Quote Originally Posted by ikemouser View Post
Youngblood:

Do you in would need to buy these books?

How many miles a day did you do? Do you think your pace was slowed your pack weight, do you remember how much your weight was?

How was your gps reception?
I got the BT books from REI in Atlanta. I don't go to REI too often these days so I don't know if they still carry them, but a Google search of "Bartram Trail Guide" should turn up something. We were packing very light and made good miles, 12 to 15 per day. In that situation our daily mileage was set by the distance between trailheads. I looked for trailheads about 25 to 30 trail miles apart and covered those on 2 day trips within a couple of hour drive from Atlanta and looked for trailheads about 35 to 45 miles apart for those with a longer commute and would stay at a motel closer to the trailheads on the night before the 3 day trip. Like I said before, there was an unusual amount of planning for all that.

Our pack weights for those trips wasn't much different than it would be for solo backpackers on warmer weather trips. I took advantage of hiking as a couple to minimize pack weight. We were in excellent backpacking shape and we didn't have any real nasty winter weather-- no snow storms. Being out 2 or 3 days at a time you get a pretty reliable weather forecast.

We didn't stay up in the evenings in the cold weather and didn't have the clothing to. We had light insulation to hike with and depended on tarp/tent and sleeping bags to stay warm when the sun went down. When we selected a campsite in cold weather we kept moving, got dinner cooked and ate, and got into our sleeping bags before we got cold. Mornings were the same way, we cooked and ate a hot breakfast and was on the trail within an hour of sun up.