Rethinking My Pack - Charging System

Since I started thinking about the AT, I've been struggling between wanting electronics with me on the trail, and the weight penalty for packin' em. With an Android smart phone, a battery-hungary camera, and an iPod Nano, I need a charging system to keep all that going. In previous articles I wrote about why I wanted those devices, how I planned to keep them charged, and how I lightened the charging system by 5 ozs by swapping out a few items.

The system currently weighs 12.4 ozs. It includes chargers, cables, extra battery capacity, and the bag I put it all in. It's what I carried during my southbound section, and with judicious use of the electronics, it kept everything going for the 12 days I took to climb Katahdin, and transit the 100 Mile Wilderness. That suggests excess capacity considering I'm probably not going to do another 12 day transit on the AT, and that means opportunity for further weight reduction ...

What I'm packing, and what I'm thinking about changing after the break.

Companion on the Droid

I renewed my membership with Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association, which among other things, gets me a copy of the Thru-Hiker's Companion in Adobe pdf format.  I have an unbound version of AWOL's AT Guide that, with it's clever integration of the trail's profile with milestones, will be my primary navigation tool. But the Companion has amplifying info that fills in where the AT Guide leaves off - History of the trail, and of the areas it passes through, park regulations, where to find AYCE buffets in town ...

Getting Pictures from the Camera to the Droid

I started investigating how I was going to upload imagery from my new camera to illustrate this blog, and to post to social media sites while hiking the Appalachian Trail. The weight of a laptop makes packing one out of the question. So I figured I'd just plug a an SD card reader into my Droid's USB port, transfer the files, tweak them with the Photoshop app, and then upload photos when I had a signal

I figured wrong.

Posting Waypoints Along the Way

I thought it would be cool if I could put a map on here that showed my progress as I hiked the Appalachian Trail. I started looking to find a way to create a map that could be embedded in the blog, and update it by placing a waypoint at my current position each day, using my Android smart phone.

Keeping Electronics Alive When There's No AC

When considering how to maintain this blog while hiking the Appalachian Trail, I decided to get an Android-based, HTC Incredible 2.  Its a 3G, single core phone with a 4" screen, and that adds up to better 'n' average battery life.  Unfortunately, better 'n' average is relative.  With heavy use, I find it needs to be recharged daily.  With light use, it can go two days between charges.

An advantage of Droids is that you can carrying a spare battery for them.  This is a fine option for someone who leaves the phone turned off, and only makes a few calls.  For the usage I envision, I'd have to carry and recharge fistfuls of them!

Blogging Via Droid

Picked up my HTC Incredible 2 Android cell phone today. I'm using the Blogger app, with Flex T9 by Nuance Communications to do a speech to text input to this blog.




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Electronics on the Appalachian Trail

In a February post, I outlined some requirements for which I hoped to find a system.  I want to have a cell phone, to be able update this blog on a regular basis, to take high quality pictures, to have reading and reference material via Kindle Books, and to use a GPS to navigate and find the occasional geocache.  All while hiking the Appalachian Trail - meaning, going 5-7 days between AC power and the potential for wifi, with spotty connectivity in between.

Internal Battle Over Electronics

My inner geek has been struggling with my inner curmudgeon over my desire to carry electronic devices during our Appalachian Trail thru-hike. I thought it would be nice to have some ability to take pictures, send email, update blogs, read ebooks, refer to scanned pdf files, upload pics, listen to music, find my way when lost, and find the occasional geocache ... Humping a separate camera, GPS, iPod, smartphone, and all the batteries and chargers seemed like a lot of weight, and a smartphone could do it all, if not as well as the stand-alone devices.

I'm a photographer, and I can not imagine settling for any camera in a smart phone. My Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5 is an excellent, if not eggsactly an ultra-lightweight camera, with a great wide-range lens. If I didn't already have it, I'd get their DMC-LX5 which is a few ozs lighter and allows RAW capture.