Packing

Hurrah! There is just over a week left until Kirsty and I embark once again on a quest for adventure, sunshine and the perfect jumping shot. We have our visas, insurance and passports ready to roll so now it's time for the tricky part: packing.

Last time was hard enough. We were away for longer; needed clothes from the beach to the snowy Himalayas; and we'd never done anything like that before. This time (seasoned pros that we are) is both easier and more complicated. 

I'll explain. 

In true American road trip style we are hiring a car. This means we can pack not just our backpacks full of necessities, but an extra case with floral dresses, straw hats and other nonsense. Then, when we don't need the floral dresses, into the car they go and magically our load is lessened.

But here comes the hard part. The reason we chose this trip is for some trekking. We had planned to do the John Muir trail but sadly, when it was time to enter the wilderness permit lottery six months ago, we missed out. Instead we are doing lots of shorter bits of the trail, climbing some mountains and letting the balmy Californian breeze take us where it will. 

We have trekked before so we know what we need but last time was probably quite a luxury. The most obvious reason for that luxury was Krishna, our porter-extraordinaire. He carried everything and we skipped happily along a couple of miles behind him/fell over a lot (even with all our baggage he was significantly faster than us). This time we have to carry everything ourselves. I'm so glad I once walked to work with a weight in my bag. It'll make all the difference don't you think? :-/

And this brings us to problems two and three. In Nepal we stayed in tea houses along the route. We were fed, watered and given a bed to sleep in. In the national parks there is acres and acres of nothing but nature, so like a pair of tortoises we shall carry our home on our back. When we pack for trekking there needs to be space for a tent and when we are in the tent there needs to be room for our packs. In fact our tent is so small we will be spooning each other and our packs. At least it'll be warm I suppose.

And then for the worst news. There also needs to be room for food. Five days of food is heavy enough but this is bear country and it all needs to be safely hidden inside bear canisters. We can't get these until we get there so today I had a practice of packing all this :

The rucksack is at the bottom. Everything needed to go in leaving the main central pocket free for bear canister and cooking stuff. And guess what!

Here I am, packed and ready to go. And I look damn cool! Which is obviously the most important thing. I wonder how cool I'll look once the food is in and I'm bowed under the weight, slightly sunburnt and plagued by mosquitos....?

It's OK... I'll buy a baseball cap and jobs a goodun.

So success in stage 1 and see ya!!