Skip to content
The Wilderness Ledger
Menu
Gear and packing lists

Packing list · Backcountry lodges, summer

What to pack for a summer week at a backcountry lodge

What to bring for a hiking week at a helicopter-access lodge like Purcell or Mistaya. There is no trailhead and no car to go back to, so everything you might want for seven days has to arrive on one flight and under a weight limit. Tick things off as they go in the duffel; the ticks are saved on this device.

A summer week at each of Purcell Mountain Lodge and Mistaya Lodge, checked against Mistaya's published summer equipment list and trip planner. Where a number belongs to one operator it says so.

Some gear links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I earn a small referral fee at no cost to you.

Get this list as a PDF

Boots and feet

You are hiking from the door every day on ground that goes from meadow to scree to snow in an afternoon. The boots matter more than anything else on this list.

Packing items laid out on grey gravel: a steel water bottle, a black cap, a tube of mineral sunscreen, a headlamp, a battery pack, a can of insect repellent and a paperback

Layers

Alpine summer is four seasons in a day. Mistaya's list is two layers of hiking clothes, a warm jacket, a wind shell, gloves and a hat, and that is about right for 2,000 metres.

A ski tourer in a yellow jacket and an avalanche airbag pack, beard and eyelashes white with frost, grinning under a trucker cap on a whiteout day
Purcell Mountain Lodge

Rain

It rains in these ranges in summer, sometimes for a whole day. Mistaya lists all four of these.

Sun, bugs, water

High and bright, and Mistaya lists repellent for a reason. It also has a sauna and a tarn below the lodge, so pack for both.

The day pack and the small things

A small day pack for what you carry each day, then the things that are nobody's to lend.

A line of hikers strung along a high ridge above a snow cornice, glaciated peaks behind
Purcell Mountain Lodge

The helicopter

Mistaya allows a small soft duffel plus a day pack, everything including any alcohol weighing 30 lb in total, weighed at the hangar. The bag they suggest is 12 by 20 by 12 inches, under 60 litres. Purcell publishes its own limits; confirm with your booking.

  • Soft duffel, 60 litres (WANDRD, MEC, REI, Dakine or Patagonia) at Amazon · or REI

Guests unloading from a red and white helicopter on the meadow landing pad
Purcell Mountain Lodge

Kit budget

What this list costs, bought new

The kit for this trip, bought new, is about CA$10,662 (US$7,784), across the 27 of 34 items above that name a product. Tick the items you already have and the figure below becomes what is left to buy.

Still to buy CA$10,662 US$7,784 · 27 of 27 items Approx., at 1.37 CAD per USD. Street prices, not quotes; a sale or a used one changes the sum.

Some gear links on this page are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I earn a small referral fee at no cost to you.

Checked against: Mistaya Lodge summer equipment list , Mistaya Lodge trip planner , Purcell Mountain Lodge, summer . Operator limits, especially helicopter baggage weights, are theirs and change; confirm with your booking.

Where this list came from

The weeks behind it