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.

What I'll Do Differently When I Get Back On The Trail

In the time I was out there I learned a few things before my knee got angry with me. I hiked 12 days, and was on the trail 14 including the two zeros in the woods. I did 115 miles, averaging 9.6 miles per day. Hiked in the rain, lost my food bag to a bear, climbed the equivalent of Mt Everest, and avoided shelters every night for the luxury of my tent. I took too much food outta the gate, and otherwise found some opportunities to reduce pack weight.  When I started hiking farther and faster, I uncovered a skeletal problem that caused me a lot of pain and anguish. All in all, a pretty good shakedown ...

So what will I do different when I get back on the trail?

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.

Keeping Juice to the Camera

In a previous post, I outlined just why I wanted a camera that sucks down battery power like a thru-hiker does milkshakes. Ok, that isn't a feature so much as an issue. I did get a spare battery, and that might just be sufficient, but if I'm inspired to shoot, I can go thru a battery in a day or so ... Two batteries might just not get me thru five days between town visits, adding more batteries is adding more weight, and I might have another option.

I have that New Trent ACD66 I got to keep my Droid powered up between town visits. It's a 7000mAh battery pack, with USB outputs that should store more than I need for the Droid. I started looking for a way to recharge the X100's batteries with the ACD66. A search of chargers for the X100's battery uncovered the PowerGen Rapid Smart Charger. It sports a USB port, which can either be an output to charge a device, or an input to power the charger from a USB source. It comes with a cigarette lighter/USB adapter.

A Backpacking Camera

No, this ain't it ...

You see, I've been a photographer most of my life.  I had a Brownie Hawkeye in grade school. In high school, I was the yearbook/ school newspaper geek, and spent all my spare time in the darkroom. I was an Art/Photo/Film major in college where I developed a street photographer's style and ethic. I dropped out to join the Navy and went to the Navy School of Photography. I served as a combat cameraman, and 23 years later retired from the Navy as a Photo Officer. So you might understand why I ain't inclined to hike the trail with just the camera in my Droid.

Now, to be fair, that's not a bad camera, I use it a lot, and it would be a rational choice not to add the weight of another camera on a long hike. But, to try and capture the essence of the trail and the people hiking it, I want a camera that allows more creative control, and that is capable of producing high quality imagery. Heck, I may try and get a coffee table book outta it ...