Backpacking gear laid out on floor
Backpacking gear laid out on floor

Tahoe Rim Trail: Gear

Written by Rachel

Gear, gear, gear. Much of our Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) planning time was spent on gear. Did we have the right gear?  What is a luxury? Should we drop any items? What amount of money are we willing to spend on new gear? What is an acceptable dollar per ounce lost from our baseweight?

Every hiker has unique circumstances that inform their gear decisions. As a couple who were joined by a friend halfway through the trip, we both shared some items and had some redundancies. We carried some luxuries and don’t qualify as ultralight; my baseweight was around 15.4 lbs, while Alex’s was similarly 15.3 lbs. But we also intentionally spent money on certain items to lower our weight.

Here’s what we each carried at the start of the trail. The weights come from my personal kitchen scale. For more about our hike and the complete list of our Tahoe Rim Trail Gear list, head here.

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Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and everything in between. We are dedicated to serving long distance backpackers.

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