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I will be hiking the AZT next March 2017. I chose this date as my researching is showing to hike the South to North this is the best time to start. True? Is this the best? Now where I am stumped is what to pack. I have general ideas being an AZ native living in the White Mountains but this will be my first thru hike. Thoughts and opinions greatly welcome. What would you recommend?

Do several two and three-day backpacking trips around the White Mountains through late September, and in the lower elevations, down in the desert areas later on in the winter. Visit REI in the Valley or in Flagstaff. They will have a list of gear for backpacking. The Arizona Trail Association would also be helpful, I'd think you'd want to join that group.

Do your first overnight/weekend backpack trip, figure out what you use. On your next weekend trip only take the things you used on your first trip. See if that works. On all remaining trips you ever take, adjust until you are happy with the mix between the weight you carry vs the creature comforts you bring.

When you finally set out on the through hike, only add food, and maybe a little extra capacity for water storage.

Food - start sorting out your nutrition. Look on sites for the long distance hikers such as CDT, PCT. Most long distance hikers will have extensive blogs about their food. You want the most nutrition for weight ratio you can get but they will all tell you - GOOD food and variety matter! Research and try out some combinations now to figure out what works for YOU.

Thru-hikers tend to carry less than the weekenders. At first that seems off but after some contemplation it makes sense. Thru-hikers will walk all day and then crash for the night and the next day do it all over again. The weekenders will tend to walk a fixed distance to their planned camp, then spend a lot of time in camp. Then hike out the next day. So more stuff is needed for more camp time.

@hikeaz
Love those Kindle books! I just ordered it. I'm sure I can learn a lot.

I would suggest you take time looking over gear lists of previous thru-hikers and, especially, post-hike gear reviews. You can probably find some by googling AZT+gear list. Postholer.com and trailjournals.com also have a bunch of AZT journals and some gear lists.

If you've backpacked before, you should have a decent idea of what you need. Thru-hiking gear is generally similar to weekend trip gear, but it's generally smart to purge "luxury" items like camp chairs to save weight. Carrying extra weight on an overnight trip is often no big deal, but for a long hike, it adds up.

if you haven't backpacked before, I'd suggest you find a good beginner's backpacking book somewhere and start with what they recommend.

Once you have your gear, do as many shakedown trips as you can to see if your gear works. The last thing you want to do is discover that your pack/clothes/tent/bag/etc. don't fit or work or weigh too much on your thru-hike. Practice setting up your tent so you can do it in the dark in a storm. Know where everything goes in your pack so you don't have to empty the whole thing to find that one item you need. Even long day hikes with your full pack can be good for making sure that your clothing/shoes/pack/food/water systems work well.

@sandyfortner
Food was a surprise for me, after about 9 days I started hitting the wall, just wasn't getting enough nutrution. Gator aid became real important.

Sredfield wrote:@sandyfortner
Food was a surprise for me, after about 9 days I started hitting the wall, just wasn't getting enough nutrution. Gator aid became real important.

I suggest adding up the calories in the food you plan to bring. If you need, say, 2000 calories a day to sustain yourself while sitting at home on the couch, then you need much more on the trail. On thru-hikes, I like to start out bringing 3500 calories per day on trail. By the end, I'm usually eating closer to 4500 per day. And I've still lost a bunch of weight on every long-distance hike.

Hello all and thnx for your responses. Been gone on a hike. I guess i should have expanded a little more. Gear wise. I have been reading a few blogs that seem to cause arguments concerning different stoves etc. Water purification vs filters and on and on. So I guess I was more curious as to what people recommended who have done the AZT itself as it's much different than the others. One blog the guy packed almost nothing and lived off of junk food.