Hello All!

Thought I would give a quick intro and ask a couple questions. My name is Dustin, from New Mexico. I've always been a fan of hiking and have hiked off and on since I was probably 10 or so. Never backpacked, always been a camp out of my FJ60 Land Cruiser guy. This October my dad and I are going to do a rim to rim (North-South) Grand Canyon trip over 4 days.

Yesterday I went and bought myself a pack, Deuter ACT Lite 65+10, after much deliberation, research, trying on, loading with weight, taking on and off and picking the poor REI girls brain about every pack in the store, I decided on that pack. Felt right and didn't cause too much pain in the wallet.

This is my dads first backpacking trip as well. Well, I shouldn't say that, his first trip since 1978 when he was in high school. I am in ok shape, not great by any means but not terrible either, and he is in the same.

My questions are, what can we do to get in better shape in such a short time? This trip kind of came together accidentally and short notice but we have always wanted to do it so we jumped on it. We have been hiking every weekend for the last 3 weeks, about 8 miles every weekend. Now we are going to start hiking with our packs loaded with about 40lb. We are hoping to have our actual trip weight for the packs to be in the 25-30lb range. Does that sound like a reasonable weight to shoot for? Too heavy? Too light? We will be splitting the weight of cooking gear and food between us. We will probably also split the weight of a tent between us too.

I think that's it for now, sorry for the long post. Thanks in advance for any replies!