The Backpacking Gear I Used on my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike
Gear Advice from an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker
I remember having an actual panic attack during the wee hours of the morning before I was about to hit the road to Chicot State Park for my very first backpacking trip. I was going to be late, because I couldn’t get any of my fears to fit in my pack - which was bought from a catalog my manager had plopped down onto my desk the previous Christmas. Pick-your-own-gift style. There were no measurements to choose from. I had no idea that backpacks weren’t one-size-fits-all.
I wore cotton everything, found the sturdiest boots available for the treacherous Louisiana terrain (flat trail with the occasional cypress knee,) and set out on what could only be described as an absolute disaster of a backpacking trip. I got giardia from my Amazon Choice water filter and gave it to a friend when I kindly offered to filter water for her (sorry Rikki.) My entire back, shoulders, and hips were a single, uninterrupted chafe from the catalog pack. Another group member got violently sick from heatstroke. The fact that I continued backpacking after that is a testament to how much I love it.
And I did keep backpacking. In 2022, I completed a successful thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail - over 2,000 miles of nonstop hiking and nights in the woods. In the five years between my first backpacking trip and my thru-hike, I went on just a handful of backpacking trips - and even fewer of them solo. This required me to borrow, buy, and test many pieces of gear, eventually landing on the kit I used for my thru-hike. This is what worked for me, but it was an expensive and often stressful process. I’m hoping that in this list, you can find gear that works for you and avoid the learning curve I had to go through.
In this blog is a complete list of the gear I used on my thru-hike, and, if I’ve swapped out pieces since then, what products I now recommend carrying instead.
Please note: if you’re hiking a different trail than the AT, you will need to adjust what you take with you. Most of the gear you use will be the same, but this list isn’t exhaustive.
You need just a few basic items to fill out your kit:
Sleep System
Clothing
Kitchen
Safety
Pack
Sleep System
When I started my thru-hike, I left with this setup:
Shelter: Gossamer Gear’s The One
Sleeping Pad: Nemo Tensor
Quilt: Enlightened Equipment Revelation Quilt 0 degree (winter); Thermarest Corus Quilt, 32 degree (summer)
By the time I made it to Massachusetts, I completely switched my sleep system from a tent setup to a hammocking setup. The Gossamer Gear tent is one of the most affordable of the “ultralight” tents, which is why I chose it. Unfortunately, I got what I paid for, and it didn’t survive the thru. I had to seam seal it in Virginia after it began leaking. By the time I made it to Massachusetts, the leaking was so bad I woke up in standing water after a light rainstorm. With the treacherous Whites coming up in New Hampshire, I needed a shelter I could rely on to keep me and my gear safe, dry, and warm. So, with a friend’s help and guidance, I made the switch to a hammocking setup.
A note about Gossamer Gear: they did accept a return and issued me a full refund! I have heard great things about their packs, and saw many of the Mariposas make their way to Katahdin. So maybe shelters aren’t their best product, but their customer service was great to me, and their packs seem to do well on trail.
Here’s the hammocking setup I switched to:
Hammock/tarp: Kammok Mantis All in One Hammock Tent
Tree straps: Hummingbird ultralight straps. (If you click this link, my discount code MARYL5 will automatically be applied to your order!)
Underquilt: Enlightened Equipment Revolt V2, 10 degree
Overquilt: Enlightened Equipment Revelation, 0 degree
My only regret about hammocking is that I didn’t switch sooner.
2. Clothing
I kept my hiking clothing pretty minimal but unlike many hikers, I carried my base layers and puffy jacket the entire hike.
Daily wear: Patagonia barely there baggies shorts; Columbia fishing shirt.
Underwear: Two pairs of Exofficio bikini briefs. Yes, specialized underwear is very important for a thru-hike!
Baselayers: Smartwool merino wool 250 base layer top; Terramar men’s base layer bottom (no women’s sizes were long enough for me)
Puffy: Patagonia Nano Puff Insulated Hoodie
Rain Gear: Outdoor Research Helium rain jacket, Columbia rain pants, Six Moon Designs ultralight umbrella
Shoes: Hoka Speedgoats. I started in the Speedgoat 3, got a Speedgoat 4, and then when I moved on to the Speedgoat 5, I experienced foot pain for the first time on my hike. An orthopedic insole solved that problem for me, so I still recommend Hokas anytime I get a chance.
Socks: Injinji midweight toe socks. Many other hikers used the Darn Tough and liner toe sock method, but I had success (and zero blisters - yes, really!) with Injini’s midweight toe socks by themselves.
3. Kitchen
There are many hikers who cold-soak on trail (putting ramen, oatmeal, or whatever else they’re eating in a jar with cold water, letting it rehydrate as they hike, and then eating it at the end of the day.) I was not in this camp, and carried a “full kitchen” my entire thru-hike.
Cooking pot: Toaks 550ml Ultralight Pot
Bowl: Fozzils Snapfold Bowl
Spoon: Toaks Titanium Long Handle Spoon
Stove: Kingsummit stove (discontinued/can’t find online - found on the side of the trail and kept when no one claimed it. I recommend anything by MSR or Jetboil.)
Water filter: Saywer Squeeze
Gravity filtering system: Cnoc 2L 28mm Vecto Water Container, 28mm Sawyer coupling tool
Bear hanging kit: Zpacks Bear Bagging Kit
The gravity filtering system is amazing. Typically, hikers will use Smartwater bottles, since they have the same thread as the Sawyer Squeeze. With this setup, you can collect unfiltered water in your Cnoc water container, screw the sawyer directly onto that, and then screw your Smartwater bottle directly onto the filter using the coupling tool - for hands-free filtration!
4. Safety
Satellite Communicator: Garmin InReach Mini
Personal Protection: CRKT neck knife, mini pepper spray (Walmart)
Very rarely did I feel unsafe on the trail, and when I did - it was when I was in town, not in the backcountry. Still, I carried a means of contacting my family each day with a GPS ping (the Garmin) and a couple of ways of protecting myself (the neck knife and small pepper spray.) The knife, I mainly used to open stubborn instant coffee packets. I never felt that I needed my pepper spray except in Rutland, Vermont, while walking around the city after dark.
5. Your Pack
What I hiked with: Zpacks Arc Scout 50L (discontinued)
What I recommend now: Hyperlite Southwest Pack
There’s a reason this is the last section of this blog. It’s actually a good idea to buy your pack last, even though that seems counterintuitive. You want to have all your other gear first to make sure that it will all fit. There’s nothing more disappointing than having a bunch of gear and then struggling to fit it all because you thought you could start out with a 38L pack and actually need a 75L.
The Zpacks pack I thru-hiked with was 50L, and a very minimalistic pack. There is an arc suspension, which allowed for some breathing room between my back and the pack, and there are load lifters to adjust the weight. However, the stays (metal part of the suspension system) constantly broke! It was inconvenient, and a known issue that other hikers along the trail had experienced. That being said, Zpacks was excellent at sending me replacement stays for free. I felt that they cared about my situation, and did their best to make it right.
I still use a Zpacks airplane case that also doubles as my pack liner. That thing has been on many flights with all my gear shoved into it, on a 2,200 mile thru-hike, and is still going strong after a thru-hike, many more overnights, and a 100-mile section hike of the PCT.
If you want to talk more about this packing list, or all the other things you’ll need on a thru-hike (gear will only get you so far!) I offer one-on-one coaching sessions for a limited amount of backpacking and thru-hiking hopefuls. You can click here to learn more about coaching and why I offer it, and schedule your first consultation session with me by tapping any of the options below:
This post contains affiliate links. None of these companies have reached out to me to become an affiliate; I reached out to them - so these are my fully unbiased gear recommendations. If you choose to purchase gear recommendations through these links, you’ll help me out at no additional cost to you. Thanks!
