This post is the second of two parts about my hike on the Great Basin Trail. You can read part 1, which is an overview of the trail, here: The Great Basin Trail: Trip Report & Guide. This part focuses on the gear I carried, how I prepared, and what I’d do differently.

Gear:

You can find my GBT gear list and rationale for the selections in this post, which I wrote before I left. For the most part, I was very happy with my gear selections. 

Changes I made on trail or would make next time: 

• I would’ve carried tall gaiters or opted for pants instead of a dress. I love hiking in a dress, but there was A LOT of bushwhacking through sagebrush, mahogany, young aspen, briars, willows, and more. My legs got shredded, scraped, and bloody. I tolerated the discomfort, but the off trail sections would have been less taxing if I wasn’t also dealing with painful, scraped legs.
• Two weeks in, once the weather was warming up, I mailed out my stove. I also mailed out my buff (which I wasn’t using), a pair of ankle socks, and a mid-layer fleece I threw in my pack last minute when I saw the potential for snow storms. Speaking of socks, I decided I prefer calf socks over ankle socks, which caused the skin on my Achilles to dry out and become irritated, so I won’t bother bringing any ankle socks in the future. 
• I swapped out my water filter for chemical water treatment. I highly prefer a water filter over chemical treatment because I don’t like the taste of chemically treated water and I value the health of my microbiome. However, we were often treating many liters of water at once and filtering was taking a long time. I’d still be at a water source filtering when my hiking partners were long gone. 

Training & Preparation:

One of my biggest concerns before embarking on this hike (and every long hike) is how my body will hold up to the rigors of 12-14 hours days of backpacking across difficult terrain. As I’ve written about here, here, and here, I’ve been using diet and lifestyle strategies to manage an autoimmune condition since ~2015. That means I prioritize getting my body as healthy as possible before a hike so that I have reserves to draw upon once I’m out there. I know once I’m on trail, no matter how well I try to eat, sleep, and care for my body, a long distance hike slowly wears down the body. Furthermore, even with a healthy hiking diet, there’s limited access to the antioxidant-rich fresh fruits and vegetables that fight oxidative stress and inflammation from hard exercise, sun exposure, and other factors.

Ensuring that my body is prepared for a long hike consists of the following components:

1. Mental Preparation
2. Proper Nutrition: Anti-inflammatory Eating + Blood Sugar Balance
3. Gut Health
4. Physical Training
5. Optimal Sleep
6. Stress Management

This is what’s covered in the Adventure Ready course and it’s the same process my clients use to increase energy, endurance, and overall resilience before their backcountry adventures. I generally always take care of myself, but I really get serious about 3 months out. The more rigorous the hike, as I expected this one to be, the more rigorous my training.

Food/Resupply:

When selecting food for a backpacking trip, my goal is to follow the same anti-inflammatory eating principles that I do at home, but adapted to the constraints of backpacking. I focus on high fat, whole foods as much as possible (the fewer the ingredients the better) and filter my options through the following criteria:

• Ultralight (energy-dense): I prioritize trail food that is energy-dense, meaning high calorie per ounce. I aim for >125 calories per ounce, but some foods fall short of that which I’m okay with if it’s a high protein food. At nine calories per gram for fat compared to four calories per gram for protein or carbohydrate, this makes fat a good option for weight efficiency for long distance hiking. 
• Nutritious: I want my trail food to promote steady energy by containing a balance of macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) that stabilize blood sugar, either within one food or when combined. I look for foods that combat inflammation rather than contributing to it.  
• Appealing: It’s a miserable feeling to reach the top of a big climb feeling famished, only to open your pack to a bag full of unappetizing food. Just like with the food you eat at home, there’s no reason the food you eat on trail shouldn’t be delicious. I carry a variety of textures (crunchy, smooth, etc) and flavors (spicy, salty, sour, etc) to keep it interesting.
• Simple: There are so many logistics to consider pre-hike that finding a way to make healthy, ultralight eating easy is a priority for me. You may have a different preference on how much food preparation you prefer to do, but most of the meal options I put together contain only a handful of ingredients that can be found in most stores or purchased in bulk and easily assembled at home. 

Sample Day of Eating

I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare food for this trip, so I kept it pretty basic. Generally I prefer to mail boxes rather than shop in stores, especially in small towns in central Nevada, which aren’t likely to carry a lot of the healthy foods I like. Furthermore, when I’m in town, I don’t enjoy exploring a foreign grocery store looking for what I need when I’d rather just be relaxing. So, I sent boxes to probably about ⅔ of the towns we stopped in, and in the larger towns or where it would conflict with our schedule (getting to town on a weekend), I shopped in town. 

Before leaving, I prepared several trail smoothies and bean dinners. Find the trail smoothie recipe here and the bean dinner recipe (and a few others) here. Super simple, but I enjoy them and they make me feel good. I also bought a bunch of gluten free protein bars, nut butters, and organic tortilla chips. 

Here’s what a sample day of eating on trail looks like for me:

• Breakfast: Trail smoothie; a bar with 20+ grams protein; nut butter with gf granola
• Snacks/Lunch: tuna packets; nuts; seeds; nut & seed butters; organic tortilla or sweet potato chips (ideally w/ coconut oil rather than inflammatory industrial seed oils); salami or meat sticks; moon cheese; cheese sticks; bars (ideally 10+ grams protein and 1:1 or 1:2 ratio of protein to carbs; whole food ingredients, if possible).
• Dinner: Beans, dried veggies, organic olive or coconut oil, spices, crushed chips. Meat and cheese. Rice noodles with spices, olive oil, and tuna. Dark chocolate for dessert.
• Drinks: instant coffee or tea in the morning, usually mixed into my smoothie; electrolytes in the afternoon (on this trip, it was EmergenC and LMNT).

How Much Food to Pack:

To determine how much food to take, I take past experience into consideration and calculate calories. You can use a free BMR calculator online, and adjust for activity (see this video). Then test it out and take note of how much food you returned with or whether you ran out. Like most hikers, I get hungrier the longer a trip lasts. For that reason, I generally plan for a higher calorie intake later in the trip. For this trip, for example, I ate about 2700-2800 calories for the first two weeks, then 3000-3200 for the last 2.5 weeks. Cold temperatures, a high amount of elevation gain, and cross country hiking over uneven surfaces make me hungrier, so I also try to plan for that. As far as macronutrient ratios, I feel best eating about 50-60% fat, 20% protein, and 20-30% carbohydrates. Prioritizing fat is also more weight efficient than a carb-heavy diet. See this video on macronutrients for backpacking. 

Overall, my food choices and amounts worked out well. The changes I would’ve made would be to bring more savory/salty stuff, such as spicy nuts and seeds or meat sticks, and fewer bars. Maybe one bar a day instead of three. I craved salt, as usual, and anything even remotely sweet (such as a date-based bar) often sounded gross, especially in the heat. For the calories, I was a bit on the low side for the level of exertion required by this route, but the deficit wasn’t debilitating. 

To get started with your own healthy backcountry meal plan, I invite you to check out this free backcountry meal planning course. 

Final Thoughts 

The GBT is one of the most challenging routes I’ve hiked, but that also made it an incredibly rewarding experience. The degree of difficulty of this route forced me to look at my deeper motivations for being out there. On a route like this, you need a reason to be out that’s bigger than ego validation or checking off a box.

For me, I love just being out there walking, all day, at the mercy of the conditions; moving forward in the face of heat, cold, wind, rain, and the difficulty of the terrain in front of me. To experience all that being in a human body has to offer -the challenges and the rewards – hunger, thirst, sweating, shivering, itchy bug bites and scrapes, thigh-burning climbs, AND taking in endless mountain views, gulping down fresh spring water, and inhaling the scent of sagebrush after a rainstorm… it makes me feel like I’m actually living this life I’ve been given. Extended backcountry travel allows me to reconnect with myself and nature, to see who I become when I lean into discomfort, and to be present to what’s in front of me. The effect is even greater in harsh, remote, desolate landscapes.

Nevada consists of 87.8% public land. That’s more than any other state in the contiguous US. That’s special. And there are so few people out there exploring it. At least, that was my impression since I saw less than 10 other hikers the entire time I was out. This route offers the opportunity to enjoy true solitude and adventure for those who seek it. 

Another unique feature of the GBT is the experience of hiking in a loop rather than point to point. A loop that centers on one geographic feature allows the hiker to become more intimately connected to a specific landscape and it’s rhythms. There’s also a sense of timelessness of walking a loop, enhanced by the remoteness of the GBT. From each point on the loop, you can look across basins to see ranges that you hiked days and weeks before. It’s quite an experience.

A snippet from my trail journal on our last full day that I feel sums up a lot: A big day on top of a big week, at the cap of a burly route. The GBT continually asks: What do you have left? Are you up for it? And step by step you move forward. Can I handle what’s in front of me right at this moment? Yep, okay, keep going. I’ll figure out the rest when I get there.

Additional Resources

The best source of information on the Great Basin Trail is on Ryan “Dirtmonger” Sylva’s website. He’s the creator of the route and his site contains a GBT overview, guidebook, water chart, trail journal, and more.

One day towards the end of the trip, we were nearing the end of a 15-mile ridge walk that included summiting several 12,000+’ peaks. My legs were exhausted and I was thinking “I’m not having fun anymore. I want to be done now.” But there was still more ridge walking and hiking to do for the day, so there was nothing to do but keep pushing forward. That moment reminded me of every time I’ve ever been out drinking with Dirtmonger. There’s a point where I’m ready to call it a night and Dirt looks around and says “I’m gonna have another round or two. Anyone else?” This route is very much a reflection of it’s creator, and as such the GBT is always pushing the edge of what feels reasonable or even possible. In the end, it makes for quite a rewarding experience when you persist beyond what you believed you were capable of.

Question? Comment below!

Related posts you might like: 

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Plan Your Backpacking Trip without the Common Mistakes

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How to Overcome Fear and Embark on Your Next Adventure

This spring, I hiked 850 miles of the Great Basin Trail. In this post, I’ll provide an overview of the trail and my key take-aways on what went well and what I’d change if I hiked it again. My intention is to provide potential hikers with an idea of what to expect, and to provide insight into my preparation process and considerations before I embark on any long distance trek.  

Introduction to the Great Basin Trail

Length & Elevation Gain:

The Great Basin Trail is ~1100 miles, of which I hiked ~850 miles between May 16 and June 17 of 2021. It contains 194,000 feet of vertical gain.

Location:

The Great Basin Trail is a loop route and its entirety is located within the state of Nevada. It features a geographic region known as the Great Basin. From Wikipedia: “The hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162-square-mile area that drains internally. All precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, and the Snake River Basin to the north. The south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California, and small areas of Idaho, Wyoming, and Baja California, Mexico. The term “Great Basin” is slightly misleading; the region is actually made up of many small basins. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Humboldt Sink are a few of the “drains” in the Great Basin.” 

The Great Basin Trail travels through:

• 27 mountain ranges: Fortification, Wilson Creek, Highland, Chief, Delamar, South Pahroc, Hiko, Mt. Irish, Worthington, Quinn Canyon, Pancake, Hot Creek, McKinney, Toiyabe, Toquima, Monitor, Antelope, Fish Creek, Diamond, Southern Ruby, Ruby, East Humboldt, South Pequop, Dolly Varden, Schell Creek, Moriah, Snake
• 19 Basins/Valleys: Lake, Delamar, Pahroc, Pahranagat, Garden, Railroad, Hot Creek, East and West Stone Cabin, Ralston, Big Smoky, Monitor, Little Fish Lake, Huntington, Clover, Independence, Goshute, Spring (x2), Snake
• 17 Wilderness Areas: Fortification, Parsnip Peak, South Pahroc, Worthington, Quinn Canyon, Palisade Mesa, Arc Dome, Alta Toquima, Table Mountain, Antelope, Ruby, East Humboldt, South Pequop, Becky Peak, High Schells, Mt. Moriah, Highland Ridge

Trail Type:

The route mileage breaks down to about 30% cross country, 50% road, and 20% trail. A description of each category:

• Cross country: In the basin, the cross country hiking includes sections in which the hiker must weave her way through dense sagebrush, along with more open areas, such as playas, with less vegetation. Though exposed, hot, and dry, the basin walking provides a break from vertical gain and navigational challenges. In the mountain ranges, cross country travel includes long, ridgelines above tree line where walking surfaces range from large, stable boulders to loose ankle-rolling rocks and scree. Bushwhacking through sagebrush, mahogany, briars, streams, creeks, marshes, and groves of small, crooked aspen while going up, over, and through the ranges is not uncommon. There are occasionally horse and/or cattle trails which can be found and followed for easier travel through these sections.
• Road: Either faint two track or jeep track or dirt road. No pavement. Not your typical “road walk”, these miles are generally pleasant miles through scenic terrain. They provide a welcome relief to the more challenging cross country and trail miles. 
• Trail: Occasionally distinct, clear, cushy trail, but more often overgrown, faint, or non-existent trail (which may have been marked on a map 100 years ago, but which no longer exists). 

Terrain:

The Great Basin consists of basin and range topography, meaning that the landscape exhibits alternating parallel mountains and valleys. Generally speaking, the Great Basin Trail hiker can expect to travel over a mountain range, then drop down into a basin, hike across the basin, and then back up into a mountain range. This repeats throughout the loop with varying mileage in the ranges and valleys depending on which part of the loop you’re in and whether you’re hiking east/west or north/south in that section. 

Scenery:

The scenery of the Great Basin Trail is diverse. There are endless horizons, seas of sagebrush, impossibly dark starry nights, and 360-degree ridgeline views featuring layers upon layers of mountains. And that’s just a taste. The best way to get a sense of what the trail looks like is to see my GBT highlights on my Instagram page: @katiegerber. 

Climate, Weather & Optimal Hiking Season:

The Great Basin is known to be a harsh environment. It’s arid, often extremely hot, and weather changes can occur quickly. I started hiking in mid-May near Tonopah on the southwestern portion of the loop and hiked clockwise. In my first week on trail, I hiked through shade-less basin stretches in 90-degree heat and then through rain, snow, hail, and fog just days later. Aside from the storms in the first week or so, there was very little precipitation for the remainder of my hike. Hiking clockwise around the loop, daytime temperatures for most of the trip were pleasant: 60s to low 70s in the mountains and high 80s in the basin. Towards the end of the hike, nearing Great Basin National Park in mid-June, temperatures in the basins got up into the high 90s and became uncomfortably hot. I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the southern portion of the route any later than mid-June. Spring and fall are ideal times for hiking this trail to experience the most moderate temperatures.

Potential hikers should note that this route requires skill in desert hiking. Learn the foundations of backcountry safety, including hot weather and desert hiking, in the Stay Safe in the Backcountry online course. 

Navigation:

The Great Basin Trail requires the hiker to be proficient in off trail travel and navigation. I utilized paper maps (1:24,000 scale printed on 11×17 paper), a compass, and GPS tracks loaded to the Gaia GPS app on my phone. I mostly used the GPS to navigate while hiking, but appreciated having paper maps to give me a better sense of the broader area through which I was traveling. The maps also came in handy when determining detours due to weather and, of course, provide a backup in case my phone broke, got lost, or failed. Plus, paper maps are just fun to look at. 

If you’re interested in improving your navigational skills so that you can embark on your next trip with more confidence, check out the Become a Better Backcountry Navigator online course. 

Water & Resupply:

One of the most common questions I received while hiking the route was about water sources and availability. Water on the Great Basin Trail was surprisingly plentiful considering that the Great Basin is one of the most arid regions in the country. Ryan ‘Dirtmonger’ Sylva, the route creator, did a fantastic job of scouting out and mapping a surprising number of water sources along the route. These included springs, creeks, and rivers, as well as livestock guzzlers and troughs. His GBT resources include a water chart that lists potential sources along with degree of reliability. Though water was less abundant overall this spring than in previous years, all but one of the mapped sources had water, and the longest water carry was about 45 miles.

Questions? Comment below!

Read Part 2: The Great Basin Trail: Gear, Training, Preparation, and Food

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Gear List: Great Basin Trail

Later this month, I’ll be heading out to hike 800 miles of the Great Basin Trail (GBT). If you haven’t heard of the GBT, it’s a roughly 1100 mile route plotted by Ryan “Dirtmonger” Sylva. The route is a loop contained solely within the state of Nevada and the geographic feature of the Great Basin. It traverses 26 mountain ranges and 19 basins. It travels through barren, harsh, remote, and beautiful landscapes. Water sources are unreliable and resupply points are sparse.

Due to my book editing schedule, I won’t have time to complete the entire route in one outing. However, I’ll still be able to fit in about 800 miles this spring, from Tonopah to Lake Valley Summit, hiking clockwise around the loop. 

Ryan plotted this route in spring of 2020 and has provided an incredible abundance of resources for GBT hikers. These can be found on his website, along with his striking photos and compelling route descriptions. It’s worth your time to check out his GBT resources whether you plan to hike the route or not. For those who do wish to hike some or all of the GBT, it would be remiss of me not to mention that it requires off-trail navigation and route finding skills, comfort with hot, harsh, dry environments, and a fondness for desolate, remote places.

Route Conditions

The primary factors influencing my gear selections are my intended style of hiking and the expected conditions. My preferred approach to long distance hiking is to hike dawn to dusk, spending time in camp only to sleep and charge up for the next day. Because I like to cover miles, I aim to keep my pack weight fairly light, while still being safe and comfortable. 

When researching the route to understand what to expect, I’m looking at average temperatures (adjusted for elevation), average precipitation, wildlife, amount of off trail travel, trail type, terrain type, vegetation, sun exposure, water availability, and remoteness.

The value in researching what to expect is that it helps me:

1) alleviate fears about a hike,

2) ensure I have the items I need (and not the ones I don’t), and

3) understand the skills I need to improve upon before the embarking on the trip. 

Gear List Summary

What’s in my pack for this trip?

My gear selections are based on the expected conditions. Because water sources are distant and unreliable, I’ll have a 6 liter water carrying capacity. I’m also bringing my warmer sleeping bag, warmer down jacket, and a midweight fleece as I expect to be sleeping above 8,000’ regularly and hiking along windy, exposed ridgelines. I’ll also be carrying a pack that’s comfortable at 25-30 pounds, as I’ll regularly be carrying more water and food weight, along with warmer clothes.

My full GBT gear list can be seen here. 

Questions about my selections or the route? Comment below.

Fear is essential for our survival, but when it runs rampant in your mind, it can hold you back from pursuing outdoor adventure dreams, such as thru-hiking a long trail. At minimum, it can cause you to pack unnecessary items or to make unfounded changes to your itinerary.

If fear has held you back from embarking on a backcountry adventure, you’re certainly not alone. In my experience, personally and from working with hundreds of clients and students, fear is a universal experience. This is particularly true when facing unknown and (seemingly) unpredictable circumstances, such as in nature. In this post, I share how I personally work with and learn from my fear, so that it no longer runs the show.

Even after 8000+ backpacking miles and hundreds of nights spent sleeping on the ground, I still have fears about trips to the backcountry. As I’ve gained experience, skills, and knowledge, my fears have shifted, and I’ve learned how to examine and work with them, instead of ignoring them, suppressing them, or allowing them to run the show. 

Fear exists for a reason

This post is not about crushing your fears or becoming fearless. Fear exists for a reason, which is to keep us safe from physical danger. It’s important and necessary. WIthout a healthy amount of fear, we wouldn’t last long. The problem with fear is that we allow ourselves to fear things that aren’t actually life-threatening and we often exaggerate the perceived danger to the point where it becomes an unkillable dragon in our minds. 

My approach to fear is to work with it and learn from it, not fight against it or ignore it. I believe my job, as a somewhat rational adult, is to get to the root of the fear, determine its validity, and use it to help me make decisions and learn.

What is there to fear?

While there might be concerns that come up in the planning process, such as fear of leaving a stable income, this post is about the common fears that arise when you think of going on a multi-night trip in the backcountry.

For instance: 

• Being cold 
• Navigation challenges and getting lost
• Cold, wet weather
• Sleep comfort (cold temperatures, things crawling into tent while you sleep)
• Hunger
• Wildlife – especially bears, bugs, and big cats
• Being alone
• Unexpected medical issues
• Terrain – river crossings, heights, exposure

These types of fears prevent many people from going out into the backcountry and causes them to miss out on incredible life experiences. Each of these concerns does include some degree of risk, but often it’s much less than we think and the risks can be mitigated. 

The following process is how I’ve learned to work with these types of fears and how you can too. 

Note that this does not apply to circumstances where I’m in actual physical danger. When real danger is present, fear is a healthy response, one should “listen” to that fear and extract themselves from the source of the danger as quickly as possible. 

This process is for working with fear of an event that hasn’t actually occurred. 

Name it. 

Acknowledge that it exists, feel the fear, and name it. Get to know the sensations and behaviors that indicate to you that you might be dealing with fear of a situation. Sometimes, you can’t always pinpoint what it is at first, but you may be experiencing a tightening in the chest, a pit in the stomach, anxiety, irritability, and procrastination. Get honest with yourself about what you’re feeling. Example: I’m afraid I might get lost if I go on this trip solo and it’s causing me to feel anxious about my trip, and I’m thinking about canceling.

Write it down. 

When things stay up in our minds, they can get blown out of proportion and feel larger than life. Putting your fear down on paper helps you see it for what it is and begin to process it. Write down everything you’re afraid will go “wrong”. 

Question it. 

Once you have it on paper, question it. If this thing happens, what’s the consequence? Playing the scenarios through in your mind accomplishes a few goals. 

• It takes some of the power away from the fear because you’ve dissected it and explored exactly what the consequences might be and how bad they actually are.
• It allows you to determine how likely those consequences are to occur.
• It helps you to make a realistic plan for how you can avoid the worst case scenario. 
• It allows you to have a plan for what you’ll do if it happens.

On a piece of paper, write down what you’re afraid of. In a column next to that, write down the consequences if the thing you’re afraid of happened. Next to that column, write out how you could respond if that thing happened. Next to that column, jot down some ideas for how you could prevent yourself from that situation in the first place. 

Research the likely conditions. 

How realistic is your fear? Researching the likely conditions for your trip allows you to know what to expect. That provides a sense of safety and allows you to prepare yourself with the correct gear and skills. Research conditions such as expected temperatures, precipitation, weather patterns, wildlife, remoteness, navigational challenges, and more. The more data you have on your trip, the more confident you will be. Your fears begin to dissolve when you realize the likelihood of them happening is often very small and that you have a plan if they do.

Prepare yourself.

Once you know what to expect, you can prepare yourself. Educate yourself on how to handle animal encounters or safely cross snow fields, for example. Plan your clothing choices and sleeping bag based on the expected weather conditions. Skilling up for your outing helps to increase confidence and diminish fear. 

Avoid the risks you can and brainstorm on how you can make choices that mitigate the risks you can’t entirely avoid. For example, there’s inherent risk in hiking solo, but you can carry a satellite communication device and leave a detailed itinerary with someone at home to reduce the risk. 

Check out our Stay Safe in the Backcountry Course and Become a Better Backcountry Navigator Course to prepare you to embark on your next outing with greater skill and confidence!

Get into action. 

At least 90% of my anxiety dissolves as soon as I get into action and start doing the thing. Once I take the first few steps of a hike, I’m so glad I didn’t let me fears hold me back. There are very real dangers in the backcountry, but like in other parts of life, there are ways to prepare yourself and mitigate the risk. Remember that your mind is a very powerful force. When you allow your fears to grow unchecked, it can lead to a life of regrets and unlived dreams. 

One of my favorite quotes on the topic of fear:

“A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” — John A. Shedd

Enroll in our free healthy, UL meal planning course to help you prepare for your next backcountry adventure.

What would you add to this list that helps you deal with trepidation about heading out into the backcountry? Comment below.