Leaving for the backpacking trip of a lifetime.

How many other times in my life will I have the funding or logistical ability to charter a bush plane to land me on a gravel bar near the headwaters of a river in remote Interior Alaska? I can probably count those on one hand, if they exist at all.

Tomorrow morning, my boss/coworker/friend Josh and I will be flown by a bush pilot in a small plane passenger-bearing mosquito that can do short takeoffs and landings (STOL) on unimproved terrain, like ridgelines, meadows, or, in this case, gravel bars. This is a shot Josh took last year of the "airstrip" that we'll be picked up at (hopefully) at the end of our trip.

We'll be hiking for ten days, and the route is easy, only about 45 miles. We can take it slowly, which is good, since the goal of the trip is to photograph the alpine areas above the Upper Charley River. Pretty cool that the whole point of all this is just to make photographs, right? I love my job.

So here is all of the gear and food that I take with me out of my house tomorrow morning. Not all of it will actually be taken on my back and carried the whole time.

This is what everything looks like when it's all packed. The clear bag with the lime green bottom and the the red duct tape around it is a dry bag that has my camera and its gear inside of it. I'll have the bag in my lap on the plane, and then the camera will be on a strap around my neck while hiking. The boots I'll be wearing (obviously), and the clothes on the ground are cotton clothes to wear underneath my flight suit on the plane. The green bag has my flight suit, flight helmet, flight gloves, and a Stat Pack (emergency survival kit in case the plane crashes in the middle of nowhere and I survive and have to figure out how to get back to civilization; knock on wood, pray, or hope, please, whatever your fancy). The cotton clothes and the flight bag will go back with the pilot once we land, and it will return on the plane on the day we're picked up so I can use it again on the flight back. When we land, I have some (no, a lot) of clothes (hiking socks, synthetic underwear, gaiters, hiking pants, belt, bug shirt, hat, sunglasses) that I'll put on that currently reside in the backpack, so it will get a little bit less bulky. It's also like, half food. So, eating a lot will make the size go down a lot, too. By the end of the trip, it will be so easy to pack my bag, especially since we're carrying a full ten days of food. That's a lot of food.

I don't know how much my pack weighs, but it probably weighs more than Josh's, which weighs 33 pounds. My best guess as to my pack weight would be 40-45 pounds, up to 20 of which could be food. Josh is bringing 15 pounds of food; I think mine is a little less calorically dense, so mine is probably around 17 or 18 pounds. Either way, at the end of the trip, we'll be practically running. For like, two hours each day, since we only have to average 4.5 miles per day. Josh, an ultralight queen fanatic/enthusiast (if you're reading this, hi), would probably faint at my pack weight. I should be fainting at it right now, but I think the reason I'm not is that I haven't hiked through tussocks with it on yet. Then I'll faint just by thinking about the weight. Guess I'll just have to eat the food!

I'm extremely excited about this trip; it could end up being the coolest trip I've gone on so far. Really excited. Pics and a post on this trip to come, probably in mid-August if not in late July, since I have another trip about five days after the end of this one, hiking and maybe packrafting the lower section of the Charley River. Thanks for reading!

Appendix: If anyone is interested, here is my gear list. Josh is bringing some group gear too, so this list is not exhaustive:

CONTAINMENT:

Backpack

Extra hip belt clip

P-cord

Pack cover

Trash bag to line bag

CLOTHING:

Boots

Gaiters

Three pairs hiking socks

One pair sleep socks

Long underwear pants

Long underwear top

2 pairs underwear

Base layer shirt

Bug shirt

Light synthetic jacket

Fleece gloves

Bug gloves

Head net

Hat

Rain shell pants

Sunglasses with croakies

Warm hat

Hiking pants

Belt

Puff jacket

Rain shell jacket

SHELTER AND SLEEP SYSTEM:

Tent

Pole

Ground cloth

Sleeping bag

Sleeping pad

Pillow

FOOD AND EATING ACCESSORIES:

OPSAKs

2 Red Couch sandwiches

Oatmeal

Snickers

Pop-Tarts

Jerky

Fritos

GORP

Triscuits

Almond butter (2 jars)

Bars

Fruit leathers

Ten dinners with meats

Olive oil

Hot tea

Drink mix

2 bike bottles

Platypus bladder with 2 caps

Thermal rehydration cozy for dinners

TOILETRIES:

Biodegradable toilet paper

Toothbrush

Toothpaste

Sunscreen

Chapstick

Hand sanitizer

Contact solution

Contact case

Rewetting drops

Contacts

Glasses with case

Allergy pills and nose spray

Thermometer

2 bandannas

Sporknife

Quart-size Ziploc for lunches

2.5 gallon-size Ziploc for trash

Bear spray

CAMERA EQUIPMENT:

Dry bag for camera

Camera

Lens

Batteries

Memory cards

Lens cleaner

CAMP EQUIPMENT:

Book

Knife

Headlamp

FLIGHT EQUIPMENT:

Flight bag

Flight suit

Flight helmet

Flight gloves

STAT pack

Cotton pants

Cotton shirt

Cotton underwear

Cotton socks