Help me choose a camera to hike 2000+ miles

[Greg Y]

Corran,
my plan is to attempt to document the experience of thruhiking one of america's scenic trails—not so much create a work of landscape photographs though of course I'll make some along the way—but moreso to try and capture the human experience of the trail. Lot's of portraits, environmental and otherwise.

Superman, you've had lots of great advice here. Your statement here really does point more in the direction of a medium rather than large format camera. With LF, besides the extra weight and technical problems you'd lose much of the spontaneity involved in photographing the "human experience of the trail." As far as cameras themselves, a Pentax 67 would be like carrying a kettlebell. They're big and unwieldy and depend on batteries. The Mamiya 6 & 7 also are electronic and battery dependent. I think your best choice is one of the mechanical cameras Rolleiflex, Plaubel Makina, or Fuji GW67,8,9. Your choice. Stunning large prints can be made from any 6x6, 6x7,6x8,6x9 neqatives.