Advice sought on extended trip planning

Well, as you may be able to see, I am new to the forums, but hope to become an active member. My main reason to join is that I am entertaining the idea of taking a 2 week hiking/camping trip this summer as a way to just take a break from everything, but have no idea where to start with the planning. My experience with the outdoors is mainly concentrated with my military service and did complete jungle and desert survival training, but those were all in semi-controlled environments. Aside from the Marines, I also have experience hiking a portion of the Colorado Trail with a group of friends for a week, some camping trips up in the Rocky Mtn National Park, and a few adventures here and there. So, needless to say, I am not a novice, but not experienced either.

My current idea is that I get at least one friend, preferribly two, to come along on this adventure with me. I am not ready to fly solo with this and have no intentions of doing so. I would like to start at one end of a trail and go to another, preferribly outside of Colorado. Maybe Oregon or Washington, but am open to recommendations. I want to carry in all my food as to limit my impact on the local wildlife, but am willing to consider limited hunting and fishing if need be. As for water collection, I have always planned my camping trips to take me around water sources so that I can filter my water as to limit the weight in my pack.

So, what I am asking of you all here is for advice, tips, recommendations on locations, and so on. This is not set in stone for a particular time aside from hoping to do this during the summer as I am a full time college student. I thank you all for your help iun advance and if you have any questions of me, please do ask.

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As you imply, your military camping is not really all that applicable to backpacking. If you plan and prepare as you should, you won't use the survival training (especially the part of military survival training that had to do with avoiding the enemy and capture, and if captured surviving the "interrogation".).

In general, you should plan, as you say, to carry all your food. Hunting is mostly not appropriate in areas you would be backpacking, though fishing only requires very light tackle and can add a pleasant taste of fresh food on a week or longer trip (make sure you have the correct license for the area, which can be extremely expensive for states where you are not resident, plus some areas may only allow catch and release).

If you search back through the many posts here on Trailspace, you will find a lot of helpful information, so I won't repeat it here, just mention a couple more things that will differ from your military experience. Your idea of not going solo is a very good one, from both the safety standpoint and companionship (sharing the backpacking experience is a lot more pleasant for most people, especially when just learning - try to seek out an experienced mentor).

In the military, especially Marines, you carried heavy loads. This is neither necessary nor desirable for recreational backpacking. It also means you don't need (and should not wear) military boots - you won't need the aggressive ankle support, since you won't be carrying the hundred pound pack.

Your military map-reading and compass skills will serve you well, although you will be staying on trails for your first few trips (or should be). You will find a simple base-plate compass to be much more useful (and a lot lighter) than the type of compass you used in the Marines (you don't need to direct artillery and mortar fire, just get the general orientation of the map, then use the terrain to guide you).

There are a number of lightweight backpacking stoves, with the simplest (and least expensive) being the type that use compressed gas canisters (butane-propane mixes) with a burner that screws directly onto the threaded coupling on the canister. Freezedry meals are lightweight and many are fairly tasty (no need for MRIs, especially the self-heating type). For your cooking water to rehydrate the freeze-dry foods, you are bringing it to a boil anyway, so no need for the pump-filter. However, boiling all your drinking water requires extra fuel, so a small backpacking filter is useful. - I don't mention brands here, since Trailspace has lots of gear reviews (click at the top of the pages to get there). Besides everyone has their favorite make and model (my choices are, of course, far superior to anything else on the market).

Places to go - you mention Oregon and Washington. Add Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada (everything from the Rockies to the Pacific), since you are apparently in Colorado (add the New England, Appalachians, Smokies when you decide to go farther afield, then the Canadian Rockies and British Columbia Coast Ranges for your foreign backpacks, and the Chugach and Alaska Range when you want to travel still farther). In other words, there is a plethora of wonderful places to go backpacking, any of which will fit your criteria. I have backpacked in all those states and found fantastic places in all - you just can't go wrong with any of the places in any of the National Parks and designated Wilderness Areas.

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I do agree with a lot of what Bill S (OGBO) has to say about trip planning.
The one thing I think Bill S may have missed is that you might want to try a couple of shake down trips with your buddies before the main trip.
If you have not hiked/camped with them before you might be unpleasantly surprised with the group interaction on or before your main trip. We had some interesting issues about directions to go with some of our more vocal members. (Dead Reckoning verses GPS) Stay away from GPS for now as it would be an unnecessary cost. Do spend time learning as much about the area you intend to go to. It will help you to enjoy the trip more and boost confidence should trouble rise.
The other reason for this would be to learn about, test your gear, before your main trip. My last winter trip was with 5 friends, for 4 days and a planned distance of 6 km on snowshoes with packs. As we sorted out and loaded up our packs at the trail head, we started with gear issues, and had gear issues all along the trip. A brand new back pack, zippers failed, wrong clothing packed (cotton), feet cold with non insulated boots, wet boots, boots broken. A lot of the gear was brand new at that point and was found wanting. One of our friends had taken a chance and ordered the gear from his suppliers. He spent a long time on the phone at the beginning and after the trip. We also had food issues, too much heavy type food was packed about 25lb too much. And the last thing about the trip was that one of our members was a rookie to backpacking, as well as snowshoeing. His pack was not properly adjusted, and over loaded. His physical conditioning was not up to what it could have been. He paid dearly for this. All in all we had a great time. Just learn from these things before you go.

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