Gear Check! (Part Two)

Posted by Serina Hardiman

Continuing on our list of gear, Chris and I invested and broke in over the past several months our hiking boots. Chris went with the Montrail Torre GTX and I nabbed a pair of the Asolo Stynger GTX. We opted for boots for the ankle support but know some folks prefer to go with sneakers and low top hiking shoes. Chris opted to toss some arch support in his to keep from any toe bump and as we found the downhill can be as strenuous as the uphill in this hike this should definitely help him.

As for clothing, we both went the convertible route so we can zip off the legs to shorts if need be. The weather can be really warm during the day with the sun beating down and drop drastically at night. We figure the more versitile our clothing, the better. We've stocked up on silk sock liners and wool top socks to help keep clear of blistering but have our handy 2nd Skin just in case. You think with all the gear plugs we'd get some kind of discount!

We have our odds and ends we've been getting together and above is a picture of the largest stuff we'll be packing in our backpacks. What you see are our sleeping bags, sleeping pads and our Sea to Summit stuff sacks (blue and red in the center) all rolled up. To give you some scale, the stuff sacks are just about the size of a football.


We picked up a couple of LED headlamps courtesy of Petzl and their Tikka series. Those suckers are bright. I really wish we had these bad boys a couple months back when the daylight started escaping us from the summer time. We had been so used to hiking up and down Kennesaw Mountain with daylight to spare but with the change in time and helping out some out of towners by taking family photos of them with the changing colors we got to the top of Little Kennesaw as it was starting to dusk. On our descent it got steadily darker and Chris pulled out his cheapy stocking stuffer headlamp I got him in '07. It put out such a pitiful little glow that we vowed to kick it up a notch. Now I feel like I'm emitting 1.21 gigawatts!

It's been fun gathering and testing out everything as we've gone along. It's been a blast getting out on the trails and breaking it all in. I'm sure nothing can truly prepare us for the altitude but Chris and I are pretty determined and stubborn Capricorns!

We have had our personal trainer below working with us. We can't let her down!