What am I carrying while hiking?

• Pack
• Sleeping System
• Carried Clothing
• Cooking & Filtration
• Entertainment & Map
• Photography
• First Aid & Hygiene
• Tools

What am I wearing on the AT?

• Hiking Clothing
• Rain Clothing
• Sleep Clothing

What are you going to eat?

• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Complete Gear List

Field charger

That strange looking thing, is a modified Minty Boost. It's a USB recharging device, that is made to fit into an Altoids mint tin. I've ditched the tin, and cable tied the circuit to the plastic battery holder. All I have to do is plug AA batteries into the device and connect it via the USB cable to the iPod. Voltage from the device will flow into the iPod's rechargable battery. Volia, field recharging of the iPod. Commerical alternatives to this are the Power Monkey or Energi to Go, which I'll turn to if this fails in the field (my soldering skills aren't what they use to be). Energi to Go is available at K-Mart, Walmart, Target and Walgreens. But with the Minty Boost weighing 0.5 ounces (13 grams), it's hard to beat.

Ipod Content

So with all that capacity, I felt that I needed to fill it as much as I could. Including lots of audiobooks, there are actually enough to listen to for the entire duration of the hike if I listened for 8 hours per day.

• 88 Gb of Audio
  • 38Gb of Music - 687 hours
  • 43Gb of Audiobooks - over 1,000 hours
  • 7Gb of Podcasts - 430 hours
    • Audio Dharma (itunes)
    • Zencast (itunes)
• 23 Gb of Videos - 60 hours
• 2.7 Gb of Photos - actually my entire photo collection
• Also, some 5 additional downloaded games
  • Sudoko
  • Brain Challenge
  • Navy Battle
  • Peggle
  • Cubis 2

But what I also have, is my itinerary, maps and resupply town information. By converting the spreadsheet of the route into a series of pictures and sequencing them together I scroll thru the photos in an playlist on the iPod. (checkout the screenshots below for a sample)

Also Included

To protect the iPod and it's accessories from the rain, I will keep it in a Aloksak.

Total Weight

8 oz (226 grams)

IPOD specifications

• 160Gb capacity
• 40 hours of battery while playing audio
• 5.6 oz (158 grams)

Wall Charger

• 1.2 oz (35 grams)

field charger

• 0.5 oz (15 grams)

usb cable

• 0.5 oz (13 grams)

Screenshots

Apart from the usual music content, I'm also carrying the iPod for map and itinerary information. I clipped a map of the Appalachian trail into several numbered images. I just select the playlist and review or preview the map.

I also converted the spreadsheet with my Appalachian Trail itinerary into several images. These are just readable.

I also scanned the popular Wingfoot's The Thru-Hiker's Handbook 2007 route information and clipped that into 150 individual pictures that are just readable in the iPod's screen. I was going to also include town information, but decided to just keep that in paper form, which I'll discard once I've passed the town.

Maps

Itinerary Screenshot

Fiction Audiobooks

40 audiobooks or over 760 hours. I couldn't imagine carrying 40 paperbacks with me! I have tried to vary the authors and type of plot but most of them are 'Suspense'. 760 hours over 1/3rd of the total time hiking. I plan to listen perhaps for 4 hours per day, more, should I be stuck somewhere sheltering from the wind and rain.

Non-Fiction Audiobooks

174 hours of Non-fiction. Some of which I've already listened to, and only taking as backup, should I run out of other the fictional books I have not yet listened to.

MOVIES

Since I have the space, I'm also carrying some movies. Playing movies will drain the battery much more quickly, so I'll only play them when I can recharge the iPod's battery via wall socket. Two of my favorites are 'American Beauty' and 'Zoolander'.