I had a permit to hike the WLT in 2008 but with the last year's snowfall, that didn't happen and I canceled my hike. In early August 2008, most of the trail was still under feet of snow.
I applied in March 2009 and received my permit for dates of Aug 9-21 . Also, I had asked friends if they wanted to go but really had no takers. I was going solo and that is something I really didn't want to do on a trip this long. In compromise with one of my climbing partners, I agreed to take a sat-phone along.
I also started researching on how to dehydrate and make my own meals as food allergies keep my from buying the freeze dried meals at the stores. Plus, they would taste better!
I found a web site trailscooking.com that had video tutorials on dehydration as well as recipes that I could control the ingredients and make changes for my own palette.
Around the end of June and into July, I got a dehydrator and started dehydrating beans, rice and pasta. I tried vegetables, but that experiment went bad so just bought some instead to save time.
Got my meals together gave them to my friends who graciously volunteered to drive out to Mowich Lake and Longmire to bring my food caches to me. These locations allowed me to carry 4 days of food at a time.
I also started looking at weight and realized that in the past few years that there had been an ultra-light revolution in gear. I ended up with a Go-Lite Quest, weighing in at 2 lbs 15 oz. Much lighter than my old pack coming in at around 7 lbs.
Next up was a new bag, again going with a Go-Lite Adrenaline 20 and coming in at 1 lb 12 oz. (Since
I'm writing this post-hike, I love this bag! It is well worth the money.)I also bought the new Therma-rest NeoAir mattress (love it) coming in at a whopping 9 0z and rolled up is about the size of my water filter.
I also went with GSI's solo stackable cooking kit at 10 oz and a new MSR pocket pocket stove.
I took the minimum amount of clothes that I could safely complete the hike and a few luxury items. However, my tent (5lbs), water bladder full ( 6lbs) and 4 days of food (8-10lbs) would make up the bulk of my weight. My starting weight was around 40 lbs and would be that weight on resupply days.
I debated for some time whether to take the bladder and just use a bottle, but that would require me to stop and fill up every 30 minutes or so and I decided to go with the bladder carrying the water weight to save time.
I also had prepared physically by working out at the gym and hiking on the weekends. In retrospect, it really paid off as I really felt good on the trail.
