We pack the new Durston Gear Wapta 30 for a 3 day/2 night walk into the Appalachian Trail Days festival in Damascus, Virginia. We'll walk 41 miles southbound through Grayson Highlands to Tent City in Damascus.
We've trimmed our gear down to our Spring through Fall load-out to see how the Wapta will carry over several days and miles. It's a short Spring walk in to Trail Days where we know we'll get warm, dry, and fed. With that in mind, we did assume a bit of risk with this gear (40 deg quilt, Uberlite pad, dual-use layers, and Finetrack's Polygon UL jacket...no puffy). If this this goes well, we'll take it on a longer AT sections. What we fit and some observations below:
Weights
With no consumables: 13.2 lbs
With consumables minus water: 15.7lbs
With consumables (including 1.4L water, fuel, TP, soap, etc): 18.7 lbs
Our gear for 3 days on the AT (in the Wapta):
Sleep
MLD FKT Quilt (40deg)
Sea to Summit Reactor Liner and Pillow
Uberlite pad
Shelter
X-Mid Pro 2 Tarp (bugnet cut out) and Pro 2 Groundsheet
Stakes and detachable guyline kit
Eating
Toaks 750 pot, BRS stove, Flat Cat Gear windscreen
Spoon and mug
Food bag (2 dinner, 2 breakfast, 3 days snacks)
Layers/Camp Clothes
Enlightened Equipment Visp rain jacket
Montbell wind pants
Finetrack Polygon UL jacket and Elemental layer (baselayer)
Senchi hoodie
Kuiu Peloton 97 Zip-off pants
Sleep shorts and socks
Camp shoes - Baresocks "sock shoes"
MLD Rain Mitts
Other
Electronics (10k bank, cords, wall plug)
Montbell Long Tail umbrella
2x Smart Water bottles and scoop, 2L HydraPak Seeker, 1L HydraPak Flux
FlexTail pad pump
1/8" Foam sit pad
Some initial observations:
- Our lightest non-winter gear (above) and 3 days of food fit easily. For a longer hike...we would just pack more food. I think we could get 5 days on the AT if we strapped our shelter to the outside top and really though through our layering
- key for us was to compress our quilt, save space with a small cook kit, small sleep pad, and using multi-purpose layers
- we were able to fit some more comfortable/durable items than listed below, such as a 20deg quilt and Thermarest X-lite, but we then had to strap our X-Mid to the outside top
- shoulder pouches fit 600ml water bottles ok, but pulled away the shoulder strap from your torso. We cut off the mesh ones and added our favorite water bottle sleaves that hold 700ml bottles
- the X-Mid Pro 2 fits inside with the gear listed above (still got 3 rolls on the top flap)
- with the above gear (and consumables), we still had plenty of room in the pack and in the large front pocket (4 rolls of top flap)
- as you all know, to use this on multi-day hikes it's all about trade-offs...and the specific environment/climate you are in
Hope this helps someone!
#durstongear #wapta30 #hiking #ultralight #gearreview #backpackreview
