On this trip Paul and I each carried a water resistant bivy and shared a two person tarp. This worked well for saving time and provided the flexibility we needed to camp in some pretty dodgy spots. We were both grateful to be able to set the tarp up in inclement weather. It provided a lot more space compared to fully waterproof bivies, allowing us to look after our feet properly and down as many calories as possible when in camp. A tarp + water resistant bivy has much greater breathability compared to a fully waterproof bivy. This meant our sleeping bags stayed dryer/warmer and we weren’t carrying as much excess moisture.

One change I would make is to take a sleeping bag instead of a quilt. I took a Zpacks quilt (400g) and never managed to get rid of the draft at night with my half length foam mat and pack elevating my legs. Whilst normally a big fan of quilts, I think for an FKT it’s just too much messing around. Paul had the right idea when he took a hoodless, zipperless sleeping bag (basically a sack of down). I’ve since replaced my Zpacks quilt with a zipperless 356g Cumulus X-Lite 200 sleeping bag with 30g extra down.

Overall, I was happy with the clothes I wore and carried. Initially, I felt a bit silly for taking a wind jacket, rain jacket, wind pants and rain pants for an FKT. However, I knew from last time I walked the AAWT that it can get very cold due to the exposed nature of the track, even in summer. In the end, I used all of these layers, had dry sleeping clothes, and can’t think of an equivalent option that is lighter. I wouldn’t say I was super toasty, but I wasn’t uncomfortably cold very often.

Taking a Climashield Apex synthethic jacket was a good choice and kept me warm in some of the nastiest conditions I’ve been in. The Cumulus Climalite model I took was a 1/4 zip pullover, however, it would have been better to take a full zip jacket for extra breathability. I have since ordered an Enlightened Equipment Torrid Jacket in 7d materials. Since the 7d materials are significantly more breathable than the 10d and 20d fabrics offered (breathability ratings of 35 vs 10 vs 1 cfm respectively), I am hoping this will turn the Torrid into a better active layer compared to my Cumulus jacket.

Our navigation system was a combination of using both our phones and watches. Paul suggested we load the GPX file onto our watch to help us stay on course. Initially, I was sceptical as I hadn’t used this feature before and didn’t want to carry/manage another electronic device. However, after some testing on an overnight hike up Mt. Bimberi, I was sold. From my perspective, the main selling point was that your watch would buzz as soon as you wondered off the course you were navigating.

During the FKT, this feature meant that we only took one wrong turn on the entire trip (wondering down the wrong spur after descending Mt. Macdonald). The watch didn’t save us because that section of the walk had no distinct track, and so we weren’t always on the GPX file to begin with. This meant the watch didn’t buzz when we went even further ‘off course’. Apart from that isolated incident, this feature saved us probably a dozen times, especially as we became increasingly sleep deprived.

Another incredibly useful feature of the watch is being able to quickly glance at its map. Whilst the map isn’t super detailed, it is good enough to tell you which way to turn at the junction just up ahead, or to check that you are still on track. The map is only useful for your immediate surrounding area as it is cumbersome to change the map view with the watch buttons. I suspect a touchscreen on new smart watches could vastly improve the usefulness of navigating by a watch. It’s hard to quantify how much time the watch map saved, but I was pulling my phone out significantly less than I normally would (also saving battery life).

When navigating a long walk on your watch (>100km or so), it’s important to break down the GPX file into multiple sections. If you don’t do this then Garmin will not sample enough points to capture the finer details of the track. We broke the track into sections between each drop box (60km on average). Splitting the track into smaller courses also means you have an easy-access elevation profile to know if there is a big climb or descent coming up (if you want to know!). My Garmin Forerunner 945 drained about 75% each day (no heart rate), and Paul’s Fenix 6 Pro drained about 60% (with heart rate on).

One final thing to note is that the usefulness of the watch is determined by the accuracy of the GPX file you are following. 95% of the time our GPX file was correct, but we definitely wasted a bit of time in more vague sections of the AAWT by trying to follow a poorly defined GPX file.

In situations like this, the map on the watch isn’t detailed enough to be useful and we ended up pulling out our phones. We primarily used MapOut ($8 AUD), but I also used Gaia GPS (subscription based). Note that these apps seem to be better on iPhone compared to Android. My favourite feature of MapOut is how easy it is to determine the distance between two points on a GPX file when offline. It also displays the elevation profile and ascent/descent between those two points in realtime. I am a long term user of Gaia and think it is a more developed platform compared to MapOut. However, I think it is lacking a quick and easy offline method of determining the distance and elevation gain between two points on a GPX file. They have recently introduced some features to partially address this problem, but Gaia still can’t match the ease and speed of MapOut in this aspect.

On the FKT, the main reason I used Gaia was to have access to various types of satellite imagery and topographic maps. This comes in handy as the OpenStreetMap (OSM) route isn’t always correct (since the AAWT isn’t a very popular track). For some reason, the Google Maps route can often be correct when OSM is wrong. Sometimes they are both wrong. I liked that I could use many different types of topographic maps and satellite imagery in Gaia to help determine what is most likely the correct route. Using various GPX files of past hikers and overlaying the Strava heatmap also helped. All of these strategies helped us avoid wasting time when the track disappeared (as it likes to do on the AAWT).

Paul and I spent a long time questioning the best way to recharge our head torches and other devices. We decided on taking a 10000mAh powerbank for recharging our phones and watches, along with picking up head torch batteries for the coming night at each drop (Paul and I used AAAs and 18650s respectively). We also had spare powerbanks in occasional drops, and swapped the 10000mAh bank we were carrying twice. Suffice to say we never ran out of power.

Overall, I think it was a good setup, but not optimally lightweight. It didn’t involve buying a lot of new stuff as we already had most things, and it had good redundancy which was important.

The lightest setup probably involves only taking 18650 batteries (about the same amount of charge as a smartphone), and using them as a powerbank and your head torch battery (the Zebralight I took ran on an 18650 cell). However, we couldn’t think of a simple and reliable way to do this as it can be finicky and unreliable to recharge phones from 18650 cells using the lightweight chargers we knew of (Nitecore F2, Olight UC, Xtar PB2).

For this trip we primarily relied on Aquatabs for water purification. At the last minute I decided I wanted to take a water filter to supplement the Aquatabs and so that we didn’t have to wait 30 mins for purification. The idea was that the weight of the filter would easily be offset by carrying less water overall. It also meant we could also take more risks with carrying less water as we could instantly filter any water source we came across (apart from stagnant brown puddles).

After doing some research I ordered a Platypus Quickdraw and was excited it was compatible with the water bottles I was taking. However, I received a faulty product and didn’t have time to wait for the warranty replacement to arrive (this was a known issue and there was a replacement at my door before I finished the AAWT).

Sefan De Montis kindly gave me a 600mL Katadyn Be Free to take instead, and it ended up being surprisingly useful. I didn’t carry any water when there were lots of streams up ahead, often carrying 300-500mL less than I would have otherwise knowing I could drink as soon as I got to the next water source.

This strategy backfired a couple of times when I underestimated how much water I needed but it never became a big deal and overall was well worth it for an FKT.

I thought it would be good to add a brief section about the different approaches Paul and I took when it came to gear. In general, Paul was significantly more spartan than me.

Paul’s approach was to have the minimum set of gear to keep him alive so he could focus all his time and energy on taking that next step forward. He left behind waterproof gloves (-2g), sunglasses (-27g), a head net (-10g), a wind jacket (-45g), ear plugs (-0.01g?), and head phones (-46g). He also took less warm gloves (-10g), and took thermal pants instead of wind pants+rain pants (+8g). I think that Paul is naturally a warmer person than me, but he certainly also has a higher tolerance for being cold and wet.

I wanted to highlight that Paul’s choices weren’t only driven by saving weight. Paul didn’t save much weight by ditching the ear plugs, however, he definitely saved time by not looking for them each night and not having to put them away in the morning. Paul didn’t have to consider where to put his sunglasses when it got dark, and never worried about breaking them. He didn’t have to stop to put on rain pants because he didn’t have any. There is obviously a counter argument for all of these things: ear plugs help you get better sleep, sunglasses reduce mental fatigue, and rain pants helps you stay warm and push in bad conditions. It’s just a matter of weighing the pros and cons about whether a given item will help get you to the finish line faster given your personal preference.

The interesting overall trend was that my gear choices tended to align with thru hiking, whereas Paul’s choices were adventure racing oriented. In fact, Paul’s adventure race experience permeated into every action he took. He was noticeably faster in just about everything he did. He was in race mode, whereas I was in ‘hike hard for a long time but not in a big rush’ mode. I wasn’t exactly wasting time, but I was afraid that being in race mode for the entire 11 days would cause mental drain, make me rush things, and lead to mistakes. As with all things, I suspect the optimal approach is somewhere in the middle and that is why we worked so well together.