Gear List

As promised, here is everything that I will be taking with me for 5 months on the trail. I was super excited to find out that my pack weight with at least 4 days of food and 2 liters of water was 22 pounds!!!
Starting from the back and working forward:
-Golite Down Sweater
-Arc'tyrx Rain Jacket
-Golite Jam 50 Liter Backpack
-(Grey Bag on left) Clothing bag w/ extra pair of undies, pair of shorts, pair of socks, and a shirt.
-(Green Bag on left) Hammock with bugnet
-(Orange bag in middle) food bag with 4 days of food, cookset and stove
-(Green bag on right) hammock tarp
-(Lower Left) mountain hardwear light fleece
-(Shoes) New Balance Minimus Trail
-(Lower Middle) On-body shirt and socks
(Lower Right Orange) Mountain Hardwear UltraLamina 32 Sleeping Bag
(Lower Right Brown) Columbia Hiking Pants
I will have one more post before I get to Baxter State Park, but its a secret! Thank you all so much for supporting me in my choice to thru hike the trial. Your emotional support means more to me than anything. I hope that this blog provides a way for you to live vicariously through me for the next 5 months. I will do my best to make to make this blog as entertaining for you as my hike is for me.

Thanks again and happy trails,

Greg Simpson

Vacation time

I'm putting in my vacation time this week on South Padre Island in South Texas. The real work begins soon. 26 days until the trail!

Katahdin

One month till I summit Katahdin!!!

Movie Recommendation

For those of you who have not seen "The Way" with Michael Douglas I highly recommend it. It's a great movie about the Camino de Santiago.

Beautiful Video

One of the best videos I've seen about nature. Is it time for me to leave for the trail yet? T-Minus 39 days and counting!!!!

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/video/2px4zR

A Sense of Nationalism

I know that this post is not necessarily related to my hike, but I was surfing the internet in between studying last night and I found this extremely emotionally invigorating video. It reminded me to not become complacent and ignorant of the struggles our nation is going through right now. It reminded me that, as a gun owner, my CONSTITUTIONAL rights could become infringed upon within the next couple years if the wrong president is elected (or re-elected in this case). I am not saying by any means that the Republican candidate is perfect. In fact I disagree with quite a bit of what he has said recently, but I have realized that if I were to vote Libertarian in the upcoming Presidential election that my vote would do very little in protecting my rights as an American citizen as that vote would not be going towards a candidate that has an actual chance of winning the election. Anyways, enough of my rant. Here's the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utWV3rU7Ea0&feature=watch_response

Gear list

My complete gear list will be posted in a couple weeks once I get back to San Antonio and am able to lay everything out.