Sorry for the late response.
I’ve backpacked portions of the River to River trail a few times. It’s easy to resupply about every 3-4 days. A start of my gear list I took can be found at: http://www.backpackinglight.com/backpack...ea1113a817e.pdf
except I didn’t take the coat. I just took a light umbrella (which I used a lot) and $1 rain poncho (which I used a lot) which I had to replace about every 7th day of use. I usually go in the spring or fall when it’s a little cooler.

Some random tips for that trail:
1. Get a nice map and GPS. You will notice sometimes the trails do not match the map. Sometimes you will get off on a side trail. If you feel lost, do a GPS check to see where you are on the map. Typically, you’ll run into forks that aren’t on the map. My luck always took the wrong fork. i.e., I get lost every time I’m on that trail. So I loved my GPS (a cheap $99 unit).

2. “ I am planning a couple backpacking trips with my father this July and August.” To me that’s the harshest time of year. Because of humidity and heat, expect heat indexes at 100F +. It will be hard to sleep. As the sun sets, the temps will fall from 98F down to a freezing 92F. And you just lay there with sweat rolling down your face. But it’s doable.

3. There will be ticks every 6” of your trip. Lay your pack down and immediately a tick will be crawling up it. Spray your pack, clothes, underwear, socks, shoes and hat with Permanone. This has the chemical permethrin that kills ticks on contact and is totally benign to your sweating skin. Read the directions. Don’t substitute for cheaper permethrin from the pet stores; It just won’t stick to your clothes.

4. Use a filter for water. For some reason, when I needed to fill up, I only found brown, rotting ponds. But my First Need filter turned that into clear clean water.

5. Several miles of the trail are completely ripped to shreds because of horses. I don’t complain. They’re the ones that have to pay to use the trail; not you. But watch out for A LOT OF MANURE. Even though you’ll be careful, plan on stepping in it.

6. For those hot humid days, practically every footwear will give you blisters except for sandals with socks. The socks keep the sweat wicked out from the bottom of your feet and everywhere the strap touches. I hike everywhere in socks and sandals except on extremely cold days. One of these times I’ll be able to handle the 0F weather like Joe does: http://www.zpacks.com/about.shtml
The big advantage of sandals is they can be cleaned off at every stream and they dry fast. My Tevas have extremely better gripping power on wet sloping granite than any vibram footwear.

7. I bought this book from John and met him http://www.rivertorivertrailguide.com/ It was a great help and made it exciting to see the same landmarks he did.

8. When you talk to your local outfitters, they are not usually well versed in light weight backpacking (silnylon, cuben fiber, alcohol stoves, etc.,). Unbeknownst to them there is another world of backpacking which allows you to carry less so that you will be safer and see more.

Amidst all the trials, the scenery is gorgeous and that’s why I kept coming back to that trail.

Have fun backpacking,
-Barry
The mountains were made for Teva sandals.