Things Remembered, Things Forgotten

The following is a list of things I'm/we're very happy we brought.

For those of you who intend to take this journey, including the Stanford crew tomorrow!

• Camelback: more helpful than I imagined (as were the crystal light/Gatorade packets so you have something other than warm water to drink)
• Gaiters: I didn't know what they were before I came, but they have come in handy keeping my main pair of pants slightly cleaner. (Unfortunately I totally forgot to wear them on two of the muddy days)
• Wet wipes (even though, as discussed in the previous entry, they only remove the top layers of dirt)
• Tissues: The porters ran out of toilet paper on day 4.
• Sam: sleeping pad and eye shades. I also think all of us are happy we brought our own sleeping bags because it gets SO cold!!!
• Other misc: headlight, Tylenol pm, deck of cards, sunglasses and sunscreen, books, and a funny safari hat with the Vietnamese flag that I bought in Vietnam for $1. Oh, and pretty much wear everything you brought on summit night.

Things I/we wish we brought:

• A flag: One of the obnoxiously large groups here, who undoubtedly spent at least $4000 on their climb, had this massive mess tent with a full table and chairs where they ate three meals a day. They also had a flag. While we spent a lot of time making fun of it, the truth is that we were kind of jealous and wish we thought to create a flag and lay our claim to part of this mountain.
• Trivial pursuit/Mindtrap cards: Since we are spending 24/7 together, we quickly exhausted the realms of traditional conversation. On day 2, we dedicated the afternoon to riddles, such as "Two people walking in the woods came across a cabin. Everyone inside was dead. What happened?" We have since run out riddles and trivia, and, given the slow pace we walk, believe it would have been great to have some additional material to occupy us
• Snickers bars and/or other chocolate and candy snacks (like I said, Sam thinks the porters ate what was supposed to be ours)
• Lisa: Lightweight gloves. The massive swany toaster mittens were overkill except for summit night, when they weren't toasty enough. A pair of 99 cent Duane Reade stretch gloves (or something similar) would have come in handy.
• Sam: Pee bottle to prevent having to get out of the tent at night. I told him that since he was sharing our small tent with me, I wouldn't appreciate it. Although he does claim they have a similar 'hose' contraption for girls (since I have complained numerous times about not having a penis this trip). I have heard of no such contraption. Perhaps he will find one and give it to me as a house warming (or should I say dorm warming) present when I move out west.
• Lisa: Shoes other than flip flops to walk around the camp site. Boots were too dirty, flip flops too cold. This actually crossed my mind when packing, but given limited space, I opted against it.
• Jared: is too tired to answer this question right now.

Things we could have done without:

• Bug spray: too cold for bugs (at least this time of year) and even in the jungle, we wore long pants and long sleeves
• Face wash: Yes, I brought a little bottle. Yes, they gave us bowls of seemingly clean water to wash. But it was too cold to make things wet unnecessarily, especially when there were no towels to dry off
• A razor: see above. And, after the first day, you just have to embrace being dirty.