New Hydration Pack

My new hydration pack arrived! It will hold twice as much water and has enough storage space to accommodate a full day hike without having to hike circles around a home base or pre-determined stops. I'm excited to try it out.

It's funny how these things work, though. The package was waiting on our doorstep when I arrived home after Sunday's 11 mile AT hike. Until that hike I was still debating whether I really needed the bigger pack. Even though I had thought about it for weeks and researched the heck out of the idea before ordering it, I was still going back and forth regularly on keeping it vs returning it. But Sunday's hike helped me realize it was a good investment after all.

Sunday's hike was shorter than Saturday's. Yet I took in the same volume of water and food. In fact, it would have been nice to have an additional something to eat on Sunday but I was carrying all that I could manage. The climbing and those darn boulders took more out of me than my previous outings. And had it been a typical hot August day I would have been in trouble.

My hesitance about keeping the larger pack was mostly me wondering how often I would actually need an all day pack. Sunday showed me that I could use the larger size even for a shorter day. It will be nice to have the ability to shed layers and store them in the fall and spring too.

I'm looking forward to trying it out. I could find no bad reviews of it online - and tried hard to find one. It will be heavier I'm sure but that comes with the territory. Here is a link to the Camelback Helena 22 at REI.com. I didn't order it from REI but this page has the most detail. Scroll down for more. 

Mine is purple. 

Keep smiling and keep moving

-Paula