Brian.
With all this fitness talk it sounds like soon you will be getting a small pack like Comms suggested, just to load it with rocks so you can do some weight training.
I liked your photo set of the trail.
For that plant you can't ID I suspect it is Maianthemum dilatatum
I added a comment to the photo.
Try this for more about it;
http://www.paghat.com/maianthemum.html