Awsome trip, I'm definitely jealous.

I'm waiting for an Express pack, two water bottle sized side pockets, GPS pouch, the E&E, and various internal pockets. The wait is driving me crazy, but it's taken a little longer because I'm having some PALS sewn inside the top and bottom zipper flaps so when I open it - voila - organized pockets. The E&E will be used as a piggybacked back pouch to carry minimum essentials, and can pop it off for day hike use (or to lighten the load in case I have to run full bore through a forest at night from a bear that might or might not be chasing me, and it should be water resistant enough so I can jump off a freaking high cliff into hypothermic inducing snow melt river like I learned on "Secrets to Survival", but I digress).

Even though it's a smaller pack, you've got me a bit concerned about the weight. I'm planning on compressing it down and using as carry on luggage so as to not be totally screwed if check-in goes missing. Guess I'll have to figure that out when it gets here. Should be any day now, Express packs were sewn last week. I'll give a review after I've had a chance to try it out.