All The Gear Changes I Made During My Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike in 2021 | Tent, Backpack, Stove...

this is the video where i'm gonna go over all of the gear changes i made while i was through hiking the et this year so the gear that i had when i started in february is very different from the gear i finished the trail with on katahdin in june and i'm gonna go over what those gear changes are and a little bit about why i made those changes when i had my gear list right before i started the trail i thought the gear was perfect i spent so much time of putting that list together and a lot of money buying the gear and i looked at it i was like this is the gear that's going to get me to katahdin why would i change any of it it works perfect for me and yeah that gear probably would have gotten me to katahdin just fine but while i was through hiking i just thought about gear all the time i love gear i love thinking about gear and buying gear and trying out new things so that's what i did so maybe me talking about these gear changes will help you guys decide what you could take on your thru hike and what would work best for you but this is just my gear and my experience with my gear so i'm happy to share that information i'm gonna start off talking about my backpacks which i feel like i talked about my backpacks a lot so i'll just go over these real quick i started the trail with the zpex arc air 50. and i really loved it it is a framed backpack it has these two metal rods in the back that are curved and kind of curve the backpack away from your back and there's a lot of airflow that goes in it was really comfortable when i started the trail but it did get a lot of wear and tear um pretty fast the metal rods that arc the backpack away from you would pop out occasionally and every time i would put the metal rods back in they'd pop out easier the next time and i don't know if i was doing it right or wrong but it did get pretty frustrating so i decided to get rid of this backpack and try something else so i actually ordered the z packs nero while i was through hiking but when i ordered it i thought it would be my summer backpack after my through hike so when i was doing quick overnight trips in new hampshire this summer i thought this would be the backpack i would take never thought i would through hike with it but when the other backpack was frustrating me a lot i decided to give this one a go it's really lightweight it's like 10 ounces it's only 38 liters but at that point my gear is narrowed down and it did fit in this but the only problem is it's not rated to carry the amount of weight that i was putting in it so my base weight was probably like 13 pounds and this is rated for like a 5 pound base weight so it was a really cool backpack but it wasn't comfortable all the time so i ended up getting rid of this too so this is the brand new backpack i got and what i finished the trail with it's the hyper light junction 2400 and i didn't get this until maine but i really wish i had this for more of my through hike because it's lightweight not as lightweight as the other two options but it carries the gear and the weight so comfortably and just the back i really loved i thought it has an internal frame you don't see any of the metal rods or that stuff on the outside i think it's on the inside but just like the really thick hip belt and like waist part of this was really comfortable the straps were comfortable and it just fit my body really well and carried my gear comfortably but yeah all three backpacks kind of have the same style they're really minimal lightweight and have like the big mesh pocket on the front so that's the kind of style i like but this was just the most comfortable next gear change that i made that was probably the most asked about because i don't think i ever really explained it in a trail vlog and that's my tent so i started the trail with the zpax duplex it's right here it is an extremely lightweight two-person tent that uses trekking poles to set it up so you don't have to carry tent poles which makes it really light and it's a single wall tent so it doesn't have a separate rain fly and i really loved it because i was good at setting it up it was really lightweight it was really simple and i had it for about half of my through hike and i ended up switching it's in the bag right now i switched to the big agnes tiger wall ul2 so the reason i did this is because i already had the big agnes tent at home and i never used it it's very different it is a well it's still a two-person tent it's not as lightweight so this definitely weighs more and it has tent poles to set it up and it has a separate rain fly so it's like the opposite of the duplex so because this has tent poles it is a semi-freestanding tent whereas the duplex is a non-freestanding tent or a tension tent because you need the trekking poles and you need to stick it out into the ground in order to set it up and the reason why i made this switch is because of the tent stakes so by the time i got to pennsylvania the terrain was so rocky and when i was setting up the duplex i was getting so frustrated trying to tent or get the tent stakes into the ground with all the rocks and i wasn't able to set it up as fast and as easy as i was in the beginning when the ground was a lot more smoother and rock free um so i in that moment of like frustration i was like okay my mom's gonna visit in a couple weeks i want her to bring my semi-freestanding tent because i want some experience with that tent and i don't want to have to worry about getting the tent stakes in the rocks and also because i'm familiar with hiking in new england i know how many campsites here have those wooden tent platforms and i love the platforms they're so convenient to set your tent up and it's just really nice to not be on the ground um and with semi-freestanding tents it is so much easier to get these tents set up on the platform because you don't need to stake it into the ground in order to have it up so those are the two reasons um the terrain was getting rockier and i wanted to set my tent up on the wooden platforms and i know it's possible to set up the duplex on the 10 platforms cody did it but i just wanted things to go as easy smooth and fast as i can because i get so tired and sometimes grumpy at the end of a long hiking day the next gear change i made is my sleeping pad so i started the trail with this inflatable sleeping pad from therm-a-rest it's the neo-air x-lite and i started with this because it's really comfortable but it's also warm so starting in february i needed a sleeping pad with a good r value and this is lightweight for what you get out of it when it was warming up i wanted to try this sleeping pad which is just a foam pad i just wanted experience on it again i had this at home but never really used it much and i wanted to see if i could have a good night's sleep with a foam pad so my mom visited i swapped this out for one night when she was there i tested it out had a good night's sleep so i kept using it i also really liked the foam pad because it was really fast setting it up you didn't have to blow it up you could just kind of like open it up and lay it in the tent and also it was a really good sit pad for breaks um if you wanted to lay down in the middle of the day you can take a little dirt nap on this and it was just really convenient and i didn't have to sacrifice that much comfort for this because i was still sleeping well but i did end up switching back to the inflatable pad later on in my hike not because the foam pad didn't work out but because when i got the new backpack when i got the z packs nero it didn't have the kind of attachment at the bottom to hold the foam pad like my last backpack did i kind of added this temporarily right now to see if i could do it but i was carrying the foam pad underneath my backpack and that's how i liked carrying it and i just couldn't do that with my new backpack so i had my mom give me this back because it can just go inside the backpack and it was easier to carry this gear change i made was pretty early on in my hike i was still in north carolina but i kind of knew this one was coming and it's my stove i started the trout with this jet boil it's pretty big bulky kind of heavy but it was recommended by a friend and i also thought this was a really good choice for beginners so i've never really done anything with fuel or cooking in the backcountry and that made me nervous even just like lighting a stove with a lighter i didn't like the idea of and with this one you didn't need a lighter just kind of had a button it turned on had this cozy built into it um i know a lot of hikers were making their own koozies i don't know how to pronounce that but i just thought this was like a really good beginner all-in-one stove and it worked out great but once i got really familiar with this i thought i could upgrade to like one of the more classic backpacking stoves on the same time i started the trail jetboil came out with a new product and it's the jetboil stash so it's lighter weight it doesn't have that koozie it doesn't have all the fancy things the bells and whistles that this one does it's definitely more basic so it's more lightweight it takes up less space and it was a little expensive like maybe 120 but i thought this was a great choice for me and i used it the rest of the thru hike and loved it never had any issues just a reminder i will link everything i'm talking about in the description so if you wanted to check it out and read more about it and see the weights of things and the prices of things you can open up the description and click the links and learn more so nothing's sponsored in this video this is just what i used scare change i definitely expected to happen because obviously the weather warms up between february and june so that's my sleep close i started the trail with really heavy weight smart wool 250 base layer like the warmest sleep clothes i could probably find on i think i got these on backcountry.com and you pack your fears when you're getting ready for a through hike and i absolutely did not want to be cold when i slept so i had very heavy sleep clothes so once i felt more comfortable sleeping um in warmer weather i swapped it out for a much lightweight option these were pants from eastern mountain sports just like really lightweight polyester pants and just a really light long sleeve shirt from virgin outdoors which is a company from lincoln new hampshire so it's nice and local while we're on the topic of clothing there's a couple more changes i made to that system along the way and one is my hiking shirt so i started the trail with a shirt from my gift shop it's kind of like an athletic moisture wicking t-shirt it said new hampshire across it i thought it was really cool but i did want to upgrade to something that was actually meant for hiking and long distance backpacking so i picked this up at cabela's it's a columbia shirt i really wanted like the button up the more breathability and i more more than anything i wanted a tank top because i had a wedding in a week and i wanted to get rid of my um sleeve farmer's tan line so i switched to this and absolutely loved it and then hiked the rest of the trail in this tank top i am absolutely loving this new shirt i have on today and a big gear change i made i kind of forgot because it happened at mile 30 of my thru hike so this was like a really long time ago but i swapped out my shoes i started with ultra lone peaks and i had some foot issues not quite sure never really figured out if they were related to my shoe but i did switch at mountain crossings i tried on a couple different shoes and found that the saucony peregrine 11s were the most comfortable for me so i switched to the saucony's at mile 30 and continued the rest of the trail with that brand and model of shoe but i did go through four pairs of four pairs of that same shoe so i kept reordering them off of amazon this next scare change might seem small to you but it played a big role in my hike um it saved me from a lot of pain and that's powder so the gold bond powder which i started the trail with i don't have a bottle with me because i don't use it anymore i'd use it to prevent chafing um i'll put a picture of what i used right here so you know what i'm talking about but i think there was a place where i couldn't find that and i just picked up normal baby powder and that worked so much better it was just more soothing and felt nicer and this is what i have i have a big bottle right here i'd get a big bottle and just kind of pour it into the travel size ones but this was just so much nicer it worked so much better so i'm not using gold bond powder anymore i'm just using like the johnsons so i always line my backpack with a pack liner and that's just to prevent water from getting on anything that you don't want to get wet in bad weather i started the trail with just a clear bag a plastic bag from gossamer gear it was really cheap it's kind of like i don't know a ziploc bag material it's nicer than like a trash bag but not as nice as like an actual bag that you get from a company um like this this is what i actually ended up picking up later on in my hike in new england it's just a pack liner from osprey and i switched to this just for the durability um i sometimes when i had my pack liner and i'd roll it up and like compress all the air out my thumb if like i pressed too hard my thumb could just like go through the plastic bag and that happened a couple of times and once you get a hole in your pack liner it's kind of not worth it anymore it doesn't work so there's no way that you can like when you're compressing this in your bag that you can like poke a hole through it so i switched to this it's a little bit heavier but it is safer i also swapped out my rain pants on my through hike i started with these kind of like heavy duty rei rain pants and i really like starting with these because not only is it going to protect you from rain but like cold and wind and again i was nervous being cold starting in february so i really liked this like heavy layer and i thought i would be hiking through snow because if you start in february there's a good chance that you will experience snow and there were hikers that started like a week or two um before me and they have like three feet of snow in the smokies so if you're going to be hiking through snow you definitely want to protect yourself um as much as you can so i started with these but i didn't experience snow or like rain that bad so i think i got rid of these for a little bit and i eventually switched to these rain pants from z packs they are super expensive but they are also super lightweight and to be honest i picked these up in new england and actually never wore them because by the time i was up there it was so warm that when it did rain i'd usually just wear my shorts and just let them get wet because i wasn't ever cold when it rained so i always had these in my pack just in case i think i wore them like a couple times around camp to just kind of like keep the warmth in when the sun went down but yeah i can't really review these because i didn't use them that much and i never used them in rain so it saved a lot of weight but i guess i i didn't need them back to clothing for a little bit because i forgot about this this is my melons on a hoodie and i started the trail with this and it was good um when it got really cold in the beginning but it warmed up really fast and i ended up getting rid of this in pennsylvania because i found myself every time i was getting cold i was just putting my puffy jacket on and i wasn't using this as much as i thought i would i'd get rid of the melon zana but i also picked up this hoodie um which is much lighter weight i thought it was better for the summer it does block the sun so i think like you pf blocking i don't know the technical word but when i wore this when it was like really hot and sunny i didn't get too overheated so i really liked this and it was just a nice hoodie to have kind of like in town and at camp and it was just a lot more comfortable in the warmer months than the melon sauna was so i got rid of the melee but i did switch to this and i really liked it and because i switched to this i also got rid of that long sleeve black hiking shirt so i swapped out two pieces of gear for this one piece of gear which saved weight and that's always a good thing the next piece of gear is pretty minor but it's my earbuds i started with the galaxy earbuds and i picked those because i have a galaxy phone and thought they would work really well together but jaybird reached out and asked if i wanted to try out their new vista 2 earbuds and i agreed and i ended up loving them and i ended up doing some sponsored content for them and thought they were really great so so i did pick up this fanny pack during my through hike and that's mostly because when i had my nero it didn't come with hip belt pockets and i need to be able to access my snacks while i'm hiking without taking my backpack off so i got this to hold my snacks and a couple little things like my earbuds and my headlamp so it's really convenient but then when i got the hyper light i got my pockets back and i ditched this and that's all the major gear changes i could think of that i made while i was through hiking the at this year i hope this answered some of your questions that you might have had or maybe helped you make a decision on what you want to take on a future backpacking trip so i'll leave it at that i don't want this video to get too long again links for everything are in the description of this video there are a couple more gear videos i want to make about what i used on the at um so i have a couple in mind but if you have any specific suggestions leave those in the comments and hope you enjoyed um it's my birthday so i'm gonna go and do some celebrating and have a good day bye

Channel: Taylor the Nahamsha Hiker

Views: 37,884

Keywords: appalachian trail, gear list, backpacking gear, lightweight, ultralight, zpacks, big agnes, backpacking tent, hyperlite mountain gear, arc air, zpacks nero, backpacking backpack, lightweight gear, appalachian trail gear list, appalachian trail gear, taylor the nahamsha hiker

Id: JhYjdleUYLQ

Length: 19min 10sec (1150 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021