Friday 21 May 2010

AZT gear recommendations

I was very much surprised how could the AZT was: So bring warm clothes!!!! Bring a balaclava, warm long underwear and even gloves. Do not bring new clothes as the AZT will "kill" them. You will need a sleeping bag with a rating of at least 20F. I had at least 10 nights below freezing.

I used my Tarptent Contrail and like on the FT, this was not the ideal tent. In the desert it was so difficult to get the tent stakes in. Very often you have to camp in exposed areas with a lot of wind. Ideally, I would have had a freestanding tent.

You will need a lot of water capacity. I carried up to 7 liters!!!! Bring enough containers and lots of purifier, as some water can be pretty nasty.

And again: Bring a GPS! It is great for your peace of mind....Use the water report, data book, town guide and the GPS waypoints provided on the ATA website. If you know Li, contact him to get his maps as they are 10 times better than the ATA maps or the guidebook.

I bought a National Park pass for Saguaro and Grand Canyon NP, but nobody checked it...

But most importantly: Bring a lot of physical and mental endurance for all this overgrown stuff...

1 comment:

Colin Ibbotson said...

Li's maps only 10 times better than the official ones? I would say 100!!!