Our Gear

We will be using a variety of gear on this trip. Here are our choices and a little on why we choose each particular item.


Our House:

Big Agnes Gore Pass 3

With Fly

   We choose this particular tent because we felt that it would give us a little more head room compared to other backpacking tents. Also, we decided to go with a 3 person as opposed to a 2 person for the little extra room.




Our Beds:

Big Agnes Encampment 15° Sleeping Bags.

The Encampment bags have 3 features that we really liked. The first one is the sleeping pad sleeve that holds your pad in place. This prevents you from rolling off the pad in the middle of the night. We also really liked the fact that if we get one with a right hand zipper and one with a left hand zipper, we can zip these bags together for those times when we want some good quality snuggle time. The last thing that fixed our minds on these bags was the quality. We tried a few different bags and once we slid into these bags, we could FEEL the quality.

Therm-a-Rest Base Camp Pad.

With the sleeping pads, we decided that we would go with maximum comfort. We are not as young as we used to be and as one person who reviewed this pad said, "Your back will thank you every morning." That pretty much made up our mind.

Therm-a-Rest Compressible Pillow.

We liked the softness and loft of this pillow. We looked at quite a few pillows and just didn't find anything we thought would be very comfortable until we found these. Plus, they compress down small enough to easily fit in a pannier.




Camp Comfort:

Therm-a-Rest Compack Chair

One thing we realized on our test ride trip, was that we need some comfy seating. These chair kits use our sleeping pads to make a soft and actually quite comfy chair. They are very packable and only weight a few ounces which is important.




Our Trusty Steads:

Fuji Touring

Actually, this is P's bike. I had this bike prior to making plans to do this trip. B has not yet decided on a bike, but is starting to narrow it down to a few. Once we decide on her bike, we will add it to this page.

B's new Trek 520!

Well, we have a decision. B pulled the trigger on the Trek 520! I think she made an excellent decision. She got fitted to it right away so she is all set to go now. One more thing crossed off the list. Yay!!!

Our Luggage:

For our panniers, we choose to go with Ortlieb. We did much research on panniers and never found one negative thing said about these. That was a big factor in our decision. We wanted something totally waterproof that didn't require a separate rain cover and these fit the bill perfectly.

Bike Packer Classic Rear

Sport Packer Classic Front

Classic 5 Handlebar Bag

Rack Pack

Our Kitchen:

This is the MSR WhisperLite International. What more can we say? This stove rocks. We really liked the fact that it can be used with almost any type of fuel. It's small, light and cooks fast.

MSR WhisperLite International

Camera Equipment:

We are not great photographers, but to document our journey, we chose the Go Pro HD Hero 2 for our video and "tight spot" stills. This little camera is so versatile. The wide angle lens works well in tight areas.

Go Pro HD Hero 2

For our still photos, we chose the Nikon L810. This 16 mp camera takes really crisp clear photos, and the video feature works well in conjunction with our Go Pro.

Nikon L810