My 2018 Updated Clothing Worn and Packed for Summer

Several months ago I posted a big breakdown of my updated winter, spring, and fall outfits for wilderness backpacking.  Well it's also been a while since I posted about my summer outfits, and I recently came back from a great section hike where I was really happy with how my clothing performed, so let's do this.

Cesar's Guide to Pilgrimsleden Värmland, part 1

Introduction

Pilgrimsleden Värmland is a trail that runs from the border of Västra Götaland in the south, goes across Värmland, and ends at the Norwegian border in the north.  This trail is also part of my alternative E1 trail system, The Troll Trail.  This guide covers the section from the Edsleskog Loop to the southern end of the Glaskogens nature reserve, hiking northbound.  This section is about 50km long--from the first trail shelter to the last one of this trip--but can vary depending on how you hike it.  There are areas that are not marked or poorly marked, and much of the trail markers are very old and rundown.  In general this is a trail less taken, and this can offer certain benefits, but the trail itself at times is in dire need of trail maintenance.  But overall it was quite a nice hike.

My 2018 Winter and Spring Complete Clothing Breakdown

Introduction

So I finally have a few section hikes coming up!  I will most likely do a gear list breakdown for my spring base pack weight (BPW), but I don't think I will have the time to do one for my winter kit for the trip coming up soon.  However, it has been a while since I've gone over my clothing combos for all the different seasons I encounter (my older one you can check out here, also includes BPW), so figured I should at least update my current clothing choices.  Not to mention that I still get plenty of questions from friends, family, and sometimes online about what my clothing choices are for hiking.  Later on in the year I'll do another breakdown like this for my two summer outfits (one for the mountains, one for the woods), so stay tuned for that.

Two years ago I showed off my winter gear list in a video, and not too much has changed since then as far as gear goes.  But there have been some significant changes to my clothing, in spite of still using some garments for about half a decade or so.  Some of the more hardcore UL backpackers may cringe and/or scoff at some of the relatively heavy choices of clothing I have.  But everyone has their limits, and when it comes to clothing worn I am more likely to shrug and say "good enough" with slightly heavier choices.  

I think because I obsess so much over my BPW down to every little detail, I just don't have the energy to really dial in my clothing combos to be lighter and (this is key) just as warm.  I'm also just not into clothing in general, as say a fashion or social statement, so it's hard for me to get excited about buying say, a pair of pants or a shirt.  But I've spent plenty of time drooling over packs, shelters, quilts, and other BPW gear, and have literally had my pulse rise after getting a package slip in my mailbox for new gear.  Not to say that clothing is any less important for backpacking, it should almost go without saying!  And also note that quite a lot of this gear gets used in my day-to-day life to work and on day hikes, so it's not just collecting dust in the closet when I'm not on section hikes.

So let's get down to the breakdown of my full winter and spring outfits.  First up is some context:

A Response to 20 Viewers' Backpacking Tips

A month ago I announced a give-away contest on my Youtube channel, the winner getting their choice of either a tarp or a bug bivy from Borah Gear.  Thanks again to Borah Gear who were nice enough to put up the prize for this contest!  They make great gear and have a well-earned good reputation in the online UL community, for instance on Reddit's UL forum.

So the contest was pretty straight forward: to enter just leave a comment with a favorite backpacking tip on my 1000 subscriber video special, and I would take 20 of them and pick one at random.  I also wanted to share all 20 of these tips here on my blog and also give some feedback on each tip, so here we go!  I will make a short video picking the winner at random shortly after publishing this post.  

Thanks to all my readers, Youtube subscribers, and special thanks to everyone that left a tip and entered the contest.  These are good tips, and I've been looking forward to responding to them as they collected over the past month.

Cesar's Guide to The Troll Trail/Trolleden: Introduction

Note: If you want a condensed but full guide to the Troll Trail, you can find that here.  This shorter guide was written with the intention of providing an on-trail reference for hikers of this trail, and also as a complement to the longer guides and trip reports you will find below. 

UPDATE 04/05/2025: 

Another hiker planning on hiking the TT has created GPX map files for the TT. You can check them out in a Google Drive folder here. 

Or you can check out an interactive map on Google Maps here.

Thanks again to Aljoša! I didn't ask for this work that he put into the above maps and files, he just surprised me by sending it to me one day. We met on Reddit and were chatting about the TT when all of a sudden I am sent these great tools for this trail! 

As of now the only details I would add about these new maps is that they represent a "direct" route in some sections. There are sections that have multiple ways of being hiked to get to the same endpoint, for example the Glaskogen nature reserve, which in this guide I've called a "choose your own adventure" section due to all the marked trails there. 

But these maps are a useful addition to any hiker looking to trek the TT. Enjoy!

Introduction

The Troll Trail (or TT for short, or Trolleden in Swedish) is a long distance hiking route I created that goes from city of Göteborg in the south, to lake Grövelsjön in the north on the Swedish-Norwegian border.  It passes through mostly southwest Sweden, but at times goes into southeast Norway or follows along close to (or even right on) the border.  However the entire trail can be hiked entirely in Sweden.

It is approximately 1,135km/705mi long, and there are several side trails, loops, and optional parts of the route that are not included in that total.

The TT can be hiked as an alternative section of the E1 European long distance path in Sweden, rather than the official Swedish E1 route.  You can read more about the official E1 route in my guide to it here.  I created the TT as a direct result of hiking the Swedish E1.  While I enjoyed this path overall, there were some problems with several sections, such as lack of trail maintenance, very little information/documentation, very isolated areas (making it difficult to resupply or have access to public transportation), and some sections had quite a bit of walking on asphalt and/or gravel roads.

But the shortcomings of the official Swedish E1 trail were not my only motivation in putting together this trail.  After many years hiking in the areas that the TT goes through, I really fell in love with the nature and terrain of places like Bohuslän and Dalsland.  I discovered more obscure nature reserves and woodland trails that not as many hikers travel to, or even know exist.  Yet other established and well known hiking trails were not that far away.  The more I hiked, the more a new route made sense, and I had a great time in the process as well.