Picking out gear for hiking the Appalachian Trail can be quite daunting. There are so many quality brands to choose from and I don’t think you can really go wrong with any of them. We spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and reading lots of review lists online, like this list for the best tents for backpacking. One of the biggest decisions to be made was our tent and like the list mentioned above, many lists had the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL3 listed as the best overall tent. Once we made the decision to go with the Big Agnes, it was suddenly unavailable everywhere. We were told by the owner of the Rusted Moon Outfitter in Indianapolis that the tent shortage was caused by an interruption in zippers due to Covid-19. We did finally manage to snag the Big Agnes online through REI and are very glad we did.
The remainder of the big 4, as they are called, is the backpack, sleeping bag, and sleeping mat. For the backpack, Dan got the Osprey Atmos 65 and Amy got the Osprey Ariel 65. The staff at the aforementioned Rusted Moon were very helpful in fitting a pack to Amy and we decided to buy our packs there. All other gear has been purchased through REI. We should get a big member dividend at the end of the year. For our sleeping bags, we both chose the Nemo Disco 15 and for our sleeping pads we went with the Nemo Tensor Insulated regular.
To round out our gear, we got an MSR Pocket Rocket kit for 2 at REI, several sizes and brands of compression sacks and a number of clothing items.