#EveryDayinMay - Challenge Accepted!

It's Wanderlust Wednesday! This is quickly becoming my favorite post of the week. Today it's especially fun, because I'm sharing a little about my trip to the Ouachita National Forest from last weekend. There is so much to share about this trip; I'll be posting about it for the rest of the week I think -- today I'm focusing on gear and being prepared.

Let's be honest -- once I stepped foot on the Horse Thief Springs Trail, it became wildly obvious that I had no idea what I was doing. Because I have been so busy with work, The Husband packed most of my gear into my backpack for me. The only things I added myself were my clothes, some toiletries, and my food. I tested out the weight the night before we left, and since The Husband had already weighed it, I knew I was grabbing 25 pounds when I hefted it up and onto my shoulders.

The Husband's pack looks like a monster compared to mine!

The thing is, in my head 25 pounds sounded like carrying around a kid, which I've done plenty of times. Or lifting weights, with I'm also very familiar with. But 25 pounds in a backpack is nothing like hoisting a child onto your hip or deadlifting a barbell. When I first went to grab my pack, it didn't move. It just sat there staring up at me, silently laughing at my ignorance.

Fortunately, once the pack was snugly on my back, with my belt tightened and my sternum strap snapped, it was amazing how much lighter it felt. Having the right pack for your body and knowing how to adjust the billionty different straps may be every bit as crucial as wearing proper fitting hiking boots -- or trail runners, though I have no idea how I would have survived the rocky paths we were on if I hadn't been wearing my super-light space-age boots!

So by the time we made it to the trail, I thought I was familiar enough with my pack to avoid chaffing and blisters on my shoulders and hips. I knew how to use my camelbak, although not being able to see how much water I consumed made me a little nervous. But I had played with all the straps and gizmos, knew were the most important gear in the pack was, and had adjusted everything so that the pack was snug around my hips and I barely had any pressure on my shoulders.

The Husband was using an old Eberlestock Gunslinger II pack of his own, and because his pack alone weighs 10 pounds, his total pack weight ended up at 35 pounds.

Of course, we realized later that both of us had added a few items after weighing that probably upped each of our pack weights by around 5 pounds each.

Some of the gear was weighed individually, but most of it we just weighed once it was all in the pack for a final weight. Here's what we carried in each of our packs:

Me (25lb)

The Husband (35lb)

Water bladder (2.5 L) Gallon bag trail mix Protein bar Protein shake mix 1 L gyote canteen 12oz Green sleeping bag 36oz Q core air mattress 21oz Kelty 2 man tent 26oz Kelty tent poles 2 26oz Stanley camp cup 8oz MSR cook pot 9oz MSR bowl 2oz X2 MSR fork/spoon 1oz X2 Primus stove 12oz First aid kit Small Shovel The Eleventh Draft book Journal Pen Headlamp Flashlight Whistle Knife Gallon bag toiletries Shorts Shirt Buff Hair Band Socks (1 pair)

Water bladder (3 L) Gallon bag Trail mix 1 L gyote canteen 12oz Sleeping bag Thermarest foam air mattress 23oz Kelty rain fly 23oz Fuel Fuel bottle (empty) 9oz MSR water pump 17oz Dog food Dinners – (2 mountain house freeze dried meals) Oatmeal Coffee packets Dog water bowl Map Compass Headlight GSI camp cup 6oz Stakes Long sleeve shirt Pants Socks TP Fire kit Tourniquet Iodine crystals 5oz

I ended up ditching the book in the truck before we ever stepped foot on the trail, and I'm glad I did. I never would have had time to read it. The journal and pen came along, but also went unused. As did, sad to say, most of my precious toiletries. I braided back the sides of my hair, popped it into two little ponytails, and that is how it stayed for the two days. Very fancy.

Lunch. Yay.

We learned a lot on this trip about what not to take next time -- some of our cooking gear never got used, for instance. But we also realized some things we definitely want for next time. At the top of my list is moar food! Oh my gosh. While breakfast and dinner were amazing -- those Mountain House Freeze Dried meals are the bomb-diggity, and for just $7.00 a pop, I felt they were worth the price. But lunch was a self-made trail mix of freeze dried fruits, nuts, and granola. Had we actually seen a bear, I would have eaten it by lunch time. Or probably not. I'm sure that's against some backpacker rules, and there's always the fact that bears aren't much interested in being eaten by weak, ravenous humans.

Mmm, oatmeal! With strawberries! And... cashews?
Whatever. Food is food, people.

Because we started so late on Saturday, we only made it three hours into our hike before it was beginning to get dark. Those first three hours were intense -- I was moving as fast as my legs would carry me, but there was no way we were going to make it to Cedar Lake in time to set up camp. I won't lie, I was crushed. Before I got too far into my mental beatdown, The Husband reminded me how amazing it was just to be out there -- and he was right. I had a goal that I didn't meet (not my favorite thing!), but I also had a much larger goal that I was right in the middle of living -- backpacking overnight with only the gear on my back to help me along. And guys, it was so much bigger and wilder and harder than I could have imagined. And so much more precious. Every step on that trail was worth it.

More on the first half of our trip tomorrow! Because when we first arrived, this is the sign I saw, and it was not how I wanted to start my adventure:

Click the link below if you'd like to join up and add your own #WanderlustWednesday blog post! This is my first time to attempt this linky business, so let me know if something isn't working by commenting on this post. And feel free to grab the little graphic I made above for your own wanderlust post!

An InLinkz Link-up