One great thing about backpacking with your girlfriend is that you can share all your gear. We took advantage of this by only carrying one tent (
Sierra Designs Lightning 2) and one sleep system (
Nemo Tango Duo). The sleep system was a quilt/slipcover that goes over two inflatable air mattresses (
Big Agnes Air Core). We also both had seat pads (
Therm-A-Rest Z Seat) that were great for resting on rocks or sitting down in camp.
For water, we had a gravity filter (MSR AutoFlow) that connected directly to our Nalgene bottles. This was great because we could bring up to 4 liters of dirty water to camp at a time and filter it as we needed it for drinking and cooking. We cooked with an isobutane stove (Snow Peak Gigapower) and one 8 oz can lasted us about 6 days. For pancakes and bacon, we used a lightweight frying pan (MSR Flex Skillet).
Dinner usually consisted of splitting a dehydrated meal (Alpine Aire mostly) and some instant rice or mashed potatoes. When we were staying at the campgrounds where we picked up food caches, we had larger meals since we didn’t have to carry them. For our first dinner on the trail, we made a stir fry using pre cooked chicken and fresh vegetables. Lunch was usually snacks like beef jerky, granola bars, and energy snacks. For breakfast, we had dehydrated hash browns, pancakes, bacon, and oatmeal. We supplemented that with applesauce packets and various granola bars.
We both used shoes from the Adidas Terrex line, which is a bit lighter weight than a typical hiking boot, but still waterproof. We also both used Black Diamond adjustable ski poles as trekking poles. They were great for stabilizing on creek crossings and saving your knees on downhills.
We used our phones as cameras (iPhone 6 and iPhone 5S) and we kept them charged using a Goal Zero Nomad 7 solar charger. It fit perfectly on the “brain” of my pack and on sunny days we’d get enough charge to top up our phones from about 70%. It got us through the whole trip. I also used another small battery pack to charge my Fitbit Charge HR.