trendy granola crunching backpackers. I like these expensive tents. I think they would work well and allow one to carry more stuff like a camera or in my case more food! However, the price keeps me from buying into the granola way. Any two man tent with aluminum, fiber glass or graphite poles works fine as a back packing tent. Here is a good example for 48$ on amazon.

An even cheaper, and of course less glamorous tent is a tube tent. I used one of these on my first backpacking trip. I spent a few nights with two other deacons in a tube tent and I was perfectly warm. A tube tent is a giant garbage sack with two open ends. It weighs like a pound and takes up as much space as a new york steak. I just checked amazon and they were $5-10, hard to beat. Here is a picture so you know what I am talking about.

The common theme to all backpacking equipment is lightweight, easily stow-able, and functional. Make sure any equipment you send your son with has these characteristics and all will be well.

More Essential Gear

Shoes:

Hiking boots or shoes are required. All trails in the mountains have sections of hard packed dirt, mud, streaming water, flat rocks and pointy rocks. I planned a trip that I was not able to go on do to a rock climbing accident. I ended up sending my father, brothers and a cousin down the worst stretch of trail they had ever encountered. It was miles of pointy basketball sized rocks. They had to carefully select each step and had many rolled ankles. I am secretly glad I didn't get to experience that part of the trail.

This nasty rock laden trail brings me to a point on hiking shoes:

Make sure your shoes have good soles. Miles of walking on roots, rocks and other uneven terrain will have your feet aching unless the soles of your shoes prevent your feet from feeling the rocks and roots. Most good outdoor stores that sell hiking shoes have a inclined ramps with rocks fixed to it. When you try on hiking boots make sure to walk around on this ramp and if you feel the details of the rocks, points and ridges, do not buy those shoes.

Ankle support is also a good quality to look for in hiking boots/shoes. I need ankle support with my once broken ankle but when I was younger I liked to hike in trail running types of shoes. These are nice because they are lighter but just make sure the sole is nice and stiff.

I used to bring an extra pair of tennis shoes. My dad made fun of me for carrying the extra weight until I stepped into a mud hole that swallowed my hiking shoe, the trail running type. My converse all stars weren't the best but they were better than my mud filled hiking shoes.

It is normal to get shoes wet and muddy, on the outside!! Wet feet make for blisters which make for exceedingly painful walks home. Make sure your hiking shoes have good soles, ankle support, and are water proof/resistant. If you can handle the extra pounds hang some old sneakers off the back of your pack in case a mud hole gets too close to you like it did me.

Below are a few pictures of decent hiking shoes:

The Wind River Range and Good Backpacks

This is Brother Dillman. I am very excited for the upcoming high adventure trip. I have camped in the Wind River Range five times for about one week at a time. Three of the trips were camping at the headwaters of the Green River. As a youth, our young men's group had a great time hiking, swimming briefly in frigid glacier fed lakes and fishing. The views at the Green River Lakes are the most impressive landscapes I have ever seen. The picture I have shown below is Squaretop Mountain. I met some climbers that climbed up the face of the mountain, about 2000 vertical feet, over the course of two days, sleeping on the wall overnight.

I also led two backpacking trips in in the New Fork Lakes area which is just south of the Green River Lakes. I will show more pictures and discuss these trips in later posts. I can say from experience that a good plan and good gear are essential to having a good successful trip in these mountains.

Essential Gear
Backpack:

Obviously for multiple day trips into the wilderness you need a backpack. An acceptable backpack must have a frame, internal or external, and a good padded waist band. Unlike school bags, which do not work well for long backpacking trips, real backpacks are carried on the hips. If you try to carry 30-50 pounds for 4-8 hours a day on your shoulders only, you will be incredibly sore, to the point of being debilitated. If a backpack is carried on the hips only mild soreness will be experienced. So make sure the backpack you bring has a good padded waist band. Internal frame backpacks are a little more comfortable than external frame backpacks. The advantage of external frame style packs is the ease of strapping sleeping bags, fishing poles, canteens, and other gear to the frame. The external frame makes this a little easier that the fixed loops and pockets of the internal frame packs. So either style will work fine it just comes down to your personal preference. The following backpacks are good examples of external and internal frame packs:

Link to High Adventure Camp Document

The following link will take you to a document prepared by Bro Johnson that describes the preliminary  plan for the high adventure backpacking trip. To view it please copy the url and paste it in you browser address bar.

Click here, it is actually quite comical.