Sam's Favorite Gear from the Pacific Northwest Trail
Treeline writer Sam Schild shares his favorite PNT thru-hiking gear items
October 23rd, 2025
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Sam is back from a westbound thru-hike of the Pacific Northwest Trail, which goes from Glacier National Park in Montana to the Pacific Ocean in Olympic National Park, Washington. Since finishing the PNT, Sam is running out of thru-hikes he hasn’t already completed. He's previously completed the Triple Crown of long-distance hiking, the three major long distance hiking trails in the US (the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail and Continental Divide Trail.
The PNT is more rugged than many thru-hikes out west and requires strong navigational skills. It’s generally hot, buggy, smoky, brushy, and wet during the summer, which is also the ideal season to hike the trail.
The PNT is steep in certain areas, and often quite remote; Sam estimates he was the only person to use portions of this trail for an entire week or more. Generally, there are places to resupply along the route every 50-100 miles. The PNT has a few longer food carries, and one particularly long stretch pushing nearly 200 miles between resupply locations.
Considering the key differences between the Pacific Northwest Trail and other long-distance thru-hikes he’s done in the past, and after consulting other Treeline Review writers and editors who have also hiked the trail (including both co-founders Naomi Hudetz and Liz Thomas), he put together an ultralight backpacking kit for the PNT. Here’s the gear that stood out to him over the entire PNT.
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The La Sportiva Lumina 100 is a 1000-fill down insulated jacket that weighs 5.9 ounces and isn’t nearly as expensive as I expected. When I heard La Sportiva was releasing a sub-6-ounce down jacket, I guessed it would cost over $400. But this jacket costs less than $300, about what most 800-fill jackets cost. With the Lumina, you get a lighter jacket with higher-quality down. After using it for a 1200-mile thru-hike, I can confirm it’s a great backpacking layer.
On a relatively warm trail like the PNT, this jacket, combined with a beanie and hooded midlayer, is warm enough. It doesn’t have a hood, which saves weight, but it may not be warm enough for colder shoulder season trips, especially if you have a hoodless sleeping bag or quilt. But cold wasn’t often an issue on the PNT, so this jacket was ideal. During some heat waves, it never left my pack for days. But it’s light enough that I didn’t mind carrying it. And I was glad to have a warm layer when it was colder.
I’ve used a Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer UL Hoody for years. I love that down jacket because it’s super light and packable, but very expensive.
The Lumina 100, on the other hand, uses the same 1000-fill down insulation, weighs less than the Ghost Whisperer UL, and is nearly $200 less expensive. Jackets costing less than hoodies makes sense, but the Lumina also costs less than the 800-fill hoodless Ghost Whisperer.
Though it costs less than the Ghost Whisperer, the Lumina is about as warm. The Lumina 100 and the Ghost Whisperer are warm enough for summer backpacking (though for colder hikes, you could opt for the warmer Lumina 200, which has the same 1000-fill but higher fill weight).
Like other La Sportiva apparel, the Lumina 100 fits like an alpine layer. In short, this means it fits smaller than some brands. I always get a men’s medium or large in La Sportiva clothing and jackets, when I could otherwise wear a size small.
La Sportiva Lumina 100 Jacket
The Zpacks Pivot Solo, our favorite ultralight tent for tall people in our ultralight tents guide, was an excellent choice for the PNT. It only weighs 13.5 ounces, but it has tons of interior space. I wanted a lightweight, fully enclosed tent with a bugnet and bathtub floor for this trail to provide maximum protection from rain and buzzing critters. The Pivot Solo does all that.
The Pivot Solo uses a design similar to the Zpacks Duplex and sets up with two trekking poles, but it’s narrower for one person. Unlike the Duplex, the Pivot Solo uses a small carbon fiber pole to pull out the head end of the tent wall, which creates more headroom. This makes the tent feel much less claustrophobic when you’re lying down, and it was especially nice when I spent long mornings reading a book, waiting for the rain to let up.
It’s 84 inches long, giving you space at the head and foot of a 72” sleeping pad. The tent interior is 29” wide, too. All this extra floor space gave me plenty of room to spread out in my tent on those rainy days. And it was especially helpful when I had to store wet gear inside so it didn’t get even wetter during overnight rains.
Zpacks Pivot Solo Tent
I used the Outdoor Vitals Stormloft 30 Degree Down Quilt on the PNT and was impressed with its waterproofness and fast-drying capabilities. I saw temperatures as low as 30 degrees, and never felt even remotely cold using this quilt with a 4.5 R-value sleeping pad. But what’s most impressive about this quilt is the waterproof down that dries incredibly fast.
It’s stuffed with Allied Feather Down’s ExpeDry Down, which has gold particles fused to the down clusters. The gold particles prevent water molecules from attaching to the down, shortening the time it takes for the down to dry if it gets wet. I used to think down fill was down fill, and no amount of waterproofing could make it better or worse. Almost every quilt and sleeping bag I have owned has used some kind of water repellant coating on the down insulation. If you add gold to the down, as it turns out, it seems to dry faster and stay dry longer, which was ideal for wet conditions on the PNT.
On multiple occasions, my quilt got very wet from condensation, rain, or a combination of both. Remarkably, even when the exterior fabric was soaked, the down insulation retained a lot of loft. And after leaving it in the sun for about 15 minutes, it was completely dry again.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been using my 20-degree quilt for 5 years and the down isn’t as lofty as it once was, but this Stormloft 30-degree quilt feels warmer and loftier than my old 20-degree quilt. The Stormloft definitely feels warmer than some 30-degree quilts. Some ultralight quilts are rated for survival, so they’ll keep you warm enough to live if it’s 30 degrees. The Stormloft is rated to keep you comfortably warm at 30 degrees. I would confidently use this quilt into the 20s.
Note: The Stormloft is available in 0F, 15F, 30F, and 40F degree options. Sam tested the 30F.
Outdoor Vitals Stormloft Down Quilt
I used a Pa’lante V2 backpack clone while thru-hiking the Continental Divide Trail. Until this year, however, I never used a real V2 made by Pa’lante. And while the clones are pretty good, nothing beats the original.
This simple 30-liter frameless backpacking pack was ideal for the PNT. It was just large enough to hold 6.5 days’ worth of food for a 175-mile stretch between resupplies, and I was even able to cram a full-sized bear canister inside for the Olympic National Park wilderness coast section. I used this pack for almost 2,000 miles this summer, and 1,200 of those miles were on the PNT, where you have to do a fair amount of bushwhacking. Despite the countless hours spent fighting through thick brush, thorns, and dense vegetation, it has no holes or tears.
The stretch mesh used on all the V2’s pockets is very durable. It’s reinforced with UHMWPE fibers (Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight Polyethylene). The extra durability of these exterior pockets is excellent since the stretch mesh found on many ultralight backpacks tends to lose its stretch and develop tears quickly (I’m looking at you, old Pa’lante clone). The main body material on my V2 is a 210D UHMWPE Gridstop, which is also very durable.
The V2 has tons of pockets you can reach while wearing the pack. It has two side water bottle pockets, a stretch mesh pocket on each shoulder strap, and a stretch mesh bottom pocket. I carry my phone in one of the shoulder pockets, and chapstick, sunscreen, headphones, and other small items in the other. The side pockets can each fit 2 liters of water. The bottom pocket can hold enough snacks for an entire day.
It also has an exterior mesh pocket on the back of the pack, where I keep my rain jacket. The exterior mesh pocket has a small inner pocket that’s the perfect size and shape to store tent stakes. I store my tent stakes here along with a long-handled spoon. With all these exterior pockets, I never have to unpack my bag throughout the day. And as long as I remember in the morning to load the bottom pocket full of everything I want to eat throughout the day, I can eat without opening the roll-top closure, too.
For a warmer trail like the PNT, where you don’t need to carry winter layers, the V2 was ideal. I love the simplicity and durability of this pack, and will continue using it whenever I don’t need to carry more than 30 liters of gear.
Pa’lante V2 Backpack
Why you should trust us
Sam Schild is a thru-hiker, trail runner, cyclist, and mountain athlete based in Colorado. Sam has completed countless ultra-distance self-supported trail runs on trails throughout the American Southwest.
He has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, and the Colorado Trail twice.
You can read more about Sam on his author page or his website.
