This is it.  My next post should be after I start hiking on the A.T.  I fly out of town tomorrow and start hiking on Saturday.  To make it really sweet, Jeff Wingard and I will be day hiking the 20 miles between Bear’s Den and Harpers Ferry on Saturday and Sunday.  On Monday I tackle the “Roller Coaster” with a full pack on my back.  Yikes!

My last “training” hike was today at West Tyson Park.  It was warm and humid.  In fact, the weather was more of a challenge than the miles and elevation changes.  My final base weight for my pack was 16.3 lbs, without food or water.  I’ve been aiming to be between 15 and 18 pounds, so I’m there!

Today’s featured “equipment”:  iPhone Apps

I plan to rely heavily on my iPhone for navigation, communication, and reference.  It will serve as my camera and I’ll be blogging from it.  In addition to the standard Apple apps on the phone, I have added these to use on the trip.  The top two are GPS enabled reference and mapping apps.  I’ve been using Gaia GPS on all of my training hikes.  AT Hiker keeps track of everything on the trail and should be my primary method of navigation, although I still have a Silva Analog Compass.

The bottom three are my blogging app and camera utilities.  Camera+ essentially gives the iPhone the functionality of most digital cameras and has a great editor.

In addition to the above apps, I have several PDF’s loaded into the DropBox on my phone.  These are all viewable in iBooks and the Thru-Hiker’s Companion will be my primary “printed” reference.  Most all of my quotes come from the next book.  The rest are references that I have added.