White Mountains Autumn Backpacking Gear Record Defined

The primary half of autumn, from mid-September by means of October, is the most effective time to go climbing and backpacking within the White Mountain Nationwide Forest which spans central New Hampshire and Western Maine. The temperatures are cooler, the bugs are gone, and the autumn foliage is spectacular in early October, reaching its peak on Columbus Day through the second week of October. Come November, the climate turns decidedly colder, and snowshoes are sometimes required to hike the upper peaks by Thanksgiving. After that winter often lasts into April and even later on the greater elevations.

I haven’t printed my gear checklist in ages and I assumed I’d write one up that particulars the backpacking gear I take advantage of in September and October for autumn backpacking (down to twenty levels at evening) earlier than I’ve to transition to colder climate pursuits.

Gear Record Abstract

Most of my journeys within the Whites are one and two-night backpacking journeys, typically solo, and lots of contain climbing 4000 footers, though I typically take off-trail detours to achieve small fly fishing streams or bag trailless mountains.  I favor wild tenting in dispersed campsites and cook dinner one-pot dinners on the finish of the day. I often change from path runners to evenly insulated boots when daytime temperatures fall under freezing. I’m much less obsessive about gear weight than I was and lean extra in the direction of wilderness immersion than crushing massive miles. I’m nonetheless a go-getter, however I’m lots much less occupied with feats and extra occupied with making reminiscences.

The full base weight of my gear checklist is 14 lbs 10 oz, which is a few pound or two greater than I sometimes carry in summer time. My Tenkara Fly Fishing gear weighs a further 9.2 ounces, which is mostly a drop within the bucket when in comparison with extra conventional reel-based fly fishing.

Packing

I switched from a Gossamer Gear Gorilla 50 to a Zpacks Arc Haul Extremely 50 two years in the past as a result of I favor carrying a backpack with a suspended mesh again panel for higher air flow. The previous two summers have been brutally scorching and humid, a development which will properly proceed for the remainder of my lifetime, and the Arc Haul is rather more snug to hold. It’s additionally made with Extremely, a extremely sturdy ultralight and waterproof cloth that has confirmed powerful sufficient to resist use within the White Mountain Nationwide Forest, the place most backpacks go to die.

The Zpacks Arc Haul 50 is just not a house run however I nonetheless prefer it higher than some other pack I personal. The roll prime leaks in heavy all-day rain so I line it with an Exped Schnozzel which is a 44L stuff sack, I’ve put a number of holes within the entrance mesh pocket, and the facet compression system is inadequate for carrying heavy objects like snowshoes. I’m additionally getting uninterested in unpacking the roll prime utterly at any time when I would like to seek out some gear buried deep within the pack. It will be rather more handy if Zpacks put a zipper alongside one facet of the pack that offered one other entry methodology, however the identical may very well be stated of all roll-top backpack makers.

However the Arc Haul Extremely 50 hip belt offers a superb wrap round my hips, the torso size is totally adjustable, and it has daisy chains sewn to the entrance of the shoulder straps, so it’s very snug and handy to make use of with every kind of hundreds. I’ll change to a hotter pack with higher exterior attachments within the winter, however the Arc Haul Extremely 50 continues to be a pleasure to make use of for the rest of the yr.

Shelter/Insulation

I change backwards and forwards between hammocks and tents and tarps each few years and I’m again in a tent this autumn after utilizing a Hammock Gear Wanderlust Hammock System for a number of years. I’m at the moment utilizing a Durston Gear X-Mid 1 which I like as a result of it packs up small and provides me plenty of further vestibule room for shoulder season climate once I need to maintain my gear beneath cowl and simply accessible inside my tent.

I take advantage of a Feathered Associates Tanager 20 hoodless sleeping bag in autumn as a result of it’s much less drafty than a quilt, with a Sea-to-Summit Insulated Etherlite XT sleeping pad and a Sea-to-Summit Aeros Down Pillow, which I’ve been utilizing happening 4 years now. I sleep very properly with this setup and haven’t any plans to swap it out. I additionally carry a number of segments of a ZLite foam pad on journeys to make use of as a porch for my tent so my knees don’t get moist getting out and in and to be used as a sit pad when cooking meals.

Kitchen

I cook dinner and boil water with Esbit gasoline cubes as a result of they’re light-weight to pack and at all times burn regardless of how chilly it will get. I take advantage of 1 to 1.5 oz of gasoline per day and in contrast to canister gasoline or alcohol, there’s no empty gasoline container to lug round after the gasoline is gone. Whereas I do use a QiWiz cookset, it is extremely minimal with a steel pot lid as a “range” to stop the Esbit cubes from burning the bottom, a wire range stand, and a titanium foil windscreen. All the cook dinner system suits into my historic Evernew Pasta Pot (M), which is sized completely for the one-pot meals I prefer to cook dinner on the path.

Since I’m in black bear territory, I take advantage of a Bearvault 425 bear canister to guard my meals and the bears at evening. I additionally use it to retailer my cook dinner pot and toiletries to maintain smells out of camp. It suits properly close to the highest of my pack as a result of it’s so small (it’s the smallest canister that Bearvault makes). Sadly, Ursacks are not authorized to be used within the White Mountain Forest, and utilizing a bear canister provides appreciable weight to my gear checklist. However a bear canister is rather more handy to make use of than making an attempt to hold a bear bag at evening (which is the opposite authorized methodology), particularly in autumn when the times are shorter.

Water

I’ve been utilizing the Platypus QuickDraw water filter once more this yr together with Platypus 2L and 1L mushy water bottles. I just like the caps at each ends of the filter, which helps forestall cross-contamination of the clear finish and prevents the filter from making all of your different gear moist when it’s packed away. It has a quick movement price and lets me use my Platypus bottles, that are gusseted on the underside and get up by themselves.

I favor utilizing the Platypus mushy bottles for lengthy water carries, which I do more and more typically to seek out dispersed campsites. They maintain their form higher than different mushy bottles when full, which makes them simpler to hold. For instance, I sometimes carry 5L of water for dry tenting, and Platy bottles flop round much less when carried in my pack’s entrance mesh pocket, than say a CNOC bottle which is far softer and extra pliable.

I additionally switched to utilizing 1-liter wide-mouth UL Nalgene bottles (3.8 oz every) two years in the past. I often carry two on journeys. I switched to them as a result of I saved dropping taller bottles, together with Smartwater bottles once I hike off-trail, which I do on nearly each hike I take with a fishing rod. The squatter Nalgenes don’t get pulled out of my facet water bottle pockets. In autumn, they’re additionally helpful as a result of you may put scorching drinks in them and so they have quantity measurements on the facet. It’s very nice to have the ability to warmth up a full liter of tea on a chilly morning and sip it whereas ready for my scorching cereal to warmth up on a chilly morning. You may’t try this with a Smartwater bottle!

Workplace

The workplace is the brains of this operation and encompasses navigation, communications, pictures, lighting, and energy. I’m a map and compass individual at coronary heart and maintain my Suunto M3 declination adjustable compass shut at hand to verify my course and determine distant terrain options. I additionally put on a solar-powered Casio Professional-Trek ABC watch and use the barometric altimeter rather a lot when climbing, so I don’t must get my telephone out to verify my elevation with a GPS. I nearly by no means take this watch off, so perhaps it ought to be thought of as “clothes worn.”

Nonetheless, it’s good to have Smartphone apps with GPS-encoded maps, so I can verify my place and consider maps on the telephone that I don’t need to carry. I do a good quantity of off-trail climbing along with on-trail with the intention to attain distant trout streams, so it helps to have a big selection of maps obtainable in a telephone app. When it comes to apps, I take advantage of GaiaGPS for off-trail navigation, Farout’s White Mountain Nationwide Forest App for on-trail navigation, and Avenza Maps for navigating with historic USGS maps encoded as GeoPDFs or maps printed by path conferences that don’t use the Farout app.

I carry a Garmin inReach Mini2, so I can textual content the individual I go away my journey plan with if I’m overdue or I’m injured. My iPhone 14 additionally has a SAR satellite tv for pc messenger perform, so I suppose the Mini 2 is redundant, however it’s rather more durably made than my Smartphone.

Pictures: I take advantage of my iPhone 14 for all of my pictures because the image high quality is so good and carry a small Anker battery to recharge it with if I run low on energy.

Headlamp. I’m nonetheless utilizing a Nitecore NU 20 (not offered) as a result of it’s small and doesn’t have a posh set of lighting controls. My UK climbing buddy Martin advisable it to me a number of years in the past and I’ve been utilizing it ever since.

First Support Equipment

My first help kits have at all times been self-assembled and are fairly minimal. I put probably the most effort into blister prevention and remedy, utilizing Leukotape to stop hotspots and long-lasting, padded, Band-aid Hydro-seal bandages if I get blisters. These are tremendous sticky bandages that don’t come off for days and assist heal the wound. They’re the identical factor as Compeed bandages, offered within the UK, however a lot cheaper.

Along with foot care, I carry the standard antihistamines, ache relievers, and anti-diarrhea tablets. For those who’re freaked out by sounds at evening, earplugs are helpful in autumn for blocking the sound of falling leaves. I additionally carry an N95 masks on my hikes to guard myself from Covid if I’ve to get near somebody, say an injured hiker I don’t know who wants assist, or if I’ve to enter a construction with different individuals.

Clothes Carried

I carry a reasonably commonplace set of layers for autumn climate. My rain gear doubles as wind safety above treeline and offers a thermal envelope when worn over a mid-layer. Looking season begins in September, so it’s additionally good that my rain jacket is blaze orange in colour. It’s loopy that extra firms don’t make blaze orange outside gear for hikers, isn’t it? I additionally carry a light-weight down puffy pullover that I primarily put on in camp or in my sleeping bag at evening if I really feel chilly. Gloves and a heat hat are additionally good to hold, particularly for above-treeline use or on chilly mornings.

I’m a giant believer in carrying a separate pair of dry sleeping garments, which I alter into once I get to camp so I can heat up over dinner. They’re good to have readily available in case your daytime clothes will get moist on wet days and if you could heat up. Additionally they maintain your sleep insulation from getting funky, particularly if you happen to can’t wash up earlier than going to mattress.

I suppose I’m courting myself by utilizing clothes from Patagonia that’s not made, however I haven’t been in a position to determine in the event that they promote something that’s akin to the light-weight layers I already personal, given their terribly advanced and always altering product naming scheme.

Clothes Worn

I’m at the moment sporting a pair of Saucony Peregrines 11s ($65/pair) which I stockpiled a number of years in the past, despite the fact that Saucony is promoting Peregrine 13s ($140/pair) at this level. Shopping for surplus, previous mannequin, path runners is an effective way to economize if you happen to blow by means of a number of pairs per season. I’ll maintain sporting the 11s till I would like to change to waterproof mids when the climate turns colder in late October.

I wore REI Sahara Convertible Mountaineering Pants (for the shorts) most of this summer time however have switched to Railrider Bone Flats Pants because the climate has gotten cooler. These ventilate higher than the Railrider’s EcoMesh pants I utilized in years previous, one other adaption to the hotter and extra humid summers we’ve been having. The Bone Flat Pants will not be pre-treated with Insect Defend, so you need to ship them out to InsectShield your self or spray them with Sawyer’s Permethrin if you wish to forestall tick and bug bites.

Tenkara Fly Fishing Gear

With all this discuss fly fishing, you’re most likely questioning what it’s I do carry. The reply is just not a lot, as you may see above. That’s the fantastic thing about Tenkara. It’s very elemental and easy. I can fish all spring, summer time, and autumn with simply 9.2 ounces of fly fishing gear.

I take advantage of a light-weight telescoping carbon fiber rod that’s made in Japan known as the Tenkara USA Iwana and catch trout which are typically beneath 10″ in size. I’m strictly a catch-and-release fisherman and I take advantage of barbless hooks, that are simple to take away. I don’t at all times carry Tenkara Gear on hikes particularly if I’m climbing with somebody who simply needs to go climbing or is just not a fisherperson. However once I hike alone, I often carry my fishing gear, and nearly at all times once I go backpacking.

Wrap Up

Whew! There’s a number of data there. In case you have any questions on any of the gear I take advantage of or why I carry what I do, be at liberty to go away a remark under together with your questions. I’m additionally completely happy to reply any questions you’ve gotten about climbing or backpacking within the Whites in autumn.

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