(Tried to Xpost from /JMT but couldn't for some reason)

I posted a couple of months ago asking for some help with my packlist. We ended up taking 23 days going NOBO. The weather was perfect and it was everything my wife and I dreamed it would be.

Mileage
My Garmin recorded 277 miles included the extra few days ahead of the Whitney summit. I know there I should expect a bit of a variance between the FarOut listed distances and what my watch recorded but there was almost always a big discrepancy between the two, sometimes as much as a mile or more per day. Elevation was even worse. The watch seemed to sync with the FarOut app but my total elevation gain per the watch was 88k vs the reported total of about 47k for the trail. I'm guessing the difference is because the reported total doesn't include all the little ups and down but the watch did.

Equipment
I took some of the advice that you gave regarding my pack list and was mostly happy with my choices.

• Camp shoes: I had super light water shoes and wished I had brought somethin sturdier but with less cloth/covering. They were lovely to slip on but when I walked on rocks or around the sites, they were so thin that the rocks hurt my feet. I'll sacrifice a few grams next time to keep this from happening. Additionally, because they were essentially slippers, when they got wet in the evening (swimming, washing clothes, etc.), they kept my feet wet and were freezing. Next time it's either no camp shoes or sacrifice a few grams and get something with a real sole.
• Chair: Simply put, I didn't need it. I should have listened to you and just used my bear can or rocks. I really appreciated it when I did use it but I could have easily done without it.
• Camp Shirt: You were right. Shouldn't have included it. It's so dry out there that my hiking shirt dried out very quickly and / or I just threw on a jacket. Could have saved a few ounces here.
• Sun Shirt: My Patagonia sun hoodie was the MVP of the trip. Other than having to cut thumb holes in it to protect my hands from the sun, I could not have been happier with it. Dried quickly, extremely breathable and lightweight, comfy, etc.
• MH Airmesh long-sleeve shirt: I hate to say it but it gets a meh from me. Very lightweight and worked well for a sleep shirt but as a warmish layer when it wasn't cold enough for a down jacket, it failed a bit imho. i wish i had opted for something like a Patagonia R1 hoodie because of the hood. i didn't hate it but it didn't really add much value for the space, weight, and $ it took up.
• Stove: I purchased a Soto Windmaster ahead of the trip after deciding the BRS probably wasn't a great idea. This was a great decision. The Windmaster was fantastic. In fact, it was so much more efficient than my wife's Kovea Supalite that we just ended up using mine to save fuel and boil water faster.
• Water filter: I brought a Sawyer and my wife had the Katadyn. We used the Katadyn almost exclusively because it was so convenient and flowed much quicker. In fact, in a fit of madness, I threw away my Sawyer at VVR because I was sick of dealing with the gasket that I first lost (had thankfully packed a spare), and then had to deal with getting dislodged and twisted between the bottles. Next time, it's just a Katadyn and/or drops
• Food: The amount of food we packed was nearly perfect. We were able to pack 7-8 days of food into our Bearikade Weekenders without much problem. We had to grab a day's worth of food at MTR because we had an unscheduled nero and ran out but other than that, the planning was great. We used basically 100% of what we packed and with the exception of the few Mtn House Breakfast Scrambles that I packed (and will probably never eat again), never got sick of any of it. We were glad we purposefully packed a mix of purchased and homemade meals and tried to never repeat anything (except for the meals we knew we loved) during the same resupply week. Our dinner favorite was the OG, Skurka rice and beans. Lunch favorite of mine was something I found here on Reddit...a tortilla with teriyaki jerky, peanut butter, and sriracha sauce. So good! Breakfast favorite was instant grits with dried onions, peppers, and shelf stable bacon.
• Packs: I have a Superior Wilderness Designs Long Haul 50 and my wife has a ULA Circuit. Both carried our pack weight of 32ish pounds (at the very heaviest including 2.5 liters of waters and 7 days of food) with zero issues. Very happy with the choices we made and have no reason to look elsewhere when they wear out.
• Resupplies: Got a resupply from Sierra Pack Trains which met us at the Kearsarge Lakes / Charlotte Lake trail junction. It was pricey but imho, worth it to save the time and effort to hike out to Onion Valley. The only caveat with this option is that they...aren't very easy to communicate with which led to some stress ahead of the trip. The actual exchange was flawless and we loved being able to send all our trash back with them. Our other resupply was at VVR which was heaven on earth. We caught the 9:30 AM "ferry" ride over, stayed in one of their rooms, and came back out at 4:30 the next afternoon. Somehow blew through $500 (Ferry, food, resupply, snacks, etc.) while there but it was well worth it. Fantastic folks.
• Power: I bought a small solar panel because we'd be going essentially 10 days before our first chance to charge at MTR. The single panel kept our devices fully charged. It really helped that the sun is at your back for much of the hiking day when going NOBO. The only issue is that our Garmin watches wouldn't charge off the Nitecore NL2150RX I used because it didn't have a low power mode (or whatever it's called.) We instead had to use my wife's Nitecore NB10k which meant I had to juggle the batteries I charged with the panel. Should have just used the NB10k and skipped the other battery but we weren't super confident in the plan to use both solar and charging at MTR/VVR/RM. At any rate, the solar panel was *chef's kiss*.

Health

• Sleep: I slept like absolute shit. I used a NeoAir Xlite NXT which I think is comfortable but most nights I woke up at 2-4AM with terrible upper back pain which spread to my chest because I was holding my breath. I don't know if it was a pack adjustment problem which manifested at night, my body, or the pad. I tried fully inflated, partially inflated, elevated legs, everything....nothing worked. I'd wake up and just have to sit up and stretch to be able to breath comfortably get out of the pain I was in.
• Feet: I had ZERO blister or feet problems and I attribute this to wearing Injinji toe socks under my thin hiking socks and somewhat religiously using Trail Toes on my feet at night, especially if I developed any hot spots. I also made sure to keep my feet somewhat clean and free of anything that would cause friction between my toes. My feet had the normal amount of soreness but I'm so thankful I never had to deal with the pain I've seen others endure.
• Altitude: We took Diamox the first few days until we got past Forester Pass. Never noticed any ill effects due to the altitude. Not sure if the meds helped or not but I was pretty happy with the results.
• Fitness: I'm a 50yo man that lives in the Midwest and was fairly worried about this trip. We didn't have a chance to train on any real hills with altitude but we put in a lot of 5-10 mile hikes/walks per week in the months leading up to the trip. Some loaded, some not. IMHO this made a massive difference as our back, hips, feet, etc. were at least used to the motion and distance. Additionally, the time we put into reducing out pack weight through careful consideration of every single item and making a decent amount of our own food paid huge dividends. I never felt like the pack was killing me and felt bad for many I saw lugging their monstrosities up the passes.

Summary
What an amazing opportunity and experience. I really appreciate all the advice I found here FB. While I didn't use it all, or exactly follow my itinerary, I was very happy that I had at least considered all scenarios and equipment options.

If you have the chance to make the trip, do it. I can't say that I'm a different person that I was before or I had some big epiphany whilst on the trail but I can say that nothing I've ever done has given me the same sense of awe and wonder I experienced, especially in the southern portion of the trail!