Colorado Trail Gear!

13lb baseweight with SUPER warm clothes!

That’s it! That plus food and water are all of my belongings for the next month! Super pumped to hit the trail tomorrow at 6am! Thanks to my amazing wife who organized all my gear for this picture, and even MORE importantly for driving me to the trailhead tomorrow at 5am!!

I just wanted to pop onto the blog here and talk about some changes I’ve made to my gear list this year. Gear is unique for each trip and since the average elevation for the Colorado Trail is 10,300ft, I decided to carry solid warm layers and rain gear, as well as wool gloves and rain mitts! 

Not too baaaaaad!! 

Weight is everything out there, so to shave weight for my warm layers, I was able to shave ounces and grams elsewhere in my gear list. One change im excited about is my electronics this year.

I got a new (very inexpensive and light), 10,000 mAh power bank this year, which is only 1 oz heavier than the 5,600 mAh Goal Zero bank I used to have. I got a great USB-C to USB-C cord and found a teeny little high quality USB-C to lightning adapter that can be seen just under my phone in the second pic. This with a very small and light USB-C wall square, and I’m set with a 4 piece electronics kit for this trip! 

First Aid Kit

Simplified my first aid kit as well. Teeny Gerber knife, mini-bic lighter, glasses wipe, bug wipes, and finger nail clippers. In the small bag is ibuprofen, pain killers, and more pain killers?? 

No, that’s not a small, sad joint; that’s actually my blister kit! I cut a plastic straw down to fit two needles and thread. If you’re wondering how the heck that’s a blister kit, I’ll be sure to let you know in full details if I get some on this trip! Under the small bag is Leukotape that I cut into strips and placed on some sticker backings. These are for blister prevention if I feel any hotspots. Lighter and more effective than moleskin in my opinion! 

Another fun addition to this year’s kit is this CNOC water bag that I’m stoked about. It is very easy to fill with dirty water, my Sawyer Squeeze filter screws directly onto it. Then, I use the Sawyer Coupling (small blue thing) to attach directly to my clean water bottle. It’ll make filtering so much quicker and hassle free! 

Teeny coupling is a godsend

Very easy to scoop from a shallow water source, much easier than collecting with the standard Sawyer bag or a smart water bottle.

It also doubles as a back-flushing method! Clean and filtered water bottle goes on top, coupling is attached INTO the output of the filter to push clean water back through it to clean it without a syringe! 

Okay okay, enough nerding out on tiny things… just kidding!!!

Bit wait, there’s more!! 

David, what is that tiny blue thing on the end of your long handled titanium spoon? I’m so glad you asked..

Booyah! My spoon is now also my toothbrush! I am WAY too excited to shave 1 oz of weight by leaving the standard brush behind, haha. I’ll have to report back on how I like metal clanging around in my teeth while trying to brush, Claire might have to bring a non-crazy-person toothbrush to me when we meet at mile 100!

Burrito time! Not pictured are tortillas, hot sauce packets, and my Talenti cold soak jar. 

Lastly I just wanted to touch on my favorite lightweight cold soaking food that is back by my own popular demand, haha. In 2018, my mom bought a ton of super yummy dehydrated refried beans from WinCo and sent them to me along the trail (Thanks Mom!!) Well, not a ton because they are super light, but you get the point… Anyways, this year we randomly acquired these dehydrated refried beans from Claire’s aunty (Thanks Judy!!). 

I put a whole bag of Knorr sides rice (my favorite type for fast, cold water rehydration), together with an equal amount of refried beans. Add water, slap it in the outside of my pack in the afternoon sun. By the time I get to camp I can throw that on a tortilla, with a Cholula sauce packet, and if I’m lucky, some avocado if I carried one out from town! Voila! A warm(ish) dinner of champions, with no clean up required. Just rinse my plastic cold soak jar and put it away! 

Anyways, that’s it for now, I start my hike tomorrow and should be posting the first 4-5 days in about 5-6 days! Haha. If you have any questions about any of my gear, ask them in the comments and I will answer them in future blog posts on the trail! 

Thanks for reading!