Backpacking Basics: Everything You Need To Know To Start Backpacking

hey y'all Dixie here you're about to watch a collective video of a series that I did several months back that was more or less a backpacking 101 and spanned out over a period of two weeks but I wanted to have it all compiled in one place where a complete beginner could watch because sometimes when you're beginning you don't even know what to search for you don't even know what you don't know if you are looking for a particular topic though you can find timestamps in the video description and also in the comments section below there will be a pin comment so this encompasses everything I feel a person needs to know when they're just getting into backpacking starting with the ten essentials of hiking which is important for folks who are just at the day hiking stage and haven't even gone on their first overnight anyway thank you all for watching the ten essentials are ten survival items that hiking and scouting groups have put into a list and are recommended for safe travel in the wilderness without further delay the ten essentials of backpacking are number one navigation it's always a good idea to have a topo map of the area that you're gonna be hiking or backpacking and a compass but if you're gonna carry those things you need to know how to use them if you live near an aria sometimes they offer basic navigation courses or you can always check with your local outfitter of course it's better to learn a skill like that in person but you can check out the plethora of online videos on how to use a map and compass to navigate what today's technology it's not a bad idea to also carry a handheld GPS during my through hikes I used my phone as my GPS along with the gut hook app on the phone it has a ton of information including topo maps elevation profiles town stops all sorts of stuff for a lot of the long distance trails in the US including the ATP CT and CDT and more and it also has trails in other countries like the ta in New Zealand number two is sun protection not only do you need to protect your skin but also your eyes if you're going to be spending a lot of time in exposed areas or especially in areas where there's snow that will be reflecting the sunlight you want to make sure that you have a good pair of sunglasses long-sleeve shirts that are well ventilated and pants will help protect your skin from the Sun along with sunscreen sunglasses and trekking poles number three is insulation you want to have a ways to keep your body warm even if you're not planning to stay out for the night because you never know when a trip could take longer than planned or you could end up getting lost and have to spend a night out in the woods so think base layers warm jacket gloves a hat to keep your head warm and some sort of rain gear or waterproof layer number four is illumination I know that most cellphones have a flashlight feature but you really want to think about taking something else it's gonna last longer especially if you're also using your phone for navigation or you're frantically searching for service so it's a good idea to have a headlamp or some other forms of light number 5 is first aid supplies you should familiarize yourself with common injuries of hiking and backpacking and it's recommended that you have the minimal amount of first aid supplies to cover those common basic injuries for more serious injuries that might cause you to need to be evacuated it's a good idea to have a personal locator beacon a spot device in reach or some form of communication even if you don't have cell service number 6 is fire a ladder is the most commonly used source of creating fire on trail but having some sort of backup fire starter like matches in a waterproof container is recommended number 7 is repair kit and tools this is going to be more specific to the individual depending on what kind of gear they're taking with them but having a knife multi-tool superglue duct tape and I always carry a needle with floss to repair my gear in case my pack gets torn open but again you should carry along whatever you think you might need to repair what you're using in the field number eight is nutrition it's recommended that you have an additional day of extra food just in case your trip takes longer than you're planning now if you're going on a day hike this doesn't mean that you have to carry a stove and several backpacking meals if you're gonna carry some snacks for your one day hike just double that so in case you're out there longer you've got an extra day of food number nine is hydration before you go out to a trail to hack or backpack you should scout out what types of water sources will be out there those apps will help with this but also there are a lot of forums online that you can check out where people put all sorts of information for a particular trail if there are reliable sources where you're gonna be backpacking it's still a good idea to carry some water with you but make sure that you have some way to treat that water whether it's filtration or a chemical treatment you just want to know that you're drinking water that's safe number 10 is an emergency shelter this can be a tarp a bivy an emergency space blanket or even a jumbo trash bag just something that if you needed to in an emergency you could create some sort of makeshift shelter and those are the ten essentials of hiking again this is just a baseline everyone's needs are gonna be a little different some people may want to carry additional things for the certain terrain or temperatures that they're gonna be in but it's a good place to start now let's talk about shelters first let's go over tents because they're the most commonly used on trail and I feel like they have the best weight - price - ease of setting up ratio some of the benefits of using a tent are one they are pretty roomy compared to other backpacking shelters so I like to be able to set up my tent crawl inside and just spread my gear out everywhere I like having that extra space to keep my gear in especially if it's raining outside because with some of the other shelters you may have to keep your pack and other things outside and try to waterproof them but with the tent most of the time even in a one-person tent you're gonna have enough room to squeeze in your pack and the rest of your gear also if it's raining and you have a tent that has a vestibule it's nice to be able to cook inside that vestibule so you're not having to worry about trying to cook out in the rain and then get inside of your shelter and initially I feel like tints are the easiest type of shelters to set up so they require the least skill you pretty much pull it out of the box read the instructions and set it up there are drawbacks to each type of backpacking shelter and tents are no exception so with the tent you have to kind of make sure that you've got flat-ish ground I have certainly set up on some ground that is not ideal for tinting and then I end up surfing all night so my sleeping pad slides or you know I've got a big root in my back or things like that see kind of want to make sure that you have a relatively flat clear spot for a tent and even if you find a nice beautiful flat spot the ground still isn't always comfortable especially if you're a side sleeper like me your hip can kind of tend to dig in the ground even with an inflatable sleeping pad although those do help a lot and finally a tents are a little bit heavier than some of your more minimalistic options like a tarp one of the main things I look for in a backpacking tent is the weight because with any of these shelters when you're having to tote something from point A to point B you obviously want it to be functional but as light as possible so what I target with a backpacking tent is anything under three pounds there are some more traditional or you know old-fashioned backpacking tents that can weigh around five pounds or maybe even more but with the technology today even if you're on a tight budget you can usually find something for around three pounds or less that isn't going to completely break the bank I prefer to go with a three season tent you'll either see three season tents or four season tents if you're just starting out chances are you're not going to be backpacking in the heart of winter so a three season tent will generally be ladder and will cover you for what you need in the spring summer and fall if you're gonna be backpacking alone like I do I go with a one to two person tent I prefer the two-person because usually for not that much more weight you get a decent amount of extra room again to spread your stuff out or roll around you know whatever you want to do in your tent and then the final thing I look at is the vestibule slash door situation so I definitely want a tent that has a vestibule because as I mentioned before on rainy days I like to be able to cook in the vestibule also it just gives you room if you wanted to put something out there for some reason and have it not get wet while it's raining now if you're a couple that's going to go backpacking together I recommend having a tent that has two doors one on either side and two vestibules one on either side because I have used the backpacking tents before that sleep two people but only has one door and one vestibule on an and I feel like you're just gonna disturb your partner more getting up and going pee in the middle of the night also if you're both trying to cook in the vestibule things can get a little tight with the elbows and stuff so I just think that's something to look for if you're gonna have two people in one tent together another variety that you'll see among tents is that some of them are freestanding some of them are what I call semi freestanding and then there are non freestanding Tain's a freestanding tent is a tent that stands alone without staking now of course it could still blow away and heavy win but it sets up and basically supports itself with its own designated tent poles the good thing about these tents is that if you're setting up on something like solid rock or extremely loose sand that you don't have to worry about you know having to stake it down for it to be rigid and for it to be taut now the issue is these tints are generally a little bit heavier because they're more sturdily built so it might be hard to find one that's three pounds or less and then also a lot of these don't have vestibules you can purchase a vestibule sometimes to attach to one but then you're adding weight on an already not lightweight tent an example of a sub 3 pound freestanding tent though is the black diamond first light to person next up is the semi freestanding tent basically the body of the tent to the part that's gonna have like the mesh and the part that you actually physically sleep inside of sets up with designated tent poles and that part is freestanding now the rain fly which goes over it and usually creates the vestibule on the tent will have to be staked out so I guess the negative side to this is that you will have to use stakes to set this up properly especially if you're gonna be in a rainstorm some examples of the semi free-standing tents that I have used are the Big Agnes Fly Creek ul 2 that I used on my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and then in Washington on the Pacific Crest Trail I use the Nemo Hornet one-person and next up is the non freestanding tent with these tents they require guidelines and stakes and usually either trekking poles or loons getting a bond but they do not typically have a designated set of tent poles which saves a lot of weight if you want to learn more about trekking poles I have a video that covers them in detail on the channel but trekking poles aren't a necessity for backpacking it's just that most people do use them especially for longer trips so even though non freestanding tents are typically set up using trekking poles most manufacturers have the option to buy dedicated poles for those specific tips I did notice when I used my first non freestanding tent that they do initially take a little more skill to set up but once you get the hang of it it's just as easy as anything else an example of a non freestanding tent is the Z packs duplex that I used on most of my PCT through hike and my CDT through hot the next thing to consider is whether you want a double wall tent or a single Walton so what I mean by double wall tent is you have the mesh body of your tent and then you have the rain fly over the top of it so that's one wall to walls one of the things I really liked about having a double wall tent was being able to just sleep in the mesh body part and look up at the sky and see the stars if it wasn't a rainy night and I still had protection from bugs also the double wall tents are pretty well ventilated because the condensation that comes from your body and the moisture and air and all of that will collect on the rain fly of the tent and then run down to the ground rather than collecting on the inside of the tent you know on the only wall and then being a problem if you brush up against the side of the tent now all tents are gonna have some kind of condensation but double walled tents just do a little bit better with that another benefit of a double wall tent is that they are typically a little bit warmer on the inside they keep you more insulated and I kind of did an experiment with this not intentionally on the CDT Aaron perk and I were all camped out in the same area and Aaron and I both had single wall tents well perc had a double Walton and it got surprisingly cold that night and all of us slept with our water filter outside of our sleeping bag because we just weren't expecting the temperatures to dip down low so we didn't and Aaron's filter froze and my filter froze but perks filter did not freeze there are a lot of variables that could be considered in this you know maybe perk produces more heat or maybe that one certain spot the park was that was magically a little bit warmer but you know I really do think that the fact that he had a double Walton and we both had single Waltons did play into them they do tend to run a little heavier than a single Walton made out of the same material because there is more material and then also I find that the double walled tents take a little longer to set up because you're putting up two separate pieces rather than one piece you know all together at once and in the rain if you set up the mesh body and then you have to take the time to pull out the rain fly and throw it over in my mind they can get a little bit more water on the inside while you're setting up then a single wall tent that is made out of a waterproof material that just goes up and you're not really having the floor of the tent exposed as much most double walled tints are made out of nylon or polyester nylon is typically stronger and a little heavier than the polyester but that means it can sag a little more and collect more water and heavy rains you may also see tents made out of something like silh nylon or still poly which just means it's nylon and polyester that is impregnated with silicon single wall tents are basically constructed so that the mesh part and the rainfly are just all together in one piece so in general with having just the single wall less material means less weight also because they usually set up with trekking poles you're gonna save weight of designated tent poles and as I mentioned before I think that they're a little bit better for setting up in the rain now the negative aspects of a single wall tent is you're gonna deal with more condensation because you don't have that mesh barrier and then the rain fly where the condensation can collect but you can mitigate this a little bit sometimes even if you're not having a heavy rain but just a light rain or you're sleeping somewhere that feels a little more damp you can leave one of your vestibule doors open for some added ventilation and then you just have to be mindful when you're in the tent not to rub up all against the wall where the condensation is collecting also as I mentioned before they can be a little cooler in cold weather and then because they're less ventilated they can also be a little warmer and hotter weather and also you really can't look at the stars like you can in a double wall tint where you just leave the rain fly off I mean yes you can leave the door open and kind of lean out and look but there was a specific meteor shower on the CDT where I was really wishing I could have that double walled tent I open the vestibule and you know kind of laid to where I could see out but it just wasn't the same as sleeping in the mesh part of the double wall tent with the rain fly off single wall tits can be made out of the same materials as double walled tents but the most lightweight option is going to be Cuban fiber known also as Dyneema this material is strong it is waterproof it is very lightweight and it is also extremely expensive one final thing to keep in mind about using a tent is that some tents require a footprint to protect the bottom of the tent if your tent does require a footprint the manufacturer will definitely let you know because of course they want to sell you some other piece of equipment now you can use the footprint that is made specifically for your tent if it if it is suggested that you use the footprint or you can use a piece of Tyvek which is going to be a little bit lighter and probably the lightest option for a ground cloth is going to be poly cryo plastic and you can just shape the ground cloth to where it will go under your tent you want to make sure that it does not stick out past your tip because then if it gets rained on water will collect between the ground cloth and your tent and you will probably find yourself in a swimming pool of water not only will the Tyvek or poly cryo options be a little more lightweight but they will also probably be cheaper than a designated footprint that sold specifically for a tent just a quick word on tent stakes I've used everything from a heavier tent state to an extremely lightweight tent stake and really I've used both in windy conditions in hard ground I've set up on a rock slab you can use whatever you're comfortable with so if you want to go with a heavier larger tent state to make sure that your tent is really anchored down well that's fine me personally I go with a very lightweight hook like steak from Z packs I'll put a link to that in the video description if you'd like to check those out but I found that even in very windy conditions or if I'm setting up on a rock slab like I mentioned before I have found ways for like four to five thousand miles to make those very lightweight tent stakes work and that's usually by taking some care when I put the steak into the ground you know making sure that I'm not just like killing it with a rock and and hammering it into another rock and bending it you know I'm just very careful when I put it in the ground and if I for some reason can't get it into the ground then I just lay it down and stack rocks on top of it but if you're not comfortable yet with using a lightweight stake then go with the heavier ones you have to do what works for you next up I want to talk about tarps tarps are a more minimalistic version of a tent basically so they're going to be made usually out of the same types of materials but because there is a lot less fabric you're going to have a more lightweight option most people who use a tarp are going to use some sort of ground cloth under their sleeping pad to again help with moisture and to kind of keep all of their stuff out of the dirt and also to protect their sleeping pad from anything that could poke a hole into it if they're using an inflatable sleeping pad tarps can set up being tied to trees or with branches also you can use trekking poles there is a lot of versatility with a tarp but with having that versatility there's also some need for skill so this is not something that you want to learn how to use in the middle of a rainstorm there are so many ways to set up a tarp that I'm not going to delve off into that today because I could talk for hours and you could probably still suggest a different way what I would do is if you're interested in learning to backpack with the tarp is to check out some of the ways that other people have preferred to set up their tarps and then see what works best for you some of the benefits of using a tarp again are how lightweight they are the versatility of them you can get some pretty good views you also get to be you know more one with nature there is a ton of inhalation and also a tarp can act as a quick cover for quite a few people in a rainstorm if necessary some of the cons of using a tarp as your backpacking shelter might be less protection from bugs less privacy if you're in a well populated camping area sometimes you might want a break from nature you know where a tent kind of gives you this little haven where you feel like you're in a little den a tarp is not going to provide you with that feeling quite as much as a tent well you're gonna have less protection from the elements and again it requires a little more skill than a tent and you're probably gonna need to familiarize yourself with some knots which isn't necessarily a negative thing because that's always a good skill to have there is kind of an extreme option in the world of tarping and that is the poncho tarp now I think that this is really very efficient because you have your rain gear and shelter all in one so it definitely saves a lot of weight but with this you're gonna have even less protection from the elements I think that it would be an okay idea for somebody who already has like normal-sized tarping experience it's also a shelter that I think you have to be willing to kind of work with so if it's extremely windy and rainy and you're up on a ridge then you're probably not going to want to stop and use this as your shelter so you're gonna have to be willing to put in longer days to find the right conditions and the right setting for something like this if you want your shelter to be something that you kind of enjoyed chilling out in at camp then the poncho tarp might not be for you one way to get a bit more protection if you're going to use a tarp especially the poncho tarp is to have a lightweight water-resistant Bibby this will give you more protection from the elements also from bugs it's gonna minimize drafts add some warps to your bag and also protect your bag or quilt from backsplash so when it's raining and it hits the dirt and then splashes back onto you this will kind of help keep you from getting soaked that way a lot of these lightweight babies will have a waterproof bottom so you could eliminate the ground cloth if you wanted to also there are the traditional variety of bivi bag so these are the ones that act as stand-alone shelter and are also very minimalistic so you have this bag that's waterproof and covers your sleeping system and then has a hoop to keep the bag from laying on your face while you sleep at night some of the benefits of using a traditional bivi bag as your shelter is that they can be lightweight they're still going to protect you from mosquitoes and the elements but the flipside of that is these bivy bags are pretty confined so you might deal with some condensation issues also I personally would feel kind of claustrophobic in like a coffin like the shelter and because they're so small you're probably not going to have space to put your gear inside the shelter so it's gonna be the situation where you kind of have to waterproof your gear and set it outside now an option for that is if you line your pack with a compactor bag then you can just put the pack inside that compactor bag and roll it up and whatever here you want inside there to be protected if it were to rain outside well that is it for all of our ground-dwelling shelters and next up we have hammocks the hammock community is ever increasing in size as time goes on and I have had a lot of people tell me that their favorite thing about sleeping in a hammock is how comfortable the hammocks are and how well they sleep at night in fact I've had a lot of people say that they thought that they were never going to be able to backpack again because sleeping on the ground just wasn't an option for them anymore because of a bad back but after discovering hammock camping then they were able to start backpacking again other than the comfort of sleeping it's also nice to have a hammock after a long day of backpacking that you can just set up and lounge in at camp it's very convenient to have a hammock in an area that's extremely rocky or Rudy as long as you have some trees to set up in because it doesn't matter what the ground is like you're gonna be hanging out in the trees anyway but on the negative aspect side of things you do have to have trees to be able to set up your hammock you're also not going to be able to spread out as much as you would in a tent if you have a hammock and then there is going to be a little less privacy associated with a hammock than with the tent you got to make sure that your booty ain't hanging for everyone to see you while you're changing clothes it's a little more difficult than say with tents or tarp to reduce the weight while still protecting yourself properly from the elements the reason I say it's difficult to decrease the overall weight of a hammock setup is there are a lot of components to this type of system you'll have the hammock itself and then some sort of suspension system whether that straps or cords and then you've got to have a tarp or rain fly to protect you from the rain potentially some bug netting to keep the mosquitoes and flies out and then an over quilt and or under quilt depending on how low you should expect the temperatures to be now when it's warm enough some folks might use just the hammock and a foam pad but you have to keep in mind that in a hammock because you're hanging up and there might be drafts of wind coming under you you won't have that insulation from the ground to help keep you warm some time exsistence are sold as a one-piece type deal that covers all your needs and then there are others where you can piece them together separately if you choose like with tarps it's gonna take a little bit more skill to set up a hammock when you do something over and over you're gonna get it more efficient at it I started out my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail with a very heavy and cheap hammock set up I had no prior experience so the whole needing a little bit of skill thing I was definitely lacking in that but I think that I'm gonna give it another go I've had a lot of folks say you know you should try it again don't knock it until you try it properly so pretty soon here in the future I am going to purchase a proper hammock set up give it a spin for a couple of days and I will record that and let y'all know how it goes kind of doing some research right now on what option I want to get so if any of you hammock errs have some suggestions please feel free to leave those in the comments below I've always heard that the ultimate hang is a great resource if you want to learn more about hammock camping and they have an updated version the ultimate hang - available now so I will put that in the video description if you want to check it out for those of y'all who are just getting into backpacking I know that this was a lot of information all at once to think about backpacking shelters but just as a summary if you're looking for something that's relatively simple and light and then you might want to opt for a tent if you're looking for something that's more minimalistic and as lightweight as possible and you don't mind it requiring a little more skill then you might opt for a tarp and finally if you're truly looking for the best way to be comfortable while backpacking and to get the best sleep at night then you might want to try out a hammock just like with all backpacking gear your shelters gonna boil down to personal preference next up our sleep systems first let's cover sleeping bags there gonna be a lot of different options a lot of variety when you're choosing a sleeping bag the first thing that you want to look at is the shape of the sleeping bag most people use mummy bags for backpacking you can also get the more traditional rectangular sleeping bag but mummy bags are designed to cut material which will save you weight because the less weight on your back the better as long as you're still using something that's comfortable and functional because mummy bags are more form-fitting there's less space to heat up so you're generally gonna stay warmer at night now there are some people who just feel way too claustrophobic in a mummy bag and they'll use rectangular bags but again that's not common and most people just try to get used to the idea of a mummy bag so again that they carry something more lightweight and something that they'll stay warmer in one of the first things I look at when choosing a sleeping bag for backpacking is the weight of the bag most lightweight backpackers aim for a sleep system that's around three pounds so that means your sleeping bag and your sleeping pad so the general rule of thumb is to aim for two pounds or less for your sleeping bag and then a pound or less for your sleeping pad now not everyone has the budget that will allow them to get a sleeping bag that's that lightweight because the lighter the weight usually the more expensive in fact the 23 degree sleeping bag that I carried on the Appalachian Trail weight a little over two pounds but again that's just a general rule of thumb I would definitely say though aim for less than three pounds if you can another thing that you might notice about the shape of some sleeping bags is that some will have hoods and others will be hoodless the idea of the hood is that it keeps your head warm while you sleep and keeps you all cozy down inside your sleeping bag this is nice if you're a back sleeper but if you're like me and you tend to toss and turn in the middle of the night and go from your side to your stomach you might find yourself feeling somewhat suffocated by the hood because it can flip around and cover your face I woke up several nights like oh where's the opening I can't breathe and on the PCT and CDTI opted for a hoodless sleeping bag because one I didn't want to feel suffocated anymore at night and two it was a way to save weight I just kind of felt like I didn't need all of that extra material of the hood to stay warm and instead I opted to sleep with a beanie on my head or use the hood of my puffy coat you know if I wore my puffy coat to sleep at night and also they sell down hoods separately so you could always opt for that and still save weight of the whole hood contraption attached to a sleeping bag next let's talk about down versus synthetic now when you hear somebody ask hey is your sleeping bag a down bag or a synthetic bag what they're referring to is the filler inside the sleeping bag down is very lightweight and it's very compressible so it's not going to take up as much space as a synthetic bag would inside your pack also it's long lasting if treated properly and it has a higher weight to warmth ratio than synthetic materials one of the negative aspects of using down is that when wet down loses its insulating properties so that could be troublesome if you're out in the middle of a several day stretch and that has been one of the major concerns of backpackers over time with using down bags so you do have to be careful not to get it wet they do however have treated down now so it's more water repellent or more water resistant but if you get a full-on soaking you know it's it's not really gonna help you that much but as far as dealing with condensation or just dampness it does help also when down gets wet it does take a while to dry because it tends to get clumpy so you really have to work with it this does mean that it can be more intensive to wash so you do have to have a front-loading washer to wash it down bag you have to use special detergent that won't strip the down of its natural oils and then when you dry it some manufacturers say that you can put it in a dryer but some say that it needs to be air dried and that you have to separate the clumps as it's drying it's not as easy to wash as a synthetic bag down is generally more expensive and then also if your bag gets holes you'll notice little feathers sneaking out here and there with a synthetic bag if you get a hole you can usually worry about patching it later if you do decide to go with a synthetic bag they are usually a lot cheaper than down bags and they do maintain some of their insulating properties when wet but even if your synthetic bag does get soaked I don't know that it's a good idea to continue laying inside of it if it's freezing cold outside because of hypothermia be warned that synthetic bags are very heavy and bulky compared to down bags they don't last as long so the life of your synthetic bag isn't going to be as long as a Down bag and that's something to consider in the cost aspect when you have a Down bag if you treat it well you're gonna maintain 90% of the loft for up to 30 years but with a synthetic bag you might maintain 90% of the warmth for about 10 years so with every option of backpacking gear there are always pros and cons but I will say that most backpackers opt for down bags because they're so lightweight compact and they do last a long time if you treat them properly if you decide to go with down you might notice something called fill power while you're shopping for a bag maybe you'll see 700 fill or 900 fill and what this means is that if you were to take the down that's in that bag and put it in a cylinder whatever that number is that's how much volume in cubic inches the down would take up in space so in other words if you were to take 700 fill power down and dump it in a big cylinder it would take up 700 cubic inches of volume so the higher the fill number the more lofty or fluffy and also the higher the warmth to weight ratio next let's talk about temperature rating I remember when I was picking out my sleeping bag for the 80 PCT and even on the CDT I wondered what temperature rating do I need from a sleeping bag so that I'm comfortable when I sleep at night and if you're wondering the same thing the best answer for that is it depends and I know people hate that answer but it's really true it's gonna depend are you a warm sleeper or a cold sleeper what kind of weather are you gonna be in what kind of clothes are you sleeping in do you have a warm sleeping pad it all of these factors that go into a sleep system so the temperature rating of your sleeping bag just plays one part in this whole thing and then comes the issue of how do you know if all temperature ratings of different manufacturers are created equal prior to 2005 there was no real standard that sleeping bags were tested by there is a standard today but not all manufacturers go by it but there does exist one and it's called the en / ISO standard and the way that this works is there are three ranges of temperature there's the comfortable range where an average woman would be comfortable sleeping not in a fetal position but you know in a normal relaxed position in the sleeping bag then there's the transition range and this range is where an average man would kind of be fighting the cold in this temperature range he'll be kind of curled up but he's not shivering or uncomfortably cold but you know he is kind of curled up and and is more or less you know okay at that temperature and then there's the extreme or a risk range where really you should not be in that sleeping bag unless it's like a survival situation and that's really all that you have because at that point there is a risk of hypothermia the reason that these ranges exist is because not everyone's going to be comfortable at a certain one number because again there are so many factors that play into this so the rating of the bag is something to definitely be mindful of when you see that number you need to know if the rating is 20 degrees am I going to be comfortable at 20 degrees are you saying I will just survive at 20 degrees and if you talk to the manufacturer look on the website a lot of times in the frequently asked questions if they don't directly go by that Ian / ISO standard then they can give you some kind of relation based on feedback from people or their own testing that they've done so if you have an idea of exactly what that temperature rating means I also encourage you to do additional research so read reviews on what people have to say with their experience with a certain bag maybe they will tell you hey I'm a cold sleeper but I was warm in these temperatures in this certain temperature rating bag you can read blogs and find this information and also there are a lot of groups and forms on Facebook including my the homemade wanderlust backpacking forum there are a lot of people in there that have a ton of experience backpacking and might be similar to you in the way that you sleep and if you post in there a question about a specific sleeping bag somebody in there might have some feedback that it could help you realize yes this bag will work for me or no it will not and one more thing that I want to say about temperature rating of bags is that five degrees to 29 degrees is usually the typical range for what is considered a three season bag and both of the bags that I used on my through hacks have been in that range on the 80 I had a 23 degree sleeping bag and then on the PCT and CDT I used a 10 degree sleeping bag and finally just a note on the outer materials of the sleeping bag so not the fill but the material itself you'll notice that most sleeping bags are made of nylon or polyester and you might notice a number with the letter D next to it which stands for denier and that's just thickness of the threading and water resistance ties into that also so most ultralight backpacking sleeping bags are going to be anywhere from 10 to 20 D and that just means that the 20 D is gonna be a little bit more durable and again water-resistant than the 10 D this is not really something to stress over or not necessarily a deciding factor when I choose my sleeping bags but I just wanted to mention it so if you see it while you're doing some sleeping bag shopping you'll understand what it means now let's talk about quilts they're becoming more and more popular in the backpacking community because they're generally more lightweight and usually a little bit cheaper too so you can think of a quilt as basically like a sleeping bag but has less material and no zipper if you think about when you're lying down on your back in a sleeping bag you're usually compressing the down behind you so it's not really insulating your bag so the idea with the quilt is to remove that unnecessary material from the back and usually they use straps to strap around your sleeping pad that way it prevents any drafts from getting in while you're trying to sleep and I have been cautioned that if you're a side sleeper you really need to make sure that the quilt is wide enough to wrap around you if you're on your side because it's gonna take a little more material to cover you on your side then if you lay on your back in addition to being more lightweight quilts are usually more packable because again there is less material also they offer more versatility for temperature control while you're sleeping so if you tend to get hot while you're asleep then you can more easily kind of hang a leg out or flop down part of the quilt to keep yourself cool at night I've also heard that quilts are more comfortable if you tend to toss and turn in your sleep because you're not having to worry about where the zipper is on your bag and keeping that under you to trap more heat you're not like squeezed inside of this mummy bag and you know you feel like a little caterpillar trying to turn over it's just more easy to move your body inside of the quilt that's strapped to your sleeping pad quilts are also great for Hamma King just because it's a little more easy to get into the quilt in your hammock instead of the sleeping bag I personally am going to opt for a sewn foot box because that's where you need to worry about trapping some warmth to stay warm at night so me personally I'm gonna opt for that but there are options nother general concern about quilts is that they're supposed to be paired with a sleeping pad so if you use an inflatable sleeping pad and it ends up popping then you could really end up being cold at night if you have to lie directly on the ground but even with a sleeping bag like I was mentioning before you compressed that material under you so you're really not gonna get a whole lot of insulation anyway if you've been hesitant to try a quilt like me but you're interested in potentially making that transition EEE or enlightened equipment apparently has a bag quilt hybrid called the convert and basically it just unzips and can be used like a quilt or it can zip up and be used like a sleeping bag so something to check out if you're interested sleeping pads let's talk about those there are generally three types that you will see when searching for a backpacking sleeping pad and that is a closed cell foam pad a self inflating pad and then your typical inflatable sleeping pad first let's talk about the closed cell foam pads now these things are pretty much bulletproof you'll see them where they either roll up or they fold up accordion style these sleeping pads are real Ehle cheap they run anywhere from like $10 to $50 for a decent closed cell foam pad one of the great things about these sleeping pads is that they're lightweight and you can cut them to size so if you decide I'm gonna prop up my feet on my pack while I sleep at night so I can really cut off the material that goes from my knees to my feet then you can save a lot of weight so you can customize them to be the exact size you want them to be you can typically expect these pads to weigh less than a pound they're great to have if you just want to relax and take a break you don't have to worry about it popping and when I used a foam pad on the Appalachian Trail I always loved this part because I didn't have to sit on the ground and prepare my lunch on the dirt I could just chill out on my closed-cell foam pad and cook my food and it was just nice to be able to throw it down and not really worry about it being destroyed the worst thing about closed-cell foam pads in my opinion is that they are just not comfortable especially if you're anything but a back sleeper now I know there are exceptions to every rule and I'm sure there are some people who sleep on their side or on their stomach that are able to do so on a closed cell foam pad but for me personally after several hundred miles on the Appalachian Trail I decided I cannot sleep any more at night if I don't upgrade my sleeping pads also they're kind of bulky so inflatable sleeping pads are easily rolled and put inside your pack with the closed cell foam pads they generally have to be strapped to the outside of the pack because they're too bulky to fit inside but again they're durable so you don't really have to worry about them getting torn up because they're on the outside of your pack self inflating pads are a mixture between a closed cell foam pad and your typical inflatable pad the way they work is that you open the valve and then air flows in and you can always adjust it and add more if you would like self inflating pads are known to be a little more comfortable than your typical closed cell foam pad but maybe not quite as comfortable and as cushiony as an inflatable pad these pads aren't going to be as durable as a closed cell foam pad so you do have to worry about them popping and they're also pretty heavy and bulky typically heavier than a pound and they're gonna run you anywhere from 50 to $100 well I have seen some self inflating pads being used on trail it is much more common to see closed cell foam pad or a regular inflatable pad and finally the third option is an inflatable pad and in my opinion these are the most comfortable they're pretty much a side sleepers dream the way they work is they have a little valve that you don't blow up with your mouth or some of them come with little air sacs that you just catch air in this little bag and roll it and push air into the sleeping pad also you can get these little battery portable pumps that if you don't want to blow up your sleeping pad for a few ounces you can have that as a luxury item I actually saw dibs one of my friends from the Pacific Crest Trail use one of those and I was kind of jealous in the evenings but it just wasn't worth the extra weight to me but that is an option while most inflatable pads are more lightweight than self inflating pad some of them are gonna run a little heavier than your closed cell foam pads I would say as a general rule of thumb you can expect close to a pound but they do have some pretty lightweight options on the Pacific Crest Trail I use the NeoAir extra light and the regular length is 12 ounces and then the shorter one that I used on the CDT only weighed 8 ounces now with this a sleeping pad only covered from about my head to my knees and I just slept with my legs and feet on my pack but while the inflatable pads might sound like the perfect answer there are of course some negative aspects that could exist if you use one of these for example the inflatable sleeping pads are not going to be as durable as a closed cell foam pad so you can end up popping one and if you don't have a patch kit that you might have a pretty uncomfortable night of sleep I have had a sleeping pad pop once on the Pacific Crest Trail and once on the Continental Divide Trail but both times I was able to patch it in the field and it continued to function just fine until I finished my through hack some people complain that inflatable sleeping pads make too much noise and they sound like you're sleeping on a bag of Fritos or something for me having my hip not dig into the ground was way more important than the sound but it's all about personal preference the biggest drawback in my opinion of the inflatable sleeping pads is that they are pretty expensive they'll generally run you anywhere from 100 to $200 something to keep in mind though regardless of the type of sleeping pad that you use is that not all sleeping pads are created equal in warmth so you'll notice that oftentimes the ability of a sleeping pad to keep you insulated and warm is going to be measured by what is called the r-value the higher the r-value the warmer the sleeping pad and I know some of you are wondering well what our value do I need from a sleeping pad well again that depends on the temperature that you'll be hiking in on the temperature rating of your sleeping bag etc etc but it is a general rule of thumb that for three season backpacking so spring summer and fall that you would want and our value of two or higher now I want to talk about Footwear the two types of footwear that you will usually see on trail are the traditional boots and trail runners so first let's talk about hiking boots when I first started my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail which also happened to being my first backpacking trip I thought that I would want a traditional leather boot so that's what I picked out and I started with because I knew boots would offer me stability ankle support and protection from brush also I was starting in the spring but it was early spring so I knew that I would have colder weather and a boot would help keep my feet warm boots are pretty durable compared to trail runners and I knew that they would last me nearly twice as long as a pair of trail runners would so I was hoping to save a little money along the way to what I learned while backpacking in a traditional leather boot is that they take forever to dry if they get wet which can be a pretty inviting environment for bacteria and fungus to form on your feet nobody wants trench foot while on the trail and also they were kind of clunky and heavy and just weren't comfortable because generally boots need a break-in period and I had started wearing them a month or two before I started my through hike just in everyday life but your feet do things on the trail that they don't do in everyday life and and the boots were just not formed to my feet for backpacking I've always heard that a pound of weight on your feet is equal to five pounds on your back and apparently the Army Research Institute did a study on this so if you're interested in reading that I'll put a link in the video description after my first 40 mile stretch on the Appalachian well I not only had heard that was true but I felt an experience that it was true and also from the high ankle on the boot from the ankle support that I thought I needed but I really didn't I ended up developing tendinitis in my right achilles and I decided that it was time to transition to trail runners does this mean that boots are horrible and I'm saying that nobody should ever backpack in them and that you should avoid them no I'm not saying that at all because I do think that hiking boots certainly have their place for example in the first stretch of the Continental Divide Trail Aaron had he been wearing boots might not have cut his ankle on a rock because the first couple stretches are kind of bushwhack II you're in the desert in some rough terrain he cut his ankle and later had some swelling issues in his leg that a nurse said might have been related to the cut because he kept opening it while he was walking with one of his shoes he had hit that spot that he had cut and it just kind of kept being a persistent issue now could he have bandaged it and potentially wore a higher sock to help protect it yes but sometimes boys will be boys and he didn't fool with it now had he had on a higher ankle boot to help protect his feet and more rough terrain and brushy areas then he may not have ever had that issue so rugged terrain is a good place for hiking boots also if you're gonna be carrying a heavy load say you're going out to a trail and doing some trail maintenance and you know you're gonna have a lot of equipment on your back to take out there then that might be a place for a more stable footwear also maybe you know that you do need that extra stability and ankle support or maybe you're gonna be going somewhere completely off trail and not on a clear well beaten path those are all instances where boots might be more useful than trail runners or maybe you just prefer the feel of a boot that is okay to if you're in the market for hiking boots you'll probably see two main options either a leather boot or a synthetic boot and they do have some mixtures and and different types of leather some that you might see our full grain leather split grain leather and then nubuck leather some of these leathers might be a little more durable and water resistant than others well on the other end of the spectrum you'll have a softer leather that more breathable regardless leather boots are not going to be as breathable and probably not as comfortable as a synthetic boot however the synthetic boots are not going to last as long as the leather boots on the synthetic side of things you'll probably see boots made out of nylon and polyester they'll be lighter and probably won't require a break-in period or at least not as much as the leather boots but again they might not be as durable or you know last year's long if you're going to go with a leather boot I highly recommend that if the boots get wet that you do not try to drive them by a fire or out in the Sun I mean it seems like the common-sense thing to do this is wet I want it to get dry but with leather heat or you know baking in the Sun or by the fire can cause shrinkage and then you end up with a very tight uncomfortable boot if any if you all have ever had work boots you may have experienced this before because I've done that where I used a set of boots they got wet and then I threw them up in the bed of my truck and they no longer fit as comfortably it's also a good idea to all and treat the boot to keep it supple and not so hard and brittle with hiking boots are gonna have a wide variety of options you may see things like a low-cut boot so a boot that looks more like a trail runner but it is still you know a more rigid shoe but it'll be low-cut on the ankle then you'll also see mid cut boots that may offer more ankle support and then high cut boots which are going to be your most stable and sturdy and give the highest support and the highest cut of course would be for more off trail or dangerous type terrains well I have occasionally seen people out on trail backpacking in boots the most common type of footwear seen out on trail now is the trail runner and they're basically like a sneaker but with more aggressive tread and I think the reason that things have trended towards trail runners is because as backpacking gear is getting more lightweight and more compact the need for such a stable rigid shoe is just not really as necessary as it used to be some of the things that I love about trail runners is they're lightweight they're breathable they drive much more quickly than a boot they're comfortable out of the box and they're versatile I'm much more likely to wear a trail runner in day-to-day life because they're comfortable like I would a tennis shoe then I am a more rigid leather hiking boots Wow I love trail runners they do have their limitations they're not going to be as supportive or as protective of your feet as a hiking boot will and they aren't gonna last as long because they're just not as durable I tend to replace my trail runners at about 500 miles anyway I have had some that wear out before that but I've also had some that would last longer it's just that I tend to develop plantar fasciitis and I feel like the support in a trail runner is gone after about 500 miles and my arch tends to hyperextend if you're a boot wear who has been considering switching to trail runners there is a mid trail runner made by ultra so like a boot it comes up higher on the ankle and I know that there have been some people that were a little leery of switching and then they tried the mid and then they ended up going to the full-on short ankle trail runners so that's just something to consider if you're interested in trying out something different I just want to say a quick word on gore-tex gore-tex is basically a technology that's designed to be breathable yet waterproof to keep your feet dry however gore-tex will also keep your feet warmer and stickier and can be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus and it's just not as breathable as I think the idea of it was meant to be plus if you're gonna be out in the rain for a while your feet are going to get wet so gore-tex just kind of inhibits that drying process and I think that gore-tex Footwear has its place in winter hiking this video is more about three season backpacking but in the warmer months I am personally not a fan but some people are again it's all about personal preference next up let's talk about sandals and if y'all are thinking what sandals for backpacking yes a friend of mine named South Pole who I met on the Appalachian Trail hiked in sandals and at the time I met him he was going a little bit slower because he was actually suffering from a broken toe while sandals aren't going to be as protective of your feet obviously they do have their benefits for example if you're going to be going through an area that has a lot of water crossings then instead of having to either pull off your and your socks and and Ford and then put the back on or just go ahead and trudge through and get your shoes soaked and then have the chance of getting blisters or having other issues it's just really nice to go through with sandals that allow your feet to drive very quickly because there's a lot of breathability in those also if your feet tend to swell a lot it might be nice having that extra space for them to expand there are several brands of hiking sandals out there but two of the ones that I've seen on trail our bedrock sandals and chako's while shoes are certainly important and I think to have the best experience while backpacking at least for your feet to have the best experience it's good to get something like a trail runner or boot or sandal whatever you prefer something that's designed for being out on the trail however if tomorrow you had all of your gear to go on a backpacking trip and you realize oh man I don't have Footwear specifically for the trail all I have is a pair of sneakers and I spent all my money on the rest of my gear and I don't have a hundred dollars to go throw down on some new boots or trail runners then that's okay I mean certainly be more careful on slippery rocks and and things like that where your tennis shoe may not have the tread that trail runners or boots will but if you've got a well-fitting sneaker that has some decent tread on it then don't not go have fun and have an experience because you don't have the exact thing that you think that you need so as long as you're you know basic needs are taking care of shelter food water I'm not saying don't go just because you don't have one of these expensive types of footwear in fact my friend perc who I met on the Appalachian Trail started and completed most of his through hike of the 80 and a regular pair of New Balance running shoes so just something to keep in mind and I think grandma Gatewood through hikes and a pair of kids I think the most important thing is making sure that whatever you have on your feet is comfortable so with that I want to talk about proper fitting Footwear there are two rules of thumb that I usually go by to make sure that whatever I have on my feet is going to properly fit my foot and that is the thumb test which is where I make sure that I have a thumb width between the tip of my toe the end of the front of the shoe and then also the toads hop test where I lace up my shoes like I normally would if I was gonna go backpack in and then tap my toe on the floor and if I feel my toes hitting the front of the shoe it's a no-go unless you want to lose some toenails and ask me how I know because my big two toenails turn black and fell off on the PCT because of that issue exactly of course the best thing that you can do to ensure that your shoes are gonna fit properly is to go into a store where there are professionals that can measure your foot was a branding device and help you select something now everybody lives near a place where that's possible so there's always the option of ordering from Amazon so that you can get in the shoe try it on walk around your house with it and you have 30 days to return it pretty much hassle free from what I've experienced with Amazon and then also you can order from REI and with REI you can keep something up to a year and if it doesn't work out for you then they allow you to return it if you're a member I think is the only requirement now that means that you could actually get a pair of footwear try it on you think it's going to work you get out on the trail and you hate it then you can go ahead and return it and the thing with REI is it doesn't just go into a landfill at that point they generally take the more gently used items and then they'll do an REI garage sale if you're not familiar with those you should definitely check them out you can get great gear at a discounted price if you do end up in a situation where you're out on the trail and your feet start giving you some kind of problem because your shoes aren't necessarily fitting properly there are some lacing diagrams that you can look at so I'd either save it to your phone or print it out if you're going out for the first time and a new pair of footwear and that way if you're in a pinch then some of those lacing techniques might help you out a little bit but this is definitely a band-aid and not something that I would consider as a permanent fix you want to get some kind of footwear that feels good when you have it on the way that it is and you're not having to do little fixes like that let's talk about insoles the insoles that come factory in whatever Footwear you get may be fine for your foot for me they were not I found that I needed a little more support so I went with dr. Scholl's for plantar fasciitis and unfortunately that's not the first thing I tried I actually went with the sole brand of inserts first and I thought they were cool because you can put them in the oven and then put them down in your shoe and put your foot in there and they kind of mold to your foot another popular brand among backpackers is super feet and with super feet they have different styles for different types of feet but it's not a one-size-fits-all so I can't tell you exactly what will work for your feet but if you are noticing a little discomfort then it may be something that can be solved with a different type of insult and what comes Factory in your shoe also the best option is to go to a podiatrist if you're having issues and get custom made orthotics but it's kind of pricey and not something that everyone can afford to do so there are other options that are going to be cheaper I think super feet and soles run about fifty dollars or so and then the doctor Scholl's for plantar fasciitis if you have issues with plantar fasciitis usually run about twenty dollars and you can pick those up in a Walmart or sometimes at drugstores just a little tip that I want to add that I found out about on the Pacific Crest Trail during my thru-hike out there is the wonderful invention of lock laces they're basically just elastic laces that you thread through in place of your shoelaces and then there's an adjustable plastic piece that slides on on the end you can just tighten the little plastic piece if you want or laces tighter or loosen it if you want them more loose and I think that they are wonderful because I'm sure that I've wasted hours of my life tying and even double knotting the laces on my shoes I replace my lock laces every time I replace my trail runners that way I don't have to worry about them dry riding and braking or anything like that and as long as I replace them each time I haven't had any issues the final type of shoe I want to talk about today are camp shoes a lot of folks when they go backpacking will take some sort of lightweight sandals or Crocs that way when they get to camp they can put a different type of footwear on and still have their feet protected around camp but allow their feet to breathe and that is so important when you're on trail to take care of your feet and allow them that time to kind of air out this will help with blisters and also preventing any type of trench foot or any kind of gross stuff going on with your feet and just to have a different type of footwear on it feels very very nice after a long day of hiking camp shoes are also very useful to have not only on trail but in town so if you're going on an extended trip where you're going to go into town for a resupply then it's nice to have something different to walk around in especially if your boots or trail runners got rained on in the previous stretch and they're kind of gross and wet and you don't want to keep walking around town and those so you can give them time to air out then camp shoes / town shoes are nice to have on the Appalachian Trail I carried a lightweight pair of Tevas but I was really looking for any way to shed some weight so I decided to get rid of my camp shoes even though they're not a necessity it is a nice luxury item to have it just depends on personal preference and if it's worth the weight to you an extremely lightweight but kind of hiker engineered option that I saw people doing on the 80 and PCT is they would take a factory insole that they would either get out of their own shoes or find in a hiker box somewhere and then they would take laces and poke holes on the insoles where they could kind of fashion a sandal type deal or some way to tie the insole to their foot and their leg that way they kind of had makeshift sandals for a round camp nothing fancy by any means but it's more about functionality than fashion when you're on trail now let's talk about socks first let's go over some materials it's definitely suggested that you avoid cotton because cotton absorbs moisture and it takes a while to dry and the saying goes on trail that cotton kills and this doesn't mean that Cotton's going to come up and strangle you in your sleep or anything like that it's just that when a material holds moisture and stays wet then there's a higher chance of hypothermia if temperatures drop the most common type of material that you will see in socks on trail is merino wool and this is a specialized wool that is just extremely soft it's not your granddaddy's army blanket it's also odd or resistant and wool keeps its insulating properties even when it's wet synthetic socks are also common you might see spandex I'll on polypropylene just basically as long as you're avoiding cotton you're doing good when you're selecting socks for backpacking or hiking you want to pay attention to the thickness of the sock the thinnest type sock that you will see is actually a sock liner and these are designed to go up under your sock it's real thin material that just helps wick moisture away from your foot and then also it takes some of the friction between your regular sock and the soft liner that way you don't have the friction of the regular sock on your foot directly a common brand of sock liner is in gingy and actually and gingi socks are pretty cool because it's like a glove for your foot so it also protects in between your toes where people tend to be plagued with blisters just the way they walk it seems that their toes rub together and again it helps take that friction and put it between the material instead of the skin between your toes and gingi makes the sock liners and then they actually have socks that go up you know from thin a regular sock to thicker socks so from liners the thickness obviously goes up you'll have lightweight socks mid weight socks and then heavy socks personally I prefer the lightweight socks in the summertime they just help keep my feet cool I'll go with mid weight socks sometimes in the summer but especially in early spring and late fall that way I have just a little bit of added warmth but the heavy weight sucks the real thick warm wool socks I usually only use while I'm sleeping at night I just don't like the bulkiness of them while I'm hiking but again with everything else it's all about personal preference in summer I may use a mid weight sock if I know that I'm gonna go through an area where my feet are kind of sore anyway so real rocky terrain or something like that when I get to the next town I might reward my feet and add a little bit more comfort by going to a mid-weight sock you'll also see a variety and lengths of socks usually anything from an ankle sock all the way up to a regular crew cut longer sock I personally prefer ankle socks in the summer time when it's warm the only time that I found this to be problematic is if I'm in a real sandy area so sometimes in the desert or especially in snowy areas I know a lot of folks who have seen videos of me hiking in the snow are like how are you wearing shorts and ankle socks in the snow isn't it cold out well it might be in the middle of the summer time but there still happens to be snow on the ground but what I found in those areas is that either sand or snow might get trapped in around my ankle and it's real abrasive so I've had my ankles bleed just from hiking and ankle socks in the snow in those areas I try to keep that in mind and move to a longer sock whether that's mid ankle or you know regular crew-cut but for the most part in warmer temperatures I do wear either a loca ankle or a mid cut ankle sock then when it transitions to colder weather I usually go with mid ankle to a longer saw I generally just mix it up that way I have a variety and I can go with whatever I'm feeling that day and I usually carry two pair two hiking and one pair to sleep in when it's colder out and I don't really enjoy putting on cold wet socks on a chilly morning then I might have three pair two hiking and one pair to sleep in it's really not something to stress over as long as you have a couple of pair with you he'll figure out what your personal preferences are with the weight of the sock and the length of the sock it just takes getting out there and giving it a shot if you're wondering how I do a several-day trek with only two pair of socks to hiking what I do is I'll wear a pair of socks for a day or two and then I'll rinse them out with some water and hang them on my pack to dry and then wear my second pair as the first pair is drying and then if I need to I'll take the second pair off put the semi-clean pair back on and then rinse out the second pair of socks but I just keep rotating them out like that and I know that they're not as clean as if they came out of a washer and dryer but as long as you're getting that salt and some of the debris off the socks then it helps out with your feet a lot I've tried several different brands of socks I've used in gingy's right socks smart wools and darn Tufts my personal favorite are the darn Tufts I think that smart wools are a little bit softer and more comfortable than darn tough socks some of them but darn Tufts are the most durable sock that I have seen on trail by far they've lasted me longer than any other brand and they have a lifetime guarantee so while they costs times fifteen to twenty dollars a pair if you wear a hole in them darn tough we'll replace them without any questions asked the last piece of footwear I'm going to cover is gaiters gaiters are little sleeves that slide over your foot and up your leg and attach to the top of your shoes you can get real tall waterproof gaiters but most of the time for backpacking in three-season weather so spring summer and fall most backpackers just use little soft short gaiters to help keep debris and junk from getting in their shoe so if you've ever had to stop and take off your shoes and knock some pebbles out of them or sand then you might be interested in gaiters gaiters could have probably helped me with the situation that I was talking about with the sand in the snow but myself personally I just found that Gators were kind of a hassle just something else that I had to deal with and I don't really have to dump out my shoes often enough that I felt like Gators would be useful enough for me but some people swear by them they usually come with a little piece of velcro that either sticks or glues to your shoe but if you have ultras there you have a built-in Gator trap on them and then there's a little hook that attaches to the front part near the laces and then the other part is just up fitted around your ankle some of the more popular brands that I've seen on trail are dirty girl gaiters which can actually be very colorful and interesting and then Outdoor Research has some for those of you who don't want something quite as loud Gators aren't a necessity but they are something that many people have found useful so I felt like it was worth mentioning in the topic of Footwear next up is clothing clothing will obviously vary a little bit depending on what time of year you're out on trail but today when we cover the basics of clothing we're gonna be talking about three season backpacking so in the spring summer and fall there are some general tips to keep in mind when you're considering clothing for backpacking so first is layering is very important oftentimes when people know that they're going to be out and cold weather their first instinct is to go get a really heavy thick and bulky jacket to wear but in backpacking it's better to go with thinner fabrics that you layer on top of each other if you avoid the bulky clothing you're gonna save room and wait and also you're gonna allow yourself more versatility because as you warm up you can start taking layers off and as you cool down you can add them as needed also as far as materials go you definitely want to avoid cotton it's not a very good insulator and it doesn't dry quickly which can put you in danger of hypothermia if temperatures drop what materials you want to look for are synthetics or wool synthetics like polyester and nylon are lightweight durable they dry quickly and they tend to wick moisture away from your skin but they do tend to hold on to stink a little bit more than wool a lot of backpackers wear merino wool which is it's free insulates well when wet it dries fairly quickly at least compared to cotton and its odor resistant but it's not going to dry as quickly as synthetics and finally you want to consider the conditions you're going to be in as far as the temperature or weather and the terrain are you going to be in an exposed area where you're subjected to the wind and the Sun are you going to be at higher elevations where it might be cooler is the area gonna be real brushy and you're gonna be off a beaten path so you need to protect your legs all it'd be really buggy and you need to consider mosquitoes and ticks those are just some things to keep in mind when you're considering what to wear while backpacking now I want to go through each item piece by piece so pretend you're in your birthday suit and you're getting dressed to go out on a backpacking trip we're gonna start with undergarments when I go backpacking I prefer to take two pair of underwear that way I can kind of rotate them out and after I wear one pair for a day or two I actually wear mine one way turn them inside out wear them that way and then the third day I move on to my second pair and I'll take the first pair and rinse it out with some water and then let it air dry on my pack while I'm wearing the second pair for a day or two and then I go back to the first pair of course you can carry however many pair of underwear you would like to but this is just a system that I found works for me some people choose to not wear underwear and they go commando because they found that it helps them with chafing this is just something that you'll have to figure out as you go along because it's going to be different for everyone the underwear for a while backpacking is the brand ex-officio basically anything you go as its synthetic will work but I like ex-officio because it's odor resistant it dries quickly it's lightweight and it's breathable as far as bras go you probably want to go with something synthetic and that will offer some support for the lady bits also I prefer to hike with something that has a little bit of padding but at first I was concerned that having a little padding would feel gross because it would collect a lot of sweat I've sweated a lot and I've never had it to where I could squeeze the padding in it would just wring out sweat so for me I don't mind that if you're typically somebody that likes to have a little bit of padding in your bra and you're concerned about that too it may also not be an issue for you again this is something that's going to be very much personal preference but I would just go with the rule of thumb that if a normal life while exercising or just day-to-day life if you have a sports bra that you're comfortable with then on trail you probably will be also my favorite sports bra to use is one that I get from Academy sports and outdoors and it's just the BCG brand it's pretty cheap nothing fancy but it works for me now let's talk about base layers I always take a base layer top and bottom to sleep in if I'm gonna have cooler temperatures at night basically if I'm not gonna be hot enough at night where I'm sweating I'm probably gonna take base layers so I'll sleep in usually a wool top or something synthetic like an hour Tareq's top that has fuzziness on the inside for a little more comfort and warmth and then leggings I either go with wool leggings or again something synthetic I prefer to wear wool while I'm sleeping not while I'm hiking because again it's not as quickly drying and usually at night I'm trying to stay warm and it just feels a little bit more comfortable to me than the synthetic material personally I like the smart wool brand it is a bit pricy on my Appalachian Trail through hack in the summertime it was hot enough that I only wanted to sleep in a tank top and shorts but in the cooler months I was in base layers but on the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail where I was at higher elevations I slept in base layers the whole time the only time I really ever pack base layers to wear while I'm actually hiking is when I know I'm gonna encounter some really cold weather or wintry mixes where it's sleeting or snowing or even just cold rain so depending on where you live or where you're backpacking you might only want hiking base layers for early spring or in the fall when it really starts to cool down during the day let's talk about hacking shirts some people like to backpack in short sleeve shirts or even tank tops on the Appalachian Trail I actually used a short sleeve shirt a little bit at the beginning but later ditched it and went with just a tank top because it was really warm enough for that and I knew that I could add a layer if I was to get chilly for some reason but on the Appalachian Trail you're usually protected by the green tunnels so you're not out in an exposed area baking in the Sun and so it really makes a tank-top something that you can work with while the tank top is gonna be more breathable you won't be as protected from brush bugs and again the Sun I found that long-sleeve button-up shirts are more versatile and I prefer them especially if I know I'm gonna be in a real exposed area where I'm fighting the Sun or a buggy area where mosquitoes are coming at me on the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail I hiked with a Columbia PFD shirt I liked it because it had the SPF 50 protection from the Sun it was well ventilated and again I could roll up the sleeves or button down the top or even just hike in my sports bra and use the shirt as cushion on my back to protect my skin from rubbin on my pack if I got super hot and having a collar to protect my neck from the Sun was really nice now let's talk about options for covering up your booty it's certainly more traditional to wear actual hiking pants but a lot of times these days folks are hiking in shorts myself I prefer hiking and shorts just because it keeps me cooler and even if I'm in the exposed Sun I just make sure to use sunscreen or a Sun umbrella to help cover my legs but with everything there are pros and cons and if you hike in shorts your legs aren't going to be as protected from brush and from bugs as far as shorts go you don't have to have anything fancy that's made specific for hiking a lot of people hike in running shorts athletic shorts personally I prefer paddock is barely baggy shorts that's what I wore on the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail they are more durable as they're made for outdoor activities but again that's not something that's necessary if you're not sure whether you want to go with shorts or pants and you're having an internal dispute you can always go with convertible pants this is basically just a pair of normal pants that either zip off at the knee or roll up and button or roll up and snap or snap on either way you get the point there convertible because they can either be worn as long pants or as shorts these are pretty convenient if you're gonna be going through an area where you've got a lot of creek crossings or if the temperature is gonna fluctuate a good bit or if it's raining outside and you're gonna have rain pants over your pants anyway so you can just take off the bottom part of the legs or roll them up and that way you keep the bottom of your pants from getting completely soaked and then of course you can go with the just traditional hiking pants I found that these tend to get a little loose and I feel like they kind of start to sag I don't like hiking and normal hiking pants but it's all about personal preference they are of course gonna be your best protection against brush and bugs as far as pants go as long as you avoid jeans you'll probably be doing okay I know blue jeans are comfortable in normal life but on trail they can lead to chafing also they hold in moisture so if they get wet they're probably not going to dry for a long time and it'll just put you in a really uncomfortable position and if it's cold outside could put you in a bad situation with hypothermia finally some people choose to hike in yoga pants or tights this is definitely an option I've heard that having more tight-fitting clothing like that can help with chafing if you have issues with that myself I don't like hiking in yoga pants I feel like they start to loosen up and sag after a day or two my base layers do that also if I live in cold weather and I've got the synthetic base layers I was talking about they tend to do the same thing kind of stretch out and like you know get all loose and baggy in the the button crotch area they're definitely not as durable as other options and I found if you have tight clothing like that mosquito or more likely to be able to bite through it I wear shorts anyway so mosquitoes are something that I just have to deal with but it's just something to keep in mind if you do want to wear pants to protect yourself from bugs and finally the hiking skirt skort dress or kilt is also an option from what I hear they're pretty comfortable they're well ventilated they're stretchy I haven't tried any of these personally but there are some people who backpack in them and swear by them next I want to talk about mid layers which is something like a jacket or a pullover just another warmer layer one option might be a puffy jacket or a vest vests are a good option if you want to cut weight while also keeping your core warm I prefer a full-on puffy with a hood to help keep my neck and head warm also but my friend perk on the PCT and CDT carried a puffy that looked a lot like mine except it was a vest I keep my puffy packed in my pack all the time regardless if it's warmer weather or not because I like knowing that I have some type of warm layer to put on if the temperatures drop lower than I expected or I get sick and feel chilled for some reason just for whatever reason because even if I don't put it on in the evenings to keep myself warm or if I don't wear it while I'm sleeping then I can't pull it up and use it as a pillow I will warn you that puppies are not very durable so if you're sitting around a campfire just be careful because too many times I've had a pop of the wood and suddenly I now have a hole burned in my puffy in the world of Puffy's you have down and synthetic fillers some people choose to forego the puffy and they hike with a fleece pullover instead a fleece pullover is gonna be heavier and bulkier than a puffy but you can generally wear it while sleeping or while hiking because it's going to be more durable and it will also still have insulating properties if it gets wet if you want to save a little weight you can do so by getting one that only zips down 3/4 of the way instead of all the way down and if it has no pockets you'll also save a little weight there while I was on my CDT thru-hike and I was up in Glacier National Park and we were getting a good bit of snow and the temperatures had dropped to where they were maybe in the low 30s or upper 20s like hi for the day was that temperature I went ahead and added a fleece I had a three-quarter zip and no pockets that way I added something that was as lightweight as possible but I wanted to have a mid layer to help keep me warm while I was hiking during the day but usually I would only go with a puffy or a vest or a fleece really having anything other than one mid layer if you're hiking in temperatures that are above freezing I feel like it's kind of overkill and finally some people bring along a win shirt win shirts are usually water resistant not waterproof but they add a little protective layer to keep the wind off of you if you're hiking and you get a little chilly some people will use these and not carry rain gear if they're hiking and warmer temperatures I don't really recommend that especially if you're a beginner I feel like you kind of need to learn what temperatures are comfortable with what clothing in and risking not having rain gear and being miserable or getting hypothermia to me just really isn't worth it I've never hiked with a wind shirt I prefer to have designated rain gear and I just used that as dual purpose if I'm out hiking and it's a clear day but a cool and windy day I really love when I use something for a dual purpose so my rain gear is also my wind gear speaking of rain gear let's go ahead and talk about that rain gear is not only rain gear but it is also as I mentioned wind protection bug protection and rain gear can act as an extra layer of warmth at night I have had some pretty chilly nights where I had on my puffy and my base layers and my warm socks and I was still shivering so having some rain pants and a rain top to put on and help keep in some of that warmth really helped when I'm shopping for a rain jacket and rain pants some of the bells and whistles that I look for are pit zips pit zips sound like exactly what they are just zippers in your armpits where you can kind of help control the temperature and ventilation while you're hiking you might already be kind of warm and then you put on a rain jacket and now you're just burning up and having those pit zips to help ventilate yourself is nice I like having an adjustable hood on the rain jacket that way if I'm in windy rain then I can cinch it down and help protect my hair from getting wet when looking for a rain pants I like knowing that my rain pants will have an adjustable waist so either something elastic or a drawstring that way I can pull them up and over my pants easily and then cinch them down on the ankle area I like if a pair of rain pants has zippers that way if I get caught in a rainstorm that I wasn't necessarily expecting I can drop my pack get out my rain gear and slide my rain pants over my shoes and I don't have to worry about taking them off before I put on the rain pants rain gear can be heavy if it's really cheap and it can be pretty expensive if you're trying to go lightweight but the cheapest lightweight rain gear I found is frog togs for about 20 dollars you can get a rain jacket and rain pants they are definitely not cute usually they're either in this awful tan color or blueberry blue but again it's not about looking nice as it is you know staying warm and dry frog togs aren't very durable but if you're hiking on a well beaten path that's maintained and you're not going to be off bushwhackin then you're probably good frog dogs won't have all of the bells and whistles but for something that's lightweight and cheap if you're on a budget they're not a bad option my favorite rain gear as far as a jacket and pants that I've found so far is anti-gravity gear it's not as cheap as Frog dogs but they do come with all the bells and whistles and they're very lightweight sometimes in the warmer months if I know that it's gonna be hot during the day then I'll only hike with the raincoat just to keep me from getting completely soaked but the shorts that I wear do you dry out pretty quickly so I don't worry about the rain pants that way I can keep cool on my legs while I'm protecting my top hat from getting completely soaked with either sweat or rain but a traditional rain jacket and rain pants are not the only form of rain gear used while backpacking some people prefer ponchos so that they can cover not only themselves but their pack also and having the poncho allows a little more ventilation from underneath some people use rain kilts because they're a little more breathable than rain pants and then also some people add an umbrella and I know that this isn't really clothing but while we're talking about rain gear it kind of falls into that category umbrellas are pretty much a must-have for me when I'm gonna be in colder weather and I know it's gonna rain having an umbrella I feel like helps keep me warm because my raincoat isn't getting wet and then my body is constantly trying to heat up the rain that keeps falling onto the rain jacket and the rain pants so it overall just helps me stay drier and warmer let's cover some accessories like gloves there are Sun gloves to help protect your hands from the Sun I didn't use these on the Appalachian Trail but in areas that are more exposed like you see on the Pacific Crest Trail or the Continental Divide Trail I definitely recommend them to help protect your hands from the Sun also you might consider bringing a pair of gloves if you're gonna be hiking in cooler weather I don't know that there's anything more miserable than having freezing hands while trying to hike especially if you're using trekking poles I prefer paulsen down gloves because they're lightweight and if they were to get wet for some reason they do dry quickly but there are a lot of different types of gloves out there and then if you're gonna be hiking and cold rain you might want to consider waterproof gloves now be cautious when you see something that says it is a waterproof glove I would definitely read reviews of people who have been out backpacking with the supposed waterproof gloves because I've had some bad luck I finally found some showa gloves and they're more like a work type glove but it's just something that I put over the opossum down gloves as a waterproofing layer then let's talk about things that go on your head like beanies to help keep your head warm while you're hiking or at night I usually go with a wool beanie like a smart wool beanie but really anything will do as long as it's not cotton also you may want to consider backpacking with a hat if you're gonna be an exposed area something like a wide brim hat to keep your face and your neck protected from the Sun buffs are a very versatile accessory you can put them in your hair to keep your hair out of your face and keep the greasiness covered up you can put them around your neck to keep it warm or you can even slip the buff up and over your face to protect your face from the wind or the rain or the snow and finally bandanas can be very useful for a lot of things also for use in your hair to cover your face to cover your leg from extreme sunburn first aid whatever there are all sorts of uses for a bandana and if you don't believe me just google ways you can use a bandana while backpacking and you will see that pretty much covers most of the clothing types that people take while backpacking it can be easy to over pack so for three season backpacking if you have a base layer either for sleeping and/or hiking your regular layer so your hiking pants and you're hiking shirt one mid layer and then your rain gear you're probably good now if you're gonna be seeing some colder temperatures at night like below freezing or during the day then you may have to adjust that some if you're not sure and you're concerned that you're gonna get out there and be cold then maybe try your first backpacking trip while it's warm and then start slowly transitioning yourself to either earlier in the year or later in the year and that way you kind of learn what you're comfortable with and if you're wondering if I mean you should have each of those things for each day you're out there you know some people think that they need a whole new outfit each day that they're hiking you can certainly do that if if you would like to and that's what you're comfortable with but your pack is gonna be really really heavy you really only need one outfit for hiking and one outfit for sleeping and then maybe some accessories or the mid layer for extra warmth but people who go backpacking usually do not have different changes of outfits for each day you just learn to embrace the stink now let's talk about dangerous and pesty insects when I'm out backpacking I actually really enjoy seeing bugs I like to video them and take pictures of them well most of them because I honestly cannot stand mosquitos and I wish all of them would disappear but even spiders and ticks and stinging insects those are just so cool to me but that doesn't mean that I necessarily want them on me so let's talk about how to protect ourselves from the bugs that are actually harmful to us while still getting out and enjoying the trail there are some general tips for avoiding bugs including wearing long sleeve shirts and pants this is actually one of the most effective ways to make sure not being eaten up by bugs and if you wear lighter colors they tend to be a little cooler than darker colors and also if you have a tick crawling up your pant leg and got on light-colored britches instead of dark-colored britches you're gonna be able to see it a little bit easier anyway wearing a bug net over your face potentially some bug netting for your shelters you can also tuck your pants legs into your socks or if you wear gaiters I assume it would kind of function the same way but this is just prevent bugs from hitting your shoes and then climbing up your socks and inside your pants you can also apply bug repellent which I'll talk about a little bit more later and then as soon as you get home from being out on trail if you go hop in the shower and go ahead and give yourself a good cleaning just to make sure you've got any bugs off of you that might be on you but not attached yet like ticks for example or maybe it could even help with chiggers noseeums etc but these are all rules to kind of help with bugs in general including the ones that annoy you and the ones that can harm you there are some additional steps that you can take to prevent yourself from being bitten by a more harmful type of bug like sixteen insects mosquitoes and spiders I think the worst thing about ticks is that you don't always feel them crawling on you and biting you and then you go to pull your britches down to go pee and whoop there it is on your leg one common way to prevent being bitten by a tick is to use permethrin you can buy clothes that are already pre treated with permethrin like ex officios bugs away line apparently with the bugs away clothing you can get 70 washings out of it and they tell you to launder it like normal like the regular detergent that you would use you can also bleach them and I thought that was pretty cool you can pay a service like insect shield to do it for you so you send in your clothing they'll do it for you and send it back or you can buy things like Sawyer's permethrin to treat at home yourself as long as you treat your clothing like suggested then it is said to be safe for humans it won't have any smell to it or any kind of texture and you can just wear your clothing like normal just a word of caution here that permethrin is extremely toxic to cats they even recommend that if you treat your dog with flea and tick treatment that has permethrin in it that you keep your dog separate from your cat for 12 to 24 hours until the treatment completely dries and even then I've read some conflicting information as to whether permethrin is safe in its dry state to cats so just a heads-up on that before you use permethrin around cats whatsoever you can also treat your gear and footwear with permethrin as long as you're not putting it onto your skin then you should be okay you compare permethrin with a bug repellent that you apply to your skin like DEET or picaridin with DEET you have to be a little careful because it can harm your gear like your trekking pole grips or your tent but the carrot in is not harmful to your gear and it supposedly does a better job repelling flies so that's an alternative choice to deep other ways to prevent contact with ticks is to kind of think about where they are ticks tend to be and more high grassy or brushy areas so if you see some tall grass it looks nice you might want to just view it from a distance and don't necessarily go lounge in it also they're more likely to be in shady areas instead of full sun areas while backpacking you should do a daily tick check because if you find a tick on you it's better to do so in the first 24 hours because that way your likelihood of getting some kind of disease from them is reduced if you do everything you can to avoid ticks and you still happen to find one on you don't freak out just get a pair of tweezers and get as close to the skin as you can and grasp the tick and then you want to pull away from your skin with an even steady pressure so you don't want to like snatch or twist or wiggle anything like that and that's because you want to make sure that the ticks head doesn't rip off and remain either lodged in or attached to your skin then you want to clean the area as best you can on trail if you have hand sanitizer if you do happen to have soap and water you can save the tick and take it to a public health lab for inspection if needed and then finally you want to keep a check on the area and make sure that you're not getting a red ring around the sight of the bat if you're experiencing any flu-like symptoms or facial paralysis or joint pain then you definitely want to get to a doctor as soon as possible next up are mosquitoes and I think that this is the only thing in existence that I have run into on the trail that I absolutely cannot stand in thing about it and I can find no appreciation whatsoever but nevertheless mosquitoes are not only pesky but they can also transmit diseases to humans some of the ways that they can be deterred are also with permethrin and detour picaridin like I mentioned with ticks you can also avoid mosquitoes by choosing to hike in an area that is not a great habitat for mosquitoes so avoid stagnant water sources also if you go to open sunny kind of breezy areas mosquitoes seem to have issues with wind and also drier air as opposed to damp moist stagnant areas so who says that you always want to be hiking and open breezy sunny areas maybe sometimes you do want to be in the heart of the woods or maybe sometimes there are still clouds of mosquitoes in open dry areas like in Wyoming while you're trying to hitchhike on the side of the road so the best line of defense that I found against mosquitoes in addition to long-sleeve shirts and long pants is rain gear even when I had shorts on rain gear helped keep mosquitoes from biting me your butt my smelly blood and I will also tell you that tight-fitting clothing is easier for them to bite through so be aware of that a lot of times misery is all about mindset so if you change your perspective a little bit it might help and one of the things that I really like to do when I'm in a cloud of mosquitoes is just allow them to get on me and then as soon as I can't take it anymore and they're just like a bunch of mosquitoes all around me I have what is called a mosquito massacre and I just slept myself all over and kill as many as I can and then rejoice in the death of all of the mosquitoes in the mosquito massacre but at some point in your backpacking days I'm sure you will experience a mosquito bite and they do itch and they're annoying but the best thing to do is to not scratch them because then you can just open your leg and increase your chance of infection in that spot you can get these little sticks for bug bites and I know a lot of times people use them with their children but adults can use them too and they actually contain an antiseptic in there that'll help reduce the itchiness and the painfulness of the bite and also kind of keep that area clean reduce risk of infection and those little bite sticks will also help with chiggers wasps and ticks next up are seeing insects bees are normally pretty chill unless you step on I'm gonna put your hand on them but wasps are just jerks so at some point in your backpacking experiences you're probably gonna get stung the best thing that you can do is be aware of your surroundings so if you're going to lay down and take a nap in a field of flowers you might be putting yourself at risk of being stung also if you're sitting on a log and you notice some wasps flying around then keep in mind that they could have a nest nearby if you are stung then check the area to see if a stinger is still in your skin and if so you want to get it out immediately you might not want to take the time to fumble around for tweezers or another tool because the stinger can continue to inject venom into you for up to three minutes so whatever you have to do use your fingernail and just go ahead and scrape that stinger out of your skin you can take an oral antihistamine like benadryl also apply a cool compress you may not have ass with you on the trail but you can take a bandana and dip it into a cool water source and then apply it to the sting area if you know that you are allergic to stinging insect stings then you probably should carry an EpiPen with you on trail you can keep an EpiPen cool and warmer temperatures in a little insulated pouch like the wallets they have on allergy apparel calm I'm sure there are all sorts of different brands and if anybody watching this has one they recommend that you know works well for you please leave that in the comments because it could help somebody else make sure that if you're backpacking with other people they know how to use the EpiPen in case you're stung and you can't do it yourself make sure you take an oral antihistamine like benadryl and then if it becomes an emergency make sure you have a way to call for help so either a personal locator beacon a spot device or an in reach device if you don't have cell service where you're going to be backpacking and finally through all of that panic and fuss try to stay as calm as possible next up are spiders and I think that these are just such cool little critters but again that doesn't mean that I necessarily want them on me so the way that I suggest people avoid spiders on trail is kind of do the same thing you would to avoid snakes so you don't want to reach your hand into a dark hole like an end of a log or under a pile of rocks or anywhere that you can't see what's on the other side when you go to take a break you want to be mindful of your surroundings what are you leaning your back against where are you putting your arm again basically the things that you would do to avoid a snake vine finally if you're going down the trail in the early morning hours or late evening hours you're probably gonna get several spider webs to the face and it probably won't take you long to figure this out but if you pick up a branch or you hold up your trekking pole kind of like your Indiana Jones going into a dark cave and just hold it out in front of you then you'll allow those spider webs to hit the stick or your trekking pole first instead of your face if you think you've been bitten by spider or you know you have you might see two little holes on the area of the bat and what you want to do is clean that area as good as possible again using hand sanitizer or if you have some kind of camp so you want to apply a cool compress again might want to take a bandana and put it in a cold water source and put it on the bat area elevating the wound can help and then if you are pretty sure it's a spider that might be harmful to you so like a black widow or a brown recluse then you definitely want to start taking note if you notice any symptoms if you do start noticing symptoms like that you want to get to a doctor as soon as possible and if you have the spider with you that can definitely help in identification and a treatment plan I just want to add a note here and say give spiders a little bit of a break though I know a lot of folks who they'll see a spider on trail and they immediately want to crush it but just remember that they take out a lot of the other pests type bugs that we don't like having on us and for the most part spiders just kind of want to do their own thing and they don't want you in their space either I know some of y'all watching just probably really hate bugs in general and are wondering how could you ever get out there and spend several days in bug infested land and I will tell you that you get acclimated to it I was not a fan of roaches at all I would run and get away from them as fast as possible but after six months on the Appalachian Trail I actually got so used to them that now if there was one that crawled on my leg I would probably just pick it up with my hand and throw it away so I never thought that that would be possible so I'm just saying if you get out there and start acclimating at some point there's a shift that I feel like happens in the mindset where you think this is my existence now and there's really nothing I can do about this so you just learn to deal with it and as a final note I know that there are a lot of you who do not like having pesticides on your body or on your gear and there are different essential oils or natural remedies for some of that whether it's to prevent being bitten or to use after being bitten so if you all have any experience with that feel free to leave that in the comments below if you think it could help somebody else next I want to cover water filtration and purification the truth is you really can't tell if a source is safe to drink or not sure there might be some indications like a dead animal in the water or stagnant murky water that makes you feel like a particular water source might not be safe to drink but on the other hand a water source might look perfectly safe but you can't see the things in the water that might make you sick it is true that at higher elevations water may be safer to drink but with the lightweight options that are available today to treat your water you don't have to take that risk unless you just want to gamble some general tips to consider when figuring out what method of water treatment you want to use is time so how much time will it take you to treat the water then weight and cost of either the item or chemical that you're going to use and also what is the treatment effective against the main things you want to worry about in the US are bacteria and protozoa like Cryptosporidium and Giardia the first method I want to talk about today is the old trusty method which is boiling now boiling water can be time intensive and also fuel intensive because you need to bring the water to a full boil for about five minutes to make sure that you get everything and then you have to allow the water to cool down before you pour it into your clean bottle as far as fuel goes if you want to save on the a fuel or the cost of fuel you can make a fire to boil your water typically I don't use boiling as my first option in water treatment because of how time intensive it is but I've had some pretty gross water sources for example on the Pacific Crest Trail where there was a dead cat in some stagnant water and so before I was gonna even begin to put that water into my filter I decided to bowl it first and then filter it just to have that second line of defense also it's good to remember boiling as a backup method in case your water filter or other water treatment method fails because boiling doesn't filter your water you may need to run it through a bandana before you bowl it that way you don't have to eat or drink a bunch of dirt another option for treating water is the UV light purifier they can run a little on the heavy side the SteriPEN for example is about 6 ounces without batteries and with something like this it's a good idea to have a backup set of batteries also and they can be a little pricey running from 75 to $100 but some of the perks i've used in a SteriPEN or UV light purifier is that they treat water in less than a minute they neutralize bacteria protozoa and viruses and it doesn't leave any aftertaste in your water if you're going to use one of these though you want to make sure to filter any sediment out of your water through a bandana because they don't work as well in murky water and I've only seen one person used one of these on trail I've heard that they can fail or that they're a little iffy sometimes so if you're gonna use one of these you might want to have a back-up plan in mind next let's talk about chemical treatments chemical treatments are generally pretty lightweight inexpensive and they work pretty well however they take a little bit of time usually you have to add the chemical treatment to your water and then you have to wait at least 30 minutes and sometimes up to four hours depending on what you're wanting to treat a lot of the chemical treatments will treat bacteria protozoa and viruses it really just depends on what you're using the more traditional form of chemical treatment is iodine tablets the thing with iodine though is it leaves a pretty funky aftertaste and it does not treat Cryptosporidium chlorine dioxide treatments like aqua mera which comes in either the tablet form or the little liquid bottles will treat Cryptosporidium and I hear that aftertaste is not as funky and some people even say they don't taste anything at all and finally some people use good old bleach to treat their water I use this as a back-up plan when my Sawyer squeeze failed out on the Continental Divide Trail because I was not risking drinking out of that nasty cow pond water in New Mexico after using this method I never want to have to use it again because I really couldn't get over just the scent of bleach as I was drinking if you decide to use bleach as your water treatment whether as your main form of treating water or as a back-up plan you'll use anywhere from two to four drops per liter and that really just depends on how cloudy the water is how cold it is so if it's cloudy or and colder you want to go towards the four drop side and if it's you know pretty clear and room temperature then you might want to go more towards two drops and finally you can always use water filters in the world of water filters you really have several options including pumps gravity systems and what I call either drink through or squeeze through filters the way that pumps work is you usually have a tube that goes down into the water source and you manually pump water into a clean container one example of a pump is a Katahdin hiker micro filter and it runs about 70 dollars and weighs 11 ounces I've never used a pump for my filtration system just because to be so expensive they seem a little bulky and on the heavy side to me but it's all about personal preference and there are definitely people out there who use pumps for water filtration gravity filtration systems are really nice for having when you're backpacking in an area with trees or somewhere that you can hang a gravity system and also if you're hiking with a group because it filters a lot of water at one time and you don't really have to do anything except collect the water and hang the dirty bag up in the tree then gravity will naturally feed the water through the filter and down to the clean bag I used a platypus gravity filter on the Appalachian Trail I really liked using this and I only transitioned because when I started the Pacific Crest Trail it was harder to find places to hang the bag gravity systems can run a little on the heavier side in the filtration category the Platypus gravity filter that I used was seven point two ounces and they are a little pricey the one I used was a hundred and ten dollars and finally the drink through slash squeeze through filters an example of a drink through filter is the live straw it weighs about two ounces and only costs $20 so it's pretty inexpensive with the live straw you just drink straight through the straw and as you're drinking it filters the water if you don't want to drink directly from a water source you can collect dirty water in a widemouth bottle and then put the straw down in there and drink I'm not particularly a fan of the live straw because it's great for when you're just wanting to drink clean water but when it comes to cooking and you've got to cook with dirty water then you have to make sure that you bring your water to a full boil unless you want to like drink your water through the straw and then spit it into your cook pot and then you could be cooking with sediment in your water so you have to take the time to run it through a bandana and to me that's just too much hassle if I'm gonna have a filter I want it to work and be able to filter my water and then cook with it an example of a squeezer filter is the Sawyer squeeze it weighs three ounces and costs about $40 the way that it works is you collect dirty water in a pouch hook it to the filter and then you squeeze the pouch and squeeze clean water into a clean container I was a little frustrated with this setup because I went from my gravity filter where I really didn't have to do anything to now where I had this extra chore several times a day having to squeeze my water and I know it doesn't sound like that big of a deal but if you add up in a day how much time you actually spend doing this particular chore it can get a bit tedious you can actually turn this all your squeeze into a gravity system but what I decided to do was turn it into a drink through filter I collect dirty water in smart water bottles and the threading of the Sawyer squeeze fits well on to that type of bottle and then I just squeeze the bottle while I'm drinking and it becomes kind of like a mixture between a squeeze stir and drink through filter this is my go-to pick for water treatment on trail and by far is the most popular filter used Sawyer does have a Sawyer mini that's a little bit lighter and a little bit cheaper but in my opinion it tends to get clogged a lot easier most filters only take out protozoa and bacteria not viruses but if you're looking for a filtration method that also removes viruses and you might want to check out the MSR Guardian filter it is very pricey at three hundred and fifty dollars and is really bulky and heavy but if you're going overseas somewhere and you really want to make sure that you're gonna be able to filter out viruses that's just one suggestion that you could check out filters may require a little bit of maintenance while on trail if you're gonna be out for several days and you're hiking in an area that's got pretty murky water you may have to back flush your filter but a lot of them come with syringes made for that and if not a lot of them will fit to the sports cap of a smart water water bottle so you just want to make sure you put clean water in the syringe or the bottle hook up to the output side and then squeeze clean water back through the filter hence the term back flushing you can also tap the filter on its side to kind of break up some of the gunk in there and then back flush several times until you notice that the water is clean one thing to be cautious of if you use a water filter is they can be damaged from being in below freezing temperatures because the water inside the filter can freeze and then bust on the inside and there's really no good way to tell if it's damaged or not unless you drink some bad water through it and end up with diarrhea so the best thing to do is prevent it from freezing and you can do so by carrying an extra ziploc bag that way water doesn't leak out of it put it in your sleeping bag and your body heat should keep the water filter warm enough at night that it doesn't freeze and if it does freeze in the sleeping bag with you then you have bigger problems just to try to simplify it a little bit if you are going to the store and you're getting confused at what the difference between a water filter and a water purifier is it really has to do with the microns size which is something that could be even more confusing but basically a water filter is something that removes waterborne protozoa and bacteria not removing viruses and a purifier something that removes all three basically one is going to filter things that are smaller than the other because it has a smaller pore size and that can really depend on whether it's a purifier or a filter if it is a mechanical device so you can purify water in other ways that I've talked about so there might be some mechanical pumps that look like a filter but it says purifier and if you're not sure why it's because the micron size that it will filter out is small enough to filter out viruses therefore it's a purifier if it's just doing protozoa and bacteria it's a filter so hopefully that helped clear it up and did not make it even more money next let's cover a hikers favorite topic which is food when considering the type of food that you're gonna take with you backpacking you really have to ask yourself one main question and that is do I want to cook or do I not want to cook some benefits of cooking are having a nice hot meal at the end of a long day of backpacking and I know in the summer time that may not feel as important but if you're hiking in the cooler months then that is definitely a morale booster also having some hot coffee in the morning is one of my favorite things about being on trail and cooking if you have a stove in your cooking you're gonna have a backup method of treating your water you're gonna have more variety in your diet and more options on the other side of things if you're a person who wants to see more and get more miles logged in a day cooking is gonna take more time away from hiking and finally your pack is gonna be a little bit heavier because you're gonna have the weight of your fuel your stove and your cookware now you can minimize the cost and weight of things if you just carry along a food pot and no stove and decide to cook on fires instead so just a little pointer if you do want to cook but you want to reduce the cost of gear and weight of your pack now let's talk about some food options if you decide you're gonna cook most folks who go out back pack in that have a stove or gonna carry along things like rice pasta instant mashed potatoes things that they can rehydrate because that way the food's a little bit lighter and general rule of thumb for things that you could bring along is something that you would sit on a shelf and it would take it a while to rot some people even dehydrate their own vegetables and meats like ground beef actually has a video on dehydrating ground beef without having it taste like gravel and I'll put that link in the video description so if you're interested in dehydrating your own food and you want to do ground beef then that might be something you want to check out if you dehydrate some meats and vegetables you can throw that stuff into those other types of foods I was talking about like rice and pasta just to kind of kick them up a notch one good source for information and where I learned to make that ground beef is backpacking chef comm so if you want to get a little fancy on trail that is a good place to find some new recipes some people don't feel quite as creative on trail and they just want something simple but that is still really good and for that there are already prepackaged freeze-dried backpacker meals available most of the backpacker meals are pretty tasty they're high in calories and protein they can be on the pricey side but the prepackaged backpacker meals are some of the best meals I've had on trail if you're not gonna cook then you can pack along things like summer sausage jerky my favorite is bacon jerky tortilla peanut butter Nutella you still have a lot of different options again something that can kind of sit on a shelf for a little while without going bad another option for people who decide to not cook is cold soaking with cold soaking all you need is some kind of container like a twist lid Tupperware dish and then you just pour in some type of food that would need rehydrating like rice pasta all of those things that I mentioned earlier and then you add water close the top and put it back in your pack while you're hiking for a bit in the evening and then when you get to camp voila dinner is served some common snacks for backpackers are things like jerky sports bars granola bars Snickers bars and other candy chips donuts etc in cooler temperatures you can pack out more fresh type foods like apples vegetables spinach cheese just something to kind of add to your food to help you be a little bit healthier and to add more variety to your diet but just keep in mind that those fresher foods that don't need rehydrating are gonna be a little bit heavier one thing people seem to stress over when they go on their first backpacking trip is how much food should I bring per day you don't want to have way too much because then you're carrying a lot of weight on your back that you don't need you don't want to have way too little because you don't want to be hungry but I feel like this is something you just have to try and then figure out you know as you progress in your journey of backpacking but almost always people over pack food so the general rule of thumb is 2 pounds per day now of course this is gonna vary from somebody who's a small female like my size to a larger male but again the general rule of thumb is 2 pounds per day you should be pretty good with that through hikers or a long-distance backpackers tend to worry more about how many calories are in each pound of their food because they want to make sure that they're maximizing that ratio so that their food is as light as possible while they're also getting as many calories as possible but when you're on a section hike or a weekend trip this isn't really something that people generally stress about as much if you want to find out more about the food that I specifically ate on each of my through hacks and I'm gonna put some videos in the video description of this video so you can find out more about that and you might get some more ideas of what people typically eat when they're backpacking now let's talk about food storage because once you have all of that good food picked out you're gonna carry with you on your backpacking trip you need to have something to keep it in most people go with a lightweight waterproof bag that has a roll down top and then clicks together and as far as sizing goes if you're going on a trip for up to 5 days and I think a 15 litre bag is a pretty good place to start on my three hike of the 18 I carried a 15 litre bag that was pretty cheap and from Academy sports and outdoors and then on the PCT and CDT the Z packs bear bagging kit and it's actually 14 litres but because of the shape of the bag held my food a lot better than the bag did that I used on the Appalachian Trail if you're in bear country you'll want to hang your food at night so to do that you're gonna need some cord I suggest having about 50 to 100 feet of cord because the idea of bear bagging is you want the bag to be far enough out from the trunk of the tree that if a bear were to climb it it couldn't just reach out and grab your food bag you want it low enough from the branch that you hang it over that the bear can't shimmy out on the limb and reach down and grab your food and then you're gonna want it high enough from the ground that it can't just reach up and grab your food bag from the ground and the hang should take place at least a hundred feet from your camp the main reason is bear bag is you don't want a bear coming into your tent at night trying to get your food and hurting you in the process and also in general you don't want bears associating humans with food because when that happens and then you have a problem bear a lot of times it gets put down even if you're not in bear country if there are trees around bear bagging is a good idea in general because it can help protect your food from other hungry critters like mass there are several different ways to hang a bear bag I did a video where I covered three different methods so if you want to know more about the specifics of bear bagging then in the video description I will also include a link to how to hang a bear bag in some areas of bear country like the Sierra Nevada in California you're required to carry a bear canister and they are in my opinion a lot more convenient because you don't have to fuss over hanging in a bear bag you just put your food in your canister and then take it 100 feet from camp and just sit it down however there are pros and cons to every piece of gear and the same is true with bear cans because although they're convenient they're also very heavy there are some lighter weight bear cans that are made out of carbon fiber but those are pretty pricey there is another fairly common option for food storage called the earth sack an earth sack bag is basically a bear proof bag that's made out of bulletproof material or sacks come in different types and sizes it really depends on what kind of critter you're trying to keep out of your food but they're gonna be more expensive than a bear bag and kit and a little bit heavier on the other hand they're gonna be more lightweight than a bear can and probably cheaper or about the same price if you're going with a heavier bear can the earth sacks are pretty convenient like a bear canister because you just have to make sure that the bag is anchored down to a bush or a tree or a post just anything that you can make sure it's tied down pretty well I have had a lot of folks ask well what do you do about food storage in the desert where there are no trees and you can't hang a bear bag and in those instances a bear canister or an earth sack might be useful they're heavier than your normal food bag or bear bag though so a lot of people don't really want to have to use one of those options so a lot of times what I would do is just try somehow to get my food up and off the ground and I would hang what I would call a mouse bag just on a low-hanging branch now mice could definitely still get my food and it's really gonna depend on the area that you're hiking and the time of year because they seem to be a little more aggressive late in the fall you know when food is getting scarce but when I was in the desert on the CDT and the Pacific Crest Trail I really didn't have an issue with rodents you can risk it and try to sleep with your food if you don't have to worry about a bear coming in on you but there is a chance that rodents could chew through to get to your food whenever you figure out where you're gonna go backpacking it's important to check out if there are certain requirements for that area that way you know hey bear bagging is okay or no you have to have a bear food canister some trails that you'll go backpacking on might even have designated food storage areas so they could have bear boxes hanging cables or hanging post where they want you to specifically keep your food I think your best bet is to just check for the specific area that you're gonna go backpacking and see what their requirements are for food storage if you've decided that you're gonna cook all that good food you have in your bear bag then you're gonna need a stove there are several types of stoves but fuel canister stoves are the most common and with the fuel canned stoves what happens is your stove is gonna screw on to the top of an ISO butane propane mixture fuel can and there's a valve that's going to control either the flow of the gas or once you light the stove then it'll control the heat of the flame some of the pros of carrying a fuel canned stove is that because you can control the temperature of the flame you kind of have more versatility you can simmer food if you want to or you can boil it quickly they do have a pretty fast cook time they're generally lightweight and not too expensive my BRS stove weighs 1 ounce there are some that might be a little bit heavier but are still pretty lightweight and for a good fuel canister stove you can pay anywhere from 15 to about 40 dollars one of the cons of using a fuel canister stove is that you really can't see how much fuel you have remaining in that can but as you use it by shaking it you can kind of get an idea of how much fuel is left also fuel cans are a little heavy in and of themselves so obviously the weight is gonna go down as you use the fuel canister but even when it's empty it's still kind of heavy the next common option on trail is the alcohol stove and these are fueled with denatured alcohol heat moonshine I don't know why you'd want to waste your good moonshine but basically any liquid that will burn alcohol stoves are generally pretty lightweight and inexpensive and you can even make your own at home with a tuna can or a cat food can but all you have to do is empty out the tuna or cat food and then punch some holes with a hole punch around the top rim of the can just so you give some ventilation and allow the fire to breathe you pour alcohol inside the can and then light the alcohol and set your food pot right on top of that and voila if you decide to make one of these out of the Fancy Feast food can it'll be you know a little smaller surface area to set your pot on but it weighs less than an ounce and it'll cost you whatever Fancy Feast costs and a hole punch what's nice about alcohol stoves is that you can see exactly how much fuel you have left because you're gonna have a bottle of liquid and also as you use that fuel you'll pearl notice a bigger weight difference than you will when you use the fuel canisters of a fuel canned stove some of the negative aspects of using an alcohol stove is that you can't control the flame so it kind of limits your chef-like abilities also if you pour too much fuels and you have to either let it sit there and burn out so you can kind of waste fuel or you have to dump dirt on it or cover it with a pot and somehow you know choke out that flame if you knock over an alcohol stove it can put you in a tight spot if you've ever spent any time in the shelter's along the Appalachian Trail and you see burn marks on the shelter floors it's probably where somebody has knocked over their alcohol stove and the alcohol keeps burning and finally you're gonna have slower cook times the final stove option today that I want to talk about is a wood stove and these are fueled with either pellets or sticks of wood that you find on the forest floor these really aren't as common but if you want to do things the old-fashioned way then it might be for you wood stoves can be a bit heavier than other options but there are some more lightweight collapsible versions and if you take into consideration that you won't be carrying a separate fuel source if you decide to use little twigs and stuff then you know maybe it'll balance out a little better the main benefit I see with wood stoves and if anybody else has any other benefits please feel free to share that in the comments but my idea is that by using a wood stove you're reducing your cost of fuel wood stoves can be a little more troublesome than other stoves because if you're using wood that you find out on the trail and it's been raining for days and you're gonna have to have a little bit more skill and patience with a wood stove you're gonna have slower cook times and you won't be able to control the flame there are other stove options out there but as far as what I've seen while backpacking these are the top three tops and as you're making your decision it's really gonna depend on how much time you want to spend cooking and how much versatility you're looking for in a stove now let's talk about cookware because if you're gonna cook ya gotta have a pot to cook in the first thing I was concerned about when I was trying to pick out a pot was what capacity do I need and if you're gonna be cooking in out of your pot then I recommend at least 900 milliliters but I like to go with a 1 liter pot and I think that's a good baseline to start with there are people who get by with less but again just being able to stir not being worried about sloshing everything around I think about a liter is good you can find pots made out of stainless steel they're gonna be cheaper but heavier titanium is a great way to go and is probably what most people use because it's durable lightweight but it's gonna be more on the expensive side what I did is I went with an aluminum grease pot made by Stan CO and it's really light not maybe as durable but I don't care if it's got a few dings and it just gives it more character and I just modified the lid a little bit because it had a plastic knob so I just unscrewed that knob and replaced it with an eye bolt that way if I wanted to cook on a fire it wouldn't melt that knob I've heard that you're really not supposed to eat out of aluminum some people say that's bogus some people say yes you shouldn't do that but I always kind of joke about it and make light of it by saying that while I'm on trail I'm not using deodorant so that's how I offset my aluminum intake for my food pot I also made a pot cozy and that might be something that y'all would be interested in trying the main idea of the pot cozy is so when you start your food bowl and you don't have to keep that food in there boiling until the noodles or rice or whatever is tender you can just bring your water to a bowl have your food in there and then put your pot into a cozy and let it sit for a while and the pot cozy is made out of reflectix material which holds in that heat and continues cooking your food even though it's not on the stove with the cozies you'll have to be a little patient and wait maybe ten more minutes until your food but then you've got something to hold your food in so you're not trying to hold a hot pot and also it keeps your food warm while you're eating and the idea of the cosy is that overall it will help you with your fuel consumption and the cost of fuel don't forget that if you're gonna cook you're gonna need a utensil to eat with there's like this eternal battle between sporks and spoons and to be a big sparker but now I have transition to a spinner honestly I don't know that I ever actually used a little pokey parts on a spork when I transitioned to a spoon I went with the topes long-handled titanium spoon because when you get out of those backpacker meals the little envelopes or packages that they come in are kind of deep so you have to stick a hand down in there if you've got a short spoon or spork so the long handle spoon is just kind of asked to eat those backpacker meals with honestly this is not something to stress over I mean titanium is lightweight and durable but you could always take a spoon out of your silverware drawer at home or use something plastic but of course titanium is gonna last you a little longer next some people like a cup to drink out of and some just use their food pot for coffee or tea or whatever other liquids they want to drink I prefer to have a separate cup for my pot because I like to be able to drink coffee while I'm eating my breakfast or a drink tea in the evening while I'm eating my dinner the two most common cups I've seen on trail are either the titanium cups or the collapsible mugs the titanium cups could be useful if you thought that you might just use those freeze-dried backpacker meals so you only needed to boil water and you could probably get by using that mug and just heating up water in that I personally use the collapsible mug from sea2summit because it's compact it fits well in my pot with my stove and everything else and I like that it has little graduated marks in there so I know exactly how much water I'm measuring out when I'm cooking now once you eat a good meal how do you wash dishes on the trail I personally just use my hand and some water so I just pour a little bit of water in my pot and stir it around with my hand and rub all around the sides real good if there's something in there that's kind of sticking and doesn't really want to turn loose then I'll either get a twig or some moss just to give a little more scraping action inside the pot and then I just take my bandana and dry it out real well and if there's any kind of film still in the pot usually that takes care of it some people like to do a little bit better than that and they'll carry like a little piece of a dish sponge and some camps so if you're going to use soap to wash your dishes make you're at least 100 feet from a water source now let's go over electronics first let's talk about some ways to conserve the battery power life of your phone and other electronics that way you don't need quite as much back at battery power the first thing I do when I get out on the trail is put my phone in airplane mode especially if you're in a place where you don't have service airplane mode keeps your phone from continuously searching for service which kills your phone really quickly even if you have service by putting it on airplane mode it's going to help conserve the life of it and then you can check for messages and place phone calls at strategic places like on top of a climb where you're more likely to have service than down in a bottom the best bet is to keep it off completely when you're not using it but if you find yourself taking a lot of pictures and videos like I do then keeping it on Power Save or low battery mode works out better because I can still use it when I want to very quickly especially if I'm trying to capture an animal or something that might not be sticking around for a while it also helps to dim your screen brightness while you have it on so only keep it as bright as you have to to actually see it and then when I'm asleep at night I go ahead and turn my phone off completely that way it's not using power in the middle of the night when I'm definitely not going to be using it finally you want to avoid temperature extremes so you don't want to leave your phone or other electronics out baking in the Sun because that can damage the battery and I've noticed that my electronics especially my phone will die a lot faster if I haven't an extreme cold so if it's cold during the day while I'm hiking I'll keep my phone or other electronics tuck down into my coat and then at night while I'm sleeping I'll keep them in the sleeping bag with me there are really two main ways to charge your electronics while you're backpacking and that is through backup battery packs and solar panel chargers the most common of these two is backup battery packs and the way that these work is you charge them at home before you go out on the trail then when you're on trail and your phone or other electronics need charge you just connect them with a cord to the battery pack that has a USB port and it's as simple as that they make battery packs in all different shapes and sizes but of course you don't want to take one that's bigger than you need because you'll just be carrying a bunch of extra weight so the question arises well exactly what size battery bank do I need when you're shopping for backup battery packs you'll notice that the electrical capacity of that battery is measured in milliamp hours we need to consider well how much percentage of my phone battery am I using daily then if you look at the milliamp hours of the battery on your phone or other electronic devices that you want to charge you can do some pretty quick and rough math and figure out what you might need probably the easiest way to do this is when you're shopping around for a backup battery banks you can look at what the manufacturer says as far as what to expect in the way of charging a smart phone I used my phone a ton on the CDT I was videoing every day to document the experience and I took literally thousands of pictures if not tens of thousands of pictures and I had other electronics too but I carried a 10,000 milliamp hour charger and a 20,000 milliamp hour charger but that's really overkill unless you're doing something like vlogging and you have other electronics also one of the benefits of using a backup battery pack is that they're reliable as long as you make sure to get a good quality brand I use Ankur I like that brand I know I can rely on it I've heard that ravpower is also good too with a battery pack you know what you're getting most of them have little dots that when the phone is charging up they'll light up so you know how charged it is and then also when you're charging your device's on-trail you'll see those light slowly disappear and when you get to that last one it's pretty sad but you know you can start rationing your phone if you need to but you know what to expect in the way of how much power you're going to get and you can see it going as you use it and they're really not too pricey a 10,000 milliamp hour backup battery bank by Ankur is gonna cost about $30 and they're fairly lightweight for backpacking so the 10,000 milliamp hour by Ankur is six point three ounces some of the drawbacks to using a backup battery bank is that when the power is gone it's gone there's no magical way to make more power go into it so you know what you have to use and when you use it it's done also they can take a while to charge now this is a non-issue for most people who are gonna go out and do just one section and then go home but if you're doing an extended section or a thru-hike it can be a little problematic because the bigger the battery pack of course the longer it's gonna take to charge and the 10,000 milliamp hour charger takes about six to seven hours to charge at least that's what anchor says on their website I have never personally timed it but I agree that that sounds about right now me personally as a through hacker this really hasn't been an issue either because most of the time because I'm putting out videos and vlogging as I go when I get to a town I generally stay the night to allow all of my battery banks to charge up but also to take care of some things that I need to and to upload a video now for most thru-hikers or people who are doing an extended section they want to get into town sometimes resupply do some errands and then get back on the trail so having a battery pack that takes six to seven hours isn't really helpful when you're trying to just get in and get out if you find yourself in this situation where you need the battery pack to charge faster then you should check out the power banks that have the Qualcomm quick charge technology the power banks with the quick charge technology generally have the quick charge output but now some of the latest and greatest one have the quick charge input - which allows the battery pack to charge quickly also one example is a ravpower 10,000 milliamp hour quick charge 3.0 and according to the manufacturer of that particular battery pack it says online that it takes about three-and-a-half to four hours to charge the battery pack which is a great improvement from the six to seven hours if you're somebody that needs to get into town do some errands and allow your batteries to charge and then get out these battery packs will come with a cord to charge the pack but you need to make sure that you have a quick charge compatible wall charger that actually plugs into the wall now let's cover solar panel chargers while these aren't as common among the backpacking world as the backup battery banks there are still some people who use solar panel chargers I think the biggest question when trying to decide between am I going to use a backup battery or am I going to use a solar panel charger is where are you to be hiking if you're gonna be hiking somewhere like the Appalachian Trail where you're under a green tunnel and you're not gonna have much sunlight hitting you and your pack then you might not want to have a solar panel charger because guess what it needs the Sun to charge I think that the only way that it could really work out in a forested area like that is if you're aiming to go on a trip where you're not gonna be hiking that many miles and you're willing to stop and take a break at certain points when the opportunity arises where you have full Sun and you can lay the solar panel out and let it go ahead and charge up your devices otherwise I would reserve the solar panel usage for areas where you're going to be exposed like in desert as' areas or in higher elevations where you're above treeline the best thing about solar panel chargers is that when they work well it's wonderful because you can just charge your little heart out but the issue there is that this can be weather dependent also I've found that they're a little more fussy to deal with while on trail because you're having to adjust the panel to make sure the sunlight is hitting it properly and with backpacking you're always changing different angles so to me I found with trying to make sure that I got all the sunlight I could that it was just something else to kind of think about and deal with however if you have your mind set on a solar panel you know that that's what you want to do some things that you want to think about when you're selecting a solar panel is surface areas generally the more surface area you have the faster the panel is going to be able to charge a battery or your other electronics but of course with more surface area comes more weight and a solar panel that is now less packable I had a son tactics s5 charger that was rigid I've seen people use the solar panels that are more flexible if I had to do it again I like the idea of one that's a little more flexible but personal preference output capacity is definitely something you want to consider when selecting a solar panel and this is measured in watts the higher the number the more electricity is going to be generated in a given time the way of the solar panel will be important maybe not while you're sitting there shopping for it but later when you're having to carry it the weight will matter and if you do that calculation I mentioned earlier with the battery packs you might even realize that the battery pack that you would need for a given stretch of trail might weigh less than a solar panel anyway so the solar panel might not be worth it something else you'll want to think about is are you going to connect your phone or other electronics directly to the panel or are you planning on bringing like a little battery pack so that you can charge the little battery pack from the panel and then later at night charger phone if you're hooking your phone directly to the solar panel charger and it ends up being rainy or cloudy you could find yourself in a band I've heard people complain about having their phone directly connected to the solar panel and then if they hit a little bit of shade the phone lets them know I'm no longer charging and then when they get back in the Sun it lets a note hey I am charging and the phone constantly lights up and buzzes or makes a noise during all of that so it can either be annoying but even if you cut the sound off then it's lighting up and going dim and lighting up and going dim and I've heard people say that they feel like that act of lighting up and going dim is killing the phone faster than the solar panel can charges and I suppose you could always just turn your phone off as long as your phone will stay off while it's charging if you're gonna hook your phone directly to the solar panel you need to determine when you buy the solar panel that that is a safe option for your phone and then it won't damage your battery chances are it's gonna be less reachable which for you may not be an issue if you're not planning to use it a whole lot while you're hiking anyway I suppose you could get a really long cord so that you can still reach it but it's definitely a consideration if you decide to carry a little backup battery charger so you can charge it at night then again you might want to consider the weight and just the hassle of everything is it worth it or is the battery packs it's a little bit bigger a better idea solar panels tend to run on the heavy side and they can also be pretty expensive but I think as technology advances the weight and price are getting a little bit better I know that it probably sounds like I'm just downing solar panel chargers and and I'm really not they all have their place but I just want to let you know what to think about and some issues that you could run into if you decide to use as your source of power I think that if you were gonna do something like backpack into a certain location and set up a base camp where you had some full Sun and you were going to be out there for several days and you could set the panel up somewhere and charge your backup battery pack that you take to do day hikes from that base camp then a solar panel charger could really work for you or again like I mentioned before if you're just gonna be hiking a few miles each day and it's more about camping to you on this backpacking trip then a solar panel charger might work out well for you and allow you an excuse to take extended breaks during the day if you want to look over some solar panel options that have been tested by folks who get out there and actually use this stuff and backpack I'm gonna leave a link in the video description that is the best options for solar panel chargers in 2019 as rated by outdoor gear lab I have used that website to kind of scope out a bunch of different gear options when I've been trying to decide between several different things so it's definitely a good resource when shopping for backpacking gear next let's go over first-aid just a disclaimer I am NOT a medical professional so this is not medical advice because foot issues are pretty common on trail if you just make a point to properly take care of your feet it can help prevent a lot of those problems the first thing that you can do is make sure that you have properly sized footwear a lot of people wear a half a size or even a whole size bigger while backpacking than they do in normal life before you go backpacking you want to make sure your toenails aren't too long so that even if your feet do approach the front of your shoe you that your toenails are hitting the front of the shoe but also you don't want to trim them back so short that it causes you issues like ingrown toenails also you need to make sure that your feet are protected but not overburdened so you'll have to figure out whether trail runners are gonna work best for you or a more solid more sturdy hiking boot other than properly fitting Footwear there are other ways to take care of your feet for example when you take a break during the day go ahead and take your shoes off you can even pull your insoles out and take your socks off to allow your feet to dry out real well and your Footwear it may not seem like it's completely soaked but there is going to be sweat in your socks and your shoes and allowing your feet to air out will help prevent things like trench foot or other bacterial or fungal issues you can soak your feet in cool creeks or at least when you get to camp in the evening make sure to rinse your feet off that'll help clean some of the salt and just funk off of your feet and help your feet feel better but also to be cleaner and to prevent issues like blisters that can happen with sweaty damp funky feet if all of the methods of preventing blisters from forming do not work and you start to feel a hot spot you should take your shoes off and do something about it immediately I know a lot of folks who will feel a hot spot kind of coming on and they'll think well I'll just handle it when I get to camp later but the best thing that you can do for your feet is to stop immediately and check the area and see if you are in fact having some kind of friction issue and then you can do something like apply leuco tape or mole skin to help keep the friction off of your skin then you'll want to make sure to keep the area as clean as possible if you do develop a blister I had a nurse recommend to me to at least wait 24 hours before popping it some people pop them some people don't I've seen blisters where they probably should have been popped because when they weren't they continued to grow and ended up developing into a huge blister so it really just depends on your feet the blister how you feel about it and you just have to make that call in the field if you're gonna pop it make sure you clean the area very well again probably best to wait 24 hours to allow some skin to develop under the blister and then you want to make sure your needle is as clean as possible I generally burn mine with a lighter and then put some hand sanitizer on it then insert the needle into the blister and allow it to drain some people will take a needle and thread and rub triple antibiotic ointment on the thread or neosporin then take the needle and put it through the blister and allow the thread to hang out of the blister on either side thread allows the moisture to wick out while they're sleeping it also is putting triple antibiotic ointment inside the blister which I feel like can't be a horrible idea and the thread also keeps the holes open on the blister that way it can continue to drain another issue that backpackers are sometimes plagued with is plantar fasciitis I dealt with this on my 300 and it's extremely painful plantar fasciitis is the inflammation or irritation of the band that runs through the bottom of your foot so if you pull your toes back and feel what feels like a tendon there that is your planner fashion this might not be quite as problematic for somebody that's going out on a shorter backpacking trip like a weekend trip or even a week long because you can work on dealing with this issue before you get out there and also after but if you're going on a more extended trip then it can cause you some problems one of the best things that you can do to help prevent the issue and or treat it on trail is to stretch your calves your calves are connected to the Achilles tendon which is also connected to the plantar fascia you can also take a tennis ball along and roll your foot on it I felt that either that or a bouncy ball was really nice just to have that pressure and massage the plantar fashion I personally have had luck with the doctor Scholl's inserts for plantar fasciitis I find if I use those insoles and I make a point to replace my trail runners at least every 500 miles if not a little sooner then it pretty much keeps the plantar fasciitis at bay I've heard that transitioning to the zero drop shoe like the ultra has helped people with plantar fasciitis those types of shoes can take a break-in period but I have heard of people who had issues with their plantar fasciitis and other issues with their feet and those types of shoes helped a lot one common issue while backpacking that is horribly painful to have is chafing when you take skin that is warm and damp and dirty and you're just constantly having friction on it all day chances are you're gonna at some point end up with chafing the best thing that you can do for chafing is of course just take a break you know take time off but if you're out on a set backpacking trip then you're not gonna want to stop just because you have some chafing going on so some things that you can do to help out with that is to make sure to keep the area as clean as possible if it's warm enough out and you can sleep with no bottoms on and allow everything to air out down there that's great if not at least try to sleep without underwear maybe powder up the area to help dry it out ladies you want to make sure that you use a corn starch based powder not a tell powders while you're hiking you can use a product to help reduce the friction on the area things again like baby powder Gold Bond or even body Glide you can also experiment with different clothing so the seams may be causing you issues some people find if they don't wear underwear it helps or if they do and they weren't before that helps and everybody's body is different so you're really just gonna have to experiment and figure out what works best for you next is the twisting swelling or spraining of joints the first thing that you can do to prevent issues like this is to be mindful of your surroundings when you're walking it's a good idea to pay attention to where you're going and to look down and make sure you're not stumbling over a slippery route or a rock but at the same time I find myself wanting to look up and enjoy the scenery that I came to see so I understand that the struggle is brief if you do find yourself injured in some way where you've twisted a joint it's now swollen or you've even gone as far as to sprain it then you want to soak the joint or painful area in either a cold spring or whatever cool water source you can find take ibuprofen or other anti-inflammatory and if you can elevate the area that is painful if you feel like the injury is bad enough or you want to go ahead and get out of the wilderness and seek professional help for your injury then you can wrap it with a couple of bandanas and some sticks as a makeshift splint use your trekking poles as crutches the best you can and go ahead and head back to your vehicle or whatever access point you came in if the injury is bad enough to where you feel like you cannot get yourself out of the woods and there's nobody there to help you then that's a good instance of when a personal locator beacon or a spot device so a one-way communication device or the inReach which is two-way communication would be a great idea because then that way you can call for help next up are cuts and scrapes I'm not sure that I could get through a backpacking trip without some sort of cuts and scrapes and the best thing to do when this happens it's just a clean area as well as you can I use hands anat Iser filtered water if I have some antiseptic wipes those are a great idea to have or even baby wipes because I'm basically always carrying those it's a good idea to carry those little individual travel packets of antibiotic ointment that way you can apply it to help prevent infection I have found that band-aids don't really work especially if I'm applying them to my feet because they just come off within minutes after I start hiking again gauze pads and medical tape of some sort works a lot better and if the cut is bad enough and seems to keep bleeding then make sure to apply pressure you can take a bandana and fold it up and mash it down hard on it or even tie it off with another piece of clothing finally it's never a bad idea to have super glue if you need to close a cut I know that that's not maybe the best or safest option if you're willing to pay a little bit more and you want a better product for this use then you can get what is called marathon skin protectant this was recommended to me by a nurse who said that you can use it for blisters burn areas areas that have been rubbed or scraped even puncture wounds next is poison oak poison ivy or other poisonous plants the best thing that you can do to prevent coming into contact with one of these plants is to learn to identify them before you go out backpacking and if you can have somebody with you who does know these plants and can help you learn to identify them if you do end up developing a rash and you think you've come into contact with poison oak or poison ivy the best thing to do is to not scratch the area I'm sure that it would pitch and be uncomfortable but by scratching it you can end up spreading it and also you can end up scratching open your skin and having the potential for getting an infection if you're extremely allergic to these plants and you definitely want to take some extra precautions one of the fellas I met on my thru-hike of the 80 or knee-high socks because of that issue most people who have a reaction to poisonous plants aren't extremely allergic to them so chances are you can wait for further treatment once you get to town let's talk about hypothermia most people probably think that if they're backpacking in the three warmer season so spring summer and fall that they won't have any issues with hypothermia you can actually experience hypothermia even in warmer conditions hypothermia happens when your body can't maintain a normal temperature it's important to learn the signs and symptoms of somebody that has hypothermia so you can hopefully maybe recognize it in yourself but also you might recognize it in people that you're hiking around and then you can help them some of the common symptoms are shivering disorientation or confusion at that point a shelter should be set up whoever is suffering from conditions of hypothermia should be warmed up as quickly as possible with a sleeping bag an emergency blanket by hugging somebody else and having body contact with a person who is able to maintain a warm temperature or whatever you have to do to warm that person up if you can get the person something warm to drink or some calories because it takes calories to keep your body warm and I know a lot of times I've found myself in cooler temperatures not wanting to stop and take a break because I'm cold so I don't eat as much as I should and it ends up having the reverse effect because my body's working so hard to warm up but I just haven't provided it with sufficient calories to do so and finally if possible the person who is experiencing hypothermia should be evacuated we talked about hypothermia so now let's touch on hyperthermia and ways that you can prevent getting overheated while you're out hiking first of all if it's a really hot day try to avoid hiking in the prime heat of the day I did this even on my through hack when I was in the Mojave Desert on the Pacific Crest Trail and even in the desert areas on the Continental Divide Trail sometimes it's just too hot to hike and you have to take cover in the shade and wait for cooler parts of the day or even if you have to do some not hiking be mindful of the level of humidity that you're hiking and backpacking in because a high level of humidity can compromise your body's ability to sweat and then for that sweat to evaporate and actually cool your body down so it's not necessarily only about how hot it is outside but also the level of humidity and your body's ability to cool itself down and warmer temperatures it's always a good idea to stop and take breaks allow yourself to cool down stick your feet and a cool flowing stream just take as many breaks as you - because you're not gonna get to where you need to go if your Heat exhausted and did something that I like to carry with me especially when I'm backpacking in exposed areas is an umbrella because you have instant shade anytime you want to sit down and just take a breather it's a good idea to have that umbrella to protect your body and skin from the Sun anyway even if the temperatures are cooler outside I've needed instant shade in 60-degree temperatures in the desert before because the Sun is so intense it's a good idea to know the symptoms of heat exhaustion and heatstroke things like a rapid pulse signs of exhaustion people losing consciousness rapid shallow breathing headache nausea dizziness weakness if you see somebody with these symptoms even if they're saying no I'm okay I'm okay but you think that this could be heat related then you need to cool them down by any means necessary if that means stripping their clothes off cooling them down with a cold wet rag Fanning their body anything to promote evaporation of moisture on the skin to help cool them down is a good idea and then of course seek medical help as soon as possible state facts chances are you're not gonna be bitten by a venomous snake while you're backpacking but when I started my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail I was pretty worried about being bitten by a rattlesnake so I tried to find comfort in the fact that seven to eight thousand people per year in the US are bitten by venomous snakes but usually only about five died from that snake bite and as long as you seek medical attention as soon as possible you're usually going to be okay the best way to prevent being bitten by a snake is to be aware of your surroundings when you sit down and take a break you want to make sure that you're not sitting on a snake who's curled up next to a rock or leaned against a tree where a snake is hiding I've seen little bitty rattlesnakes curled up in a V of a tree so just be aware when you're sitting down or setting up your tent or going to the bathroom that you're on the lookout for snakes you can take a trek and pull with you when you're going off trail and kind of tap around I also do that when I'm crossing a downed tree on trail if I can't see on the other side of the log and then of course do a general scan of the trail while you're walking I've been in la-la land before and walked up on some snakes pretty quickly but most of the time I see them before I get within striking range if you are bitten by a venomous snake they say to stay calm and I know that sounds almost impossible but to the best of your ability stay as calm as you can because if you don't stay calm and you start running around and freaking out you're just going to increase your heart rate and that's gonna spread the venom around your body quicker keep the bite area at heart level or below again to decrease the spreading of the venom and before you clean the bite you want to allow it to bleed freely for 15 to 30 seconds and then seek medical help as soon as possible again this is an instance where a personal locator beacon or some sort of device that you can call for help would be very useful if Sony that you're with has been bitten it's recommended that you tell them to leave their pack or at least drop as much weight as possible and then help them slowly and calmly to exit the wilderness you just want to have them exerting themselves as little as possible or the same for you if you're alone and can't call for help then you just kind of of course want to get there as soon as you can but try not to overexert yourself and to stay calm as possible until you get out of the woods it is recommended that you do not apply a tourniquet to the area because then you're concentrating the venom in one area which is bad for the tissue and while tourniquets have their uses it's bad for keeping a limb in general because of the same reasons it's not suggested that you apply it a cold pack because it can reduce the blood flow and again concentrate that venom to one area and finally you don't want to cut open the bite or suck the bat because that's for the movies those are the most common ailments that I have either experienced or seen other people experienced while backpacking but now I want to go ahead and run down a list of things that you can include in your first-aid kit they're a good idea of course this is just a baseline because everybody's individual needs are going to change this a little bit but this is just a good place to start some good medications to have on hand while backpacking include neosporin or other triple antibiotic ointment benadryl or other antihistamines ibuprofen for swelling fever reducer and pain and finally something that I will never be without on trail is Moe diem or some other anti diarrheal and tums because I think that having diarrhea on trail is one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life it can also be dangerous because with diarrhea you can quickly become dehydrated so if I can only have one of the medications on that list it would be an anti diarrheal other items you might want to bring are things to treat blisters like mole skin or leuco tape or whatever you prefer to treat blisters gauze bandages butterfly strips superglue or that marathon skin protectant I mentioned earlier antiseptic towelettes or baby wipes hand sanitizer tweezers a knife or a multi-tool you never know when you might want to cut bandages or cloth a needle or safety pin a bandana and in the colder months I recommend having one of those emergency safety blankets they're really cheap pretty lightweight and it can save your life also they can double as a ground cloth for cowboy camping again all of that is just a good starting point and you can tweak it to add or remove things as you see fit but keep in mind that you're never gonna have every single thing to cover anything that could possibly go wrong while on trail but it's a good idea to have things to cover the most common basic injuries for anything more extreme I know I've mentioned several times in this video but it's always a great idea to have a personal locator beacon that way you can call for help in a true emergency next on the list is hygiene it is fairly common for people to go out on a backpacking trip and just not worry about bathing off until they get home however if you just can't live with that idea and you want some ways to kind of help keep yourself more fresh while you're on trail then here are some options first if you find a nice body of water and it's a hot day you can go for a swim if you have your clothes on too then hey you're bathing and doing trail laundry at the same time if you want to scrub up a little bit more using some soap then just make sure to collect some water to go away from the water source and then apply your soap and rinse off also for a way to just freshen up in your tent I have found baby wipes to be extremely helpful or even a wet bandana baby powder is a nice deodorizer in general for your body your hair I put it in my shoes sometimes it can't help with chafing but ladies if you're gonna use this for chafing make sure you get a corn starch based baby powder not talc powder I personally don't bother with deodorant I haven't met many people backpacking who do but if it's something that you just don't want to live without then take it you'll always find out if it's worth the weight to you or not but it is one of the things that a lot of people ditch first I found that hand sanitizer in the armpits and/or baby powder does the trick well enough for me to be able to stand myself another toiletry item to keep in mind if you're in desert as' areas or places with low humidity is lotion I take a little travel-size lotion because my skin tends to get really really dry and I've noticed that I'll end up with chafing around where my pant scene touches my legs so it's not like the wet clammy sweat II chafe but just the dry irritated skin and lotion has really helped me a lot with that if none of these tips seem like they would work for you and you're thinking no I really am going to need a legitimate shower how can I do that then see the summit and I'm sure some other companies make pocket showers for about 30 to 35 dollars you can get a seat a summit pocket shower that weighs about 5 ounces it holds 10 liters of water which they say will give you about a 7 minute shower you just collect water and the black bag absorbs the heat or you can even put hot water into it yourself if you bowl some water and voila you will have a shower on trail while you're backpacking now let's talk about hair care I've had several ladies ask me do you think that I should cut my hair before I start backpacking it's shorter hair easier to deal with and the answer is I don't really know because I've never backpacked with short hair but I can tell you that I didn't want to cut my hair when I started backpacking and having long hair has not been much of a hassle for me there probably is more maintenance involved so what I do with my hair is in the mornings I keep a collapsible type brush that's a brush mirror combo and I just brush my hair out and then I put baby powder in it kind of rub that in and then I braid my hair the hair stays in a braid all day long until I get to camp sometimes I'll go ahead and pull it down at night other times I just wait until the morning and that's really it the baby powder helps with the level of oil in my hair so it just kind of helps it to be fluffier and less greasy but you can do things like cover your hair with a buff or a bandana and if you have short hair that'll still keep it out of your face I'm sure dry shampoo would work similarly I just like having baby powder because it's multi-purpose I use it again in my shoes or to freshen my body along with keeping my hair less greasy now let's talk about brushing your teeth it seems to be this big joke among hackers whether you should cut the handle off your toothbrush or not honestly I know that it doesn't save that much weight but it does make it more packable and it does make it lighter everything little thing adds up you can also get just a travel sized toothbrush and a little travel-size toothpaste that's generally what I use on trail take some filtered water and brush your teeth like you normally would just make sure that you go away from camp because any sense like toothpaste are going to draw in critters to your camp some people also prefer to use tooth powder on trails so it's just like a powdered form of toothpaste you just dip your wet toothbrush bristles in there and then scrub your T's like you normally would an argument for the powder is that it's more lightweight I haven't actually packed out any of that and weighed the difference but I could see how it could be more lightweight just another option if you're interested next is feet make sure that you're taking care of your feet while you're backpacking they get you from point A to point B I try to make sure once a day I'm cleaning them whether that's soaking them in a water source downstream of where people are collecting their water or in the evenings I might wipe them off with baby wipes or pour water on them and just rub them off getting that salt and funk and grime off of your feet can help prevent things like trench foot and blisters also it's good to allow your feet to air out during breaks in the middle of the day and at night when you get to camp a merino wool sock will help not hold on to the odor of your feet more than synthetic socks will and also if your rotating out your socks so if you wear one pair for a day or two and then rinse them out let them air dry on your pack and then wear the next pair that'll also help take care of your feet if you think that you won't be able to stand to wear the same pair of clothes to hike in during the day every day and not do laundry you could always do some sort of trail laundry while you're backpacking having synthetic clothes that dry quickly is going to help with this process because then you could go swimming on your lunch break and hang your clothes up to dry while you're eating lunch again just be mindful at water sources that you're not rinsing out your clothes upstream from somebody who probably doesn't want to drink your stinky sock foot water likewise bathing your body if you're gonna use soap to wash your clothes and you want to make sure you move away from the water source as far as Shaving goes it's really a personal choice like many of the other things during backpacking the only time that I really worried about Shaving while I was on trail was when I was wearing a tank top I prefer to have my armpits shaved so I would just run a razor over my armpits and dress shave some mornings while I was on trail but most of the time I just saved this for town I'll carry a small disposable razor with me on through hacks but if you're going out for a section hike and you don't want to fool with it don't if you decide you do want to shave on trails and having a small little bottle of lotion so you don't have to dry shave might help or even carrying some kind of camp soap and just lathering up away from the water source and doing what you need to do I think one of the main things that people tend to freak out about when they're planning their first backpacking trip is going to the bathroom in the woods but if you keep in mind this whole going to the bathroom inside of a building is a pretty new concept because there used to be outhouses and even before that digging a hole and going to the bathroom was very natural and over the span of human time that was more common than what we do now going to the bathroom in the woods is something that will relate to you to your caveman ancestors and it's something that you really get used to when you're going number one or pee on trail you want to make sure that you're 100 feet from water sources and for guys this is a pretty easy thing where ladies you usually have to expose more for those who are interested they do make different products called the Shewee or the piece style which will allow you the same convenience you just unzip your britches hold this funnel-like object up to you and voila you two can write your name in the snow I personally have not used a ping device but for some of the ladies who have I hear wonderful things about them for me I just didn't want to have to deal with this object that now has urine on it and I have to rinse it off but it's probably really not that much of a hassle just like anything else once you get in the flow of using something to flow then it's not a big deal I've heard that you just rinse it off some people will wrap it up in a bag or something and then just keep it where it's easily accessible that way you're not having to take off your pack because the whole idea of it is that you can just reach it do your thing and keep hiking for me personally I don't mind taking my pack off to take a bathroom break it just gives me a good excuse to sit down and rest for a little while for ladies you can wipe off using toilet paper or baby wipes you do have to pack out baby wipes no matter what they're not going to break down as quickly as toilet paper even if it says composting or flushable wipes for toilet paper it's gonna depend on where you're backpacking of course it's always appreciated for you to pack it out and that's more in line with Leave No Trace standards but other trails like the Appalachian Trail for example says it's okay for you to bare your toilet paper as long as you do so in a six-inch hole for me I didn't really want to have to deal with the toilet paper or wipes just to pee and for a little while on the Appalachian Trail I used a pee right now this is just a bandana that you can tie to the outside of your pack and you use it to wipe yourself off you can rinse it out and wash it on trail and then let it hang dry on your pack but I found that the bandanna was leaning up against structures like three-sided shelters that you see along the Appalachian Trail or even in town I was leaning my pack on walls and then the thought of what did this bandanna touch and now I'm putting it in the nether region so I just decided against the period but it is something that people commonly use what I went with was the t-swift shake it off method so you just do a little shimmy and get it off the best you can when I go number two which I will talk about in a minute I'm always using baby wipes and usually at the end of the day I use baby wipes but I'm cleaning off enough times during the day that I'm not really worried about a UTI from using the shake off method of course some women are more prone to those than others so I'm just giving you the options and you can decide what works for you that would not recommend and wiping after you pee with leaves it just sounds like a bad idea to me because who knows what's on that leaf and now you're putting it in the frontal area which to me could lead to infections now let's talk about number two you go number two you want to make sure that you're mindful of your proximity to shelters campsites water sources the trail from all of those areas you should be at least 200 feet away I have unfortunately from the trail pretty close by seeing a man with a tail because he was going number two and did not expect me to round the corner I have also unfortunately sat next to human turds in a campsite area before while taking a break and also when I left the campsite one morning I had human feces on the hip belt of my pack that was also touching my shorts so yes I had human feces on my hand shorts and pack and considering that I didn't have actual soap and water just hand sanitizer that was a pretty disgusting experience regardless all these piles of doodoo should have been buried at the bottom of a 6-inch hole that is dug with either a trowel there's the deuce of spades that weighs less than an ounce you can attach easily to your pack or with a tent stake a trekking pole a rock just some tool that you're able to dig down at least six inches to bury that nasty stuff at the bottom of that hole again some areas will allow you to bury your toilet paper others will require you to pack it out and you also want to think about even in the areas where you're not required to pack it out if it's in sandy soils that aren't gonna break down as quickly then it's a good idea to pack out your toilet paper for any toilet paper or trash that's gonna have human waste on it or blood you might want to think about keeping it in a separate zip lock bag II now I always carry my regular food trash in a one gallon bag but usually I'll put things that have human waste or other bodily fluids into a separate ziploc inside of that ziploc the best way I've found a pack out toilet paper is to either take the end of Tillet paper and just roll off as much as I'll need and put it in a ziplock bag or you can tear out the cardboard roll inside and then mash down the toilet paper if you think that you'll need a hole with you I always keep it inside of a ziploc bag because if I have it somewhere where it's getting rained on wet toilet paper just probably isn't going to function as well my baby wipes I also keep in as if lock bag if you want to save a little weight and you're just going on a trip where you're gonna leave home and then return back to home if you have time before your trip you can always dry them out and then when you go to use them just put a little water on them and they'll rehydrate enough to serve their purpose but just a little tip if you want to cut some weight as far as the actual process goes of going number two after you dig your six inch hole you just hover over the hole and you can use the help of a tree so you can always hold on to a tree trunk and go or a low-hanging branch as long as it's not one that's gonna break off and really mess you up also some people will kind of sit on a downed tree and dig a hole and go over the side of it your aim will get better your legs will get stronger and if you miss the hole for some reason it's okay just grab a stick and scrape it off it will help break down your fecal matter if you take a stick and add a little dirt in the hole and stir it up just to help get those microbes mixed in there real good as I mentioned already some people wipe with toilet paper others use baby wipes and some people even use a trail bidet this is fairly common among ultralight backpackers what they'll do is take something like a smart water bottle and just squirt the backside there take your hand and designate it as the dirty hand a little soap and then just rinse it and rub it off real good because just squirting action probably isn't gonna clean all of the particulate matter so for this method you will need a little camp soap or some dr. Bronner's something to that effect then you grab the bottle again with your clean hand rinse it off real good back there and then please wash your hands if you use this method my recommendation would be to either be very careful that you don't get any back splash onto your smart water bottle or just go on the safe side and designate that water bottle as your trail the day also if you find yourself in a pinch and you don't want to use the trail bidet method but you're out of toilet paper or anything else to wipe with instead of wasting a suck or a pair of underwear I have found that moss will work pretty well but if you do choose to wipe with anything that is a greenery or a leaf just make sure that it is not poison I have not personally tried the trail bidet method yet but I hear that it works very well and it's gonna get you the cleanest and the most I just took a shower and the final hygiene topic today is menstruation it flow is not fun to have when you're off trail and is even more not enjoyable on trail unless you are taking your birth control in a way that it's going to cause you to not have a period or if you just don't have one anymore there are really two common ways that people deal with their period on trail and that is to use the traditional methods like tampons and pads and menstrual cups if you're going to go the traditional route and use tampons and pads I recommend the more compact type tampons that you have to extend the applicator before you use it or you could even use OB tampons that don't have an applicator you won't have to pack out as much trash with those and there won't be as much weight to carry because you won't have the applicator but I really don't like the idea of having to insert that with my hand while I'm on trail because my hands are gross and I do try to keep them as clean as possible and use baby wipes to clean my hands before I use a tampon in general but as far as putting the tampon up there personally I don't want to do that on trail but you may find that that's what you prefer if you're gonna go the traditional route and carry tampons and pads I'd make sure to put them in a ziploc bag so they're waterproof because if they get wet then they're not gonna do you much good I suggest carrying a little bit extra than what you think you need because I've been out there and times before and have run out and luckily somebody else had extra ones that I could use and it just feels like I always end up using more on trail than I do in normal life and finally having something like baby wipes or if you're gonna use the bidet method for when you use the bathroom you know just having something to help clean yourself up when you get done now let's talk about menstrual cups there are a lot of different brands I tried the Diva Cup it was a little too rigid for me so I went with the one cup and while it was softer I still was having leakage now there's a good chance that I wasn't using it properly and didn't give myself enough time to get adjusted to it this is something that you definitely want to master while you're in everyday life and you have modern comforts rather than in the middle of the woods over a cat hole or in approving the benefit of minstrel cups is you won't be carrying as much weight as you would be with traditional tampons and pads and also you won't have to worry about packing out all of that weight and having just you know gross bloody items in your trash bag if you use some internal cups you can just dump the blood from the menstrual cup down in a cat hole when you're going to the bathroom again if you're going to use the cup and you're going to have to insert something inside of yourself I would recommend having soap and water so you can wash your hands before and after there are definitely pros and cons to each method it just pulls down to personal preference I have thought about testing out some type of menstrual underwear I've seen the thinks brand specifically and so I asked several women who are active and who exercise and backpack what they would think about using those on trail and they said that the panties tend to soak up sweat and that if you were going to try to wash them and rotate them out on trail they're a little heavy and they would take a while to dry so they just didn't see it as something that would really be useful while backpacking of course that's not to say that you shouldn't try it just something to think about before you do use it as your only method of dealing with your period and then end up very uncomfortable and potentially really chase as a final word on general cleanliness keep in mind that even if you are mindful and tend to wash your hands after you use the bathroom or pick your nose or scratch a bug bite and get blood on your hands or whatever you know you may be a clean person but keep in mind that not everybody is and if you're out backpacking with other people and they have a bag of chips or trail mix and they're like here just reach in and get you a handful you know they were reaching their hand in there too so you might want to keep in mind that they might not be as clean as you are and think about that when you're reaching your hand into other people's food bags or allowing to reach their hands into yours next let's discuss inclement weather obviously the best thing to do is to avoid the trail in inclement weather it's not fun hiking in the rain or being caught in a lightning storm but you can't always tell what the weather is gonna do so if you find yourself in a situation where you're in some bad weather hopefully some of the tips in this video will help it's always recommended that before going out on trail you check the forecast not only for what the weather is gonna do in terms of rain but also for the temperature and if you're gonna be backpacking at higher elevations keep in mind that if you check the temperature for a town nearby the trailhead that you're planning to start at the temperature may register at a town that is much lower in elevation than the actual trail you'll be hiking you need to prepare for what the temperatures are going to be at the actual elevation that you'll be hiking not at the nearest town before you hit the trail you should make sure that you have redundancies in your waterproofing after backpacking with a pack that's made out of Dyneema I really can't recommend it highly enough especially if you're gonna be in rainy conditions other packs that aren't made out of waterproof material tend to hold more moisture in the material so your pack weight increases every time it rains also because Dyneema is for the most part waterproof you're adding another redundancy in your waterproofing of your gear if you already have a pack or even if you're gonna go with a Dyneema pack you should line it with some sort of pack liner a cheap option that's fairly lightweight is a compactor bag I usually just put the compactor bag down in my pack and then put any of the gear that I don't want getting wet even if I've already waterproofed it somehow because again redundancy is good in the compactor bag inside of my pack I'll put my sleeping bag my clothes electronics or anything else that I don't want getting rained on and most of those items I either have in a waterproof sack or ziplock baggies once I have everything in that I don't want getting wet then I roll down that compactor bag and on top of that I put any of the gear that I'm not concerned about getting wet so my tent my food bag and my cooking pot then I roll down the top of my pack and I'm good to go they do make pack covers for packs to kind of help with the rain if you have a Dyneema pack I wouldn't really worry about fooling with a pack cover if you don't you can use one I did find on the Appalachian Trail that they helps repel some water from my pack but I would not rely on this as your only form of waterproofing your pack in your gear not only should you protect your gear from the rain but also yourself so you need rain gear just a tip on taking breaks and eating food on a rainy day if most of the food in your pack is cook food it could put you in a band on a rainy day because you're just gonna have to take cover and do the best you can when you can but if you take more snacks and Nan cook foods when you're expecting rain it'll be a little bit quicker when you get a break real quick you can just grab something and go say you've been backpacking in the rain all day and you've had enough of it and you're ready to stop what is the best way to set up in the rain I prefer to try to wait until there's kind of a break in it or a lull in it at least it's not pouring down but if you get to a certain point in you're tired the show must go on and you're just gonna have to find a spot and stop I like to find an area that's got some kind of tree cover because the leaves really help to keep the rain at bay you want to look out though for any kind of widow-makers that's what you call a dead limb that can fall and knock in the head and kill you or any other branch that looks like if things were to get windy or a storm was to get more intense that it could fall under your shelter because that's obviously not something that you want to happen I also try to look out for any kind of dip in the ground because I don't want water to pull up under where I'm setting up my tent if you're in an exposed area and it's windy and rainy and it just doesn't really look like you're gonna get any kind of big cover soon then try to find some sort of windbreak like a bush you could even look for a lower spot or a break in the terrain that will offer some kind of windbreak but make sure you're not setting up in a goalie of any kind where if it rains a lot you're gonna end up getting washed away there really is no magical way to set up your tent without getting rained on you just have to be as quick about it as you can with more practice you'll get faster and faster I think single walled tents do work a little bit better for this because they don't have a separate rain fly so you're not putting up a mesh body that's getting rained in now while you're trying to put on the fly the single wall tints just go up in one piece and are kind of blocking the floor of the tent while you're putting it up when you're setting up your tent make sure that your ground cloth or ground sheet isn't hanging way outside of your tent make sure it is tucked under your tent because if it's sticking out a little bit then that rain is going to run on top of it and you'll find yourself in a pool of water because there's going to be water collecting between the ground cloth and the bottom of your tent once your tent is set up get the rest of your gear in it as soon as possible and I try to be mindful that I haven't thrown my stuff all about while frantically trying to set up my tent I try to keep it all kind of gathered in the pack that way once the tent goes up the pack goes right inside and hopefully nothing's gotten wet once I'm inside my tent before I pull out my clothing that I want to stay dry and my sleeping bag I take my bandanna and try to wipe all the moisture I can off the floor then I change out of my wet gross clothes toss them over in the corner and get out everything that's dry if you've transitioned to a shorter sleeping pad like I have and you're use to sleeping with your legs on your pack it can be problematic when you have a soaked pack so what I do is I'll either have a cheap very very lightweight poncho there's little 99-cent disposable ones or even one of those space blankets that way I can unfold it and lay it out on top of my pack and that allows me to use the pack under my legs while also keeping my sleeping bag dry be careful that you don't rest against the wall of your tent while you're sleeping on a rainy night condensation can be an issue and then your bag can get pretty damp and if this happens for several rainy nights in a row then you might be pretty chilly at night double walled tents are better for condensation in that they help prevent condensation because the tent is usually more ventilated because you have the mesh wall and then the second wall or the rain fly which typically collects the condensation and allows it to run to the ground before I go to bed I make sure that the tent is still taught that way the rain will roll off the tent when I set up my tent on a windy night whether it's rainy or not I stack rocks on the stakes to help keep them anchored in the ground because I think one of the most annoying things in the middle of the night especially if it's rainy is having wind hit your tent and snatch a stake out to where half of your tent is collapsing on you while you're trying to sleep so if you just take that precaution of stacking rocks on the stakes you're probably going to be fine as far as dealing with your wet clothes in your 10th I tend to just spread my stuff out beside me when I'm sleeping if you have little loops in your tent you could always fashion a clothesline I'd make sure to ring everything out as well as you can though that way you don't wake up with your clothes dripping on you the truth is if it rains all night long your stuff probably isn't gonna dry anyway because of the dampness in the air I've heard some people recommend that you can throw your wet socks or wet clothes into the bottom of your sleeping bag while you sleep at night and then they'll magically be dry from your body heat in the morning and I don't believe this I have done this with socks before and they're still gross and damp in the morning and now the toe box in my sleeping bag is wet I just don't think it's a good idea to ever put anything wet directly in your sleeping bag maybe if you have something that's mildly damp that could work the morning after a rainy day is usually not fun it probably involves screaming and crying like a little baby while I have to put on wet clothes but I always put on my wet clothes I don't wear the clothes that I designate to sleep in especially if I'm gonna have cooler temperatures at night because if it's raining the next day and those get wet then the second night what are you gonna sleep in because now your sleeping clothes are wet and cold and your hiking clothes are wet and cold so I always reserved my sleeping clothes for sleeping unless it's a day that I'm gonna go into town sometimes all I need is a morale booster though so if I tell myself you're putting on these wet clothes you're gonna be a good girl and do this but you get to have dry socks now I don't use the socks that are designated for sleeping but I'll take two or three pair if I'm gonna be hiking it in cold rain and I'll allow myself to put on a pair of dry socks even if it's raining I know that they're just gonna get wet in my wet shoes but something about putting on a warm dry pair of socks we'll go ahead and get me up out of my tent so you might find that that tip works for you also when I pack up my tent after a rainy day whether it's still raining or not I put my tent on the straps on the outside of the pack that way the rain can drain from it and it can kind of go ahead and start airing out a little bit if it's not raining if at some point on that second day the Sun comes out then I will lay my wet clothes out I'll lay my tent out to dry my sleeping bag in case it got a little damp from condensation and I'll just go ahead and take a nice break in the Sun and let everything dry back out that way in camp that night I'm not still dealing with moisture and a wet tent now let's talk about hail hail on your breeches hopefully you never have to deal with this while you're on trail but it's a good thing to go ahead and think about and consider what would I do if I was in a hailstorm that way when it happens you're not surprised and you have some sort of game plan the first thing that you should do is get to shelter whether that's a bush that you have to crawl up under or a group of trees or even a boulder you just want to protect yourself from being pelted by hail if you're in a very exposed area and there is nothing around to shelter you then use your pack use your sleeping pad if you have a closed cell foam pad it seems like that would probably work pretty well just anything you can to protect your body especially your head yes it will hurt if your legs and arms are being pelted but being knocked unconscious by hail could lead to something much worse now let's talk about lightning if you're gonna be out backpacking in mountainous exposed areas it's recommended that you get up to the exposed area and the peak of the mountain and down by noon because in the early afternoon is when thunderstorms typically roll in so you definitely want to scope out where you're gonna be backpacking and find out what the typical weather patterns are for that area in general when dealing with lightning The Weather Service suggests that if you can hear thunder you can be struck by lightning so the best thing that you can do is get to shelter or some sort of cover you should avoid open fields the top of hills or ridges stay away from all tall isolated objects including trees beware of taking cover under rock shelters and cave entrances they can be dangerous because lightning will travel along any surface to reach electrical ground so if any part of your body is touching those surfaces then the lightning can go through you if you're in a group you want to spread out to avoid the current traveling between group members stay away from water and wet items like a wet rope and metal objects like a fence lightning isn't attracted to these items but they are good conductors of electricity if you see signs like your hair staining up or you feel your skin tingling or you hear the buzzing of your trekking poles or rocks then a strike is imminent at this point the lightning Crouch or lightning stance is reckon to reduce the amount of surface area that you have in contact with the ground so you don't want to lie flat on the ground but you want to crouch down and get up on the balls of your feet if someone is struck you want to give first aid and CPR if needed and you're trained and then as soon as you can call for help and this is where I always recommend having a personal locator beacon spot device or inReach device I would say if you're just getting into backpacking to try to go out when you're gonna have better weather it just set you up for a more successful trip and while the worst days do tend to make the best stories I think that when you're first getting acclimated to backpacking you have enough to worry about that can go wrong so trying to go in good weather is a good idea and then once everything is more familiar to you if you want to challenge yourself more by getting out and a little rainstorm then go for it with all of this gear if you go backpacking you have to have something to put it in let's go ahead and get to talking about packs one of the first things that should we consider when shopping for a pack is the volume of the pack so this is how much space you have to fill up with your gear on the inside of the pack this will really depend on how many days you're aiming to be out backpacking so how long your trips gonna be and then how big as far as bulky and heavy your gear is my best advice for somebody who is currently shopping for a pack just so you know that all of your gear will fit inside is to take all of your gear with you to a store where they sell packs and practice kind of packing different packs with different volumes to see what works best for you as a bit of advice I would say when you go in there and pack all of your stuff in the pack if you think well I might go one size up really from what I need just to have some extra space just in case I think that in most instances that might be a good idea but with packs you're then carrying the extra weight of the pack like the pack itself because it's bigger than you need and then you'll be more likely to cram them a few more things in before you go on your trip because you have this extra space so why not fill it up so really try to go with what you think will fit your gear kind of perfectly and not get something that's a little bigger just so you have extra space I feel like most beginning backpackers aim for the range of 50 litres to 70 litres for up to five day trips of course Noons clothing is going to be a little bit bulkier than women's especially if you're bigger and taller than you know a short slender woman so you might want to adjust some of that again to your specific gear but that's the range that usually works for people when they're first starting out up to five days or so anything bigger than a 70 liter pack is probably gonna be considered in the expedition pack range so this is four trips that are going to be potentially a week or longer and maybe even for people who are doing some winter backpacking because they're gonna be carrying more heavy weight gear and probably more layers to keep warm next let's talk about weight not just the weight of the pack itself but also the weight that the pack is designed to carry it seems that the heavier a pack is itself the more weight that it can stand to carry also comfort plays into this so the pack that I carried on the Appalachian Trail which was an osprey or a 50 liter was about three to four pounds as far as the pack weight itself but the pack that I carried on the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail was only a pound and a half and they actually make a lighter version of it I carried the Z packs Ark haul because it was designed to carry up to 40 pounds but the 21 ounces ark blast is designed to carry up to 35 pounds I knew that I would be having longer water carry so I wanted to have more water holding capacity and I wanted the pack to be able to hold up to carrying those heavy weights and not tear up quickly the pack that I carried on the Appalachian Trail definitely could have carried up to 40 pounds also and I think that there were times when I was carrying a lot of water that the Osprey aura would have actually carried the weight more comfortably than the Z packs are called 'add but that's a trade-off so overall the gear that I had and everything was more lightweight and the pack itself was more lightweight but there were times where it probably did not carry as comfortably as the Osprey or did so with volume it's important to consider how bulky your gear is but you have to also consider how heavy that gear inside your pack is so while an ultralight pack that might have a 55 litre capacity might carry all of your gear as far as fitting it in there it might not carry as comfortably so when you look at ultralight packs you definitely want to make sure that your gear that you're carrying inside of it too is pretty lightweight itself just be leery of that because it could be real easy to look at a pack Wingo of course I'd rather have a pack that weighs a pound and a half instead of three or four pounds but it's important how comfortable you're gonna be while you're carrying that weight another factor to consider is durability of your pack are you going to be going through brushy areas where you constantly have briars and twigs snagging at your pack are there mesh pockets on the outside that can be damaged easily or are you gonna be traveling through areas like the Appalachian Trail Pacific Crest Trail Continental Divide Trail Colorado Trail all the trails that have a lot of traffic and more trail maintenance where you're not going to have to worry about that and a mesh pocket or other more fragile components of the pack would be okay just something to consider it's also good to consider what material is my pack made from a lot of lightweight packs today are made out of nylon the packs that I prefer the more ultralight packs are made out of Dyneema now nylon is fine the packs that I used on the Appalachian Trail to Osprey aura was made out of nylon but it was not a waterproof material so I had to make sure to use a pack cover and also line my pack with a compactor bag now the pack that I carried on the PCT and the CDT was made out of Dyneema which is pretty much a waterproof material but I still took extra redundancies to line the pack with a compactor bag just in case my pack were to get a hole in it other than the extra redundancy of having a waterproof layer I think having a pack made out of Dyneema is great because it doesn't soak up water like my nylon pack tended to so I don't have that extra water weight weighing me down after I've already been trudging miles in the rain you may hear people refer to your packs frame most packs either have an external frame internal frame or they are frameless external frame packs are really kind of a thing of the past there are still applications for those if you're really carrying some heavy loads but with the newer technology of gear and things just getting more and more lightweight they're really not a necessity in everyday normal backpacking the internal frame pack is more common now in backpacking than any other type of pack and it's just what it sounds like the frame is internal and it kind of hugs to your body inside the pack there is such a thing as a frameless pack and this is just a pack that does not have a frame for the most part these are very ultralight packs with folks who are toting only the bare necessities to get by while backpacking and this is something that people don't generally start off with it takes more experience to really learn what you need out there and to carry a load that's light enough to go in a frameless ultralight pack some of the features to consider when selecting a pack are ventilation on the Appalachian Trail the Osprey pack that I had had a mesh back to allow the pack to not rest directly on my back but the mesh did instead which allowed some airflow so my back wasn't just extremely gross and sweaty and not only just the discomfort of feeling gross and sweaty but also if you have a pack that rests directly on your back and doesn't allow much aeration it could cause chafing or rubbing it's really gonna depend on the individual the fact that I carried on the PCT and CDT the ark haul also had a little arc with Somesh to allow my back to get that aeration now for almost a thousand miles on the PCT I had the HMG Southwest pack that did sir directly on my back it didn't have any kind of ventilation or mesh to help with that and while this is definitely not a deal-breaker for me it is nice to have some ventilation and might be something if you're a sweaty er person and you would enjoy more aeration that you want to consider when buying a pack and mesh isn't the only type of ventilation you might also notice that some of the padding on the back area of the pack might have brakes in it to allow airflow to access some packs are top-loading others have panel access or you might even notice the sleeping bag access point on the bottom area of a pack myself personally I like top loading pack just fine they can be a little less convenient when trying to access your gear on the inside but if you're gonna have anything like a pack liner or a compactor bag then those other points that entry might not really work out anyway if you have most everything inside that compactor bag that you don't want getting wet also I personally don't like the idea of zippers to access the inside of my pack simply because I feel like that's something else mechanical that can fail I haven't ever heard of anybody that had a pack as it zips up having any issues but for me personally maybe I'm just a worrywart I just think that that's something to think about before going oh this is a wonderful idea and then ending up with a zipper that won't zip shot and I generally don't put things that I want to access in the middle of the day at the bottom of my pack but we'll go over that a little bit later when we talk about how to pack your pack if you're just starting in the world of backpacking you might not know yet exactly what pouches and pockets that you would like on a pack but if you can while you're test driving it in the store kind of think about what would be convenient for you and what you might want to access while on trail for example I like having big enough hip belt pockets to put my cellphone in because that way I can easily access it while I'm hiking because my cellphone also acts as a camera you might also want smacks in your hip belt pockets because I no longer use a hydration pack so I don't have a tube that comes over my shoulder to drink water out of I like having the little cup holder pouches on the side that are big enough to hold a couple of smart water bottles or a smart water bottle and my umbrella or a trekking pole while I'm using my umbrella so just some of those things that you want to think about when you go to pack your pack what pockets and pouches might be convenient for you I also like having a big I call it a back pocket but the pocket that's big on the outside of the pack I guess it's actually the front pocket but because it's behind me I call it back pocket either way that big pocket on the pack I like having that to stuff my rain gear inside of also my toilet paper and baby wipes just things that I want easily accessible while I'm hiking in the middle of the day that I don't have to open up my pack and dig gear out and I can just set my pack down and easily get it out of that back or front pocket some packs have a brain also known as a lid that can be removed and used as a day pack I myself look at this as an item to take off the pack to save weight by taking it off of my pack that I used on the Appalachian Trail I think I saved almost a pound of weight just in the weight of the lid or brain itself but if you do need this extra space and it convenient to have things easily accessible again right there on the top of the pack and bonus points if it doubles as a daypack because then you're purchasing a pack that you will take on backpacking trips but also one has the little lid that you can use as a day pack so it's kind of like two-in-one hydration reservoir you may want a hydration reservoir if you're going to be using something like a bladder and a tube to get your water through so you would put your water bladder in the hydration reservoir and then the pack will have a hole in it to feed the tube through so you can clip it on your shoulder strap and just easily drink out of it I got away from the system myself because I prefer using a Sawyer squeeze that can screw directly onto a smart water bottle but it's all about personal preference I have to say though even when I used a pack that had a hydration reservoir I did not use it I did use the hole where the tubing ran through but as far as the pouch to put my water bladder in I just felt like if I use that then my hose tended to get cramped up on my other gear so I carried the bladder on top of the rest of my gear but the hydration reservoir could work for you depending on the rest of your gear and the way you pack your pack padding of course my first thought is yes I wanted all of the padding all over the pack but with more padding is gonna come more weight and typically ultralight packs are not gonna have much padding there will be ones that you can customize like the Z packs are call I had I got a lumbar pad but I would recommend to make sure that you have padding in the areas that you feel like your body is gonna need it most and then in the other areas maybe opt for no padding just to save a little weight of the pack and that will be something you learn as you go because if you end up with a pack that's not padded properly in areas that you need it it will let you know if you buy your pack from arya if you have one nearby or even online you have up to a year to return the pack even if you test it out and it does not work for you so if you're not 100% happy with your gear from REI they will refund you up to a year after your purchase gear loops if you're going to be carrying something like an ice axe or trekking poles and you think that you might want some kind of loop to carry those at certain times then that's something to look for on your pack again for folks just getting into it I'm thinking that you might not need an a sex immediately but if you're gonna be carrying some other tool that you'd like to have a gear loop for that's something to keep your eye open for when selecting a pack overall when thinking about features that you want on a pack I would try to find a pack that has the features that you do want and feel like you need or will make life easier while on trail and then the ones that you don't really need if you can pick a pack is that kind of ups out of those features because with added features comes added weight something that most people consider while buying a pack is the press it's not out of the ordinary to pay two to four hundred dollars for a good backpacking pack you can look at getting a used pack if you're on a tighter budget there are a lot of groups on Facebook where people buy and sell used gear a good pack should last you for years so it's not like you're spending hundreds of dollars on something that you're only going to use a few times and you can also look into the brand of pack that you buy and see what kind of warranty they have or guarantee Osprey for example has a wonderful guarantee they will repair any kind of defect or damage on a pack at any given time if you have the pack so even if you bought the pack in 1974 they will honor that and repair any kind of damage or defect for you I think one of the biggest things to consider when buying a pack is how comfortable the pack is and to make sure that it's going to be as comfortable as possible it's a good idea to go into an outfitter either your local outdoor store or an REI and get properly fitted by somebody that knows what they're doing that can add weight to the pack and allow you to walk around the store and get a good feel for how it would be if you're walking down trail with some weight on your back you need to know that the pack fits your specific torso length it has more to do with your torso length than your height in general your torso length is measured from that bump on your neck where your neck connects with your shoulders and then to the iliac crests so if you slide your hands down your ribcage and rest on your hips if your thumbs are behind you and pointing towards each other then that imaginary line that's created there you want to go from that bump on your neck down to the center of that imaginary line and that is your torso links some packs will fit based on a torso length range so it'll be like a small medium or large depending on your torso length and others will have an adjustable suspension so it can adjust to fit you more specifically depending on your torso length and some might even have a combination of the two your waist size will also be important because you want the hip belt to fit you properly so there may again be some sort of range in the pack as far as sizing goes with small medium or large or some packs even have an interchangeable belt so for example the z packs pack that I have allows for interchangeable belts so while I might be a medium if somebody else wanted to use my exact pack and the length of the pack worked for them then they could use a bigger or a smaller hip belt and use the same pack well some packs might come in a one-size-fits-all for male or female some brands also have female specific packs or male specific packs the female packs tend to have smaller frames and the hip belt and shoulder straps are generally more contoured with the female figure in mind same thing with youth specific packs some of them have adjustable suspension with a growing child in mind now this does not mean that women have to wear women only packs and men have to wear men specific packs in fact when I was picking out my first pack I had gone through all of the women packs that I saw in Oriya and I was on the last one and if that one didn't fit I was going to start going to the men's packs and trying those on to see if they didn't fit more comfortably but the last women's pack worked for me so I do have a women's pack but again don't be limited to you know if your female only going with female packs because you might find that a male's pack fits you better and same thing with men I've known men who found a good female pack on discount and they ended up trying it on and it seemed to fit them fine so I've seen men wearing female packs it really just depends on your body and how the pack fits you that's most important once you find a pack that has all of the bells and whistles you're looking for and it seems to fit you pretty well then you can tune specifically to fit the pack to your body using different straps on the pack including the hip belt shoulder straps load lifter straps and the sternum strap first you want to adjust the hip belt and the shoulder straps kind of together until you get them right and then move on to the load lifters and the sternum strap the hip belt should rest on top of your Elliot crest to allow most of the weight to be on your hips if you find that the hip belt isn't hitting right on top of your iliac crest then you can adjust the shoulder straps up or down to raise and lower the hip belt onto your hips your hip belt should fit firmly but you shouldn't notice any pinching on your hips and it's best if the cushion extends a little bit past that front point on your hips also you should have at least one inch of clearance on either side of the buckle just to give yourself some wiggle room on how the hip belt fits to tighten your shoulder straps you want to pull down and back on the loose ends of the strap you shouldn't notice a whole lot of weight on your shoulders because again you want most of the weight to be on your hips putting too much weight on your shoulders can strain your neck and your back the shoulder strap anchor point should be an inch or two below the top of your shoulders if it isn't your hip belt might be at the wrong level or the torso size for that pack might be off again you want to play with the adjustment of your hip belt and shoulder straps until they feel comfortable for you and then it's time to move on to the load lifters and the sternum strap load lifters are the straps that connect the top of the shoulder harness to the back panel and they should sit at about a 45 degree angle when tightened most packs are gonna have load lifters but some ultralight packs do not and finally the sternum strap is a strap that comes across your chest usually they're adjustable so you want to slide it to where it's about an inch below your collarbone you want to buckle this and tighten it to give your arms free range of motion but you definitely don't want to tighten it too much because it could cause some pinching or discomfort you probably won't get the fit of your pack perfect the first time but with time and experience you'll get better at this now you've got all of your gear and you have your pack you're probably wondering well how am I supposed to put all of this gear in this pack properly it's recommended that you're less frequently used gear so maybe your sleeping bag or your sleeping pad if you an inflatable one that can just fold up or roll up inside your pack those things generally go at the bottom because they're not used during the day so it makes sense to not have them in the way where you're having to access something that you do use a lot at the bottom and pull everything out of it so those less used gear items stay at the bottom until you get to camp in the middle goes your heavier items because this creates the best center of gravity for not throwing your balance off while backpacking maybe your food water cookware or other heavier items and then your more frequently used items are gonna go towards the top or maybe more lightweight things so some people even store their tent at the top because they like when they get to camp but that's the first thing that they pull out of their pack and set up and then everything else goes inside of it or some people just connect their tent to the outside of their pack it's really all about personal preference and you'll figure out what works best for you and your specific routine just keep in mind that if you're able to keep the heaviest items towards the middle of your pack and closest to your back without having lumps that make you real uncomfortable then it's gonna put less strain on your hips and less strain on your neck and shoulders anything that you're going to want to access quickly and easily during the day like I mentioned before rain gear I always put in the big pouch on the outside also I see a lot of folks put camp shoes like sandals or Crocs inside there that way when they stop and take a break in the middle of the day they can allow their feet to air out and quickly access this camp shoes also toilet paper baby wipes or anything else that you might need for when nature calls and then I like to keep my water bottles with my filter attached in those cup holders on the side and again usually I'll put my umbrella there or a trekking pole when I'm using my umbrella while hiking next up are some camping basics and Leave No Trace principles the first thing you should do when you're aiming to go on a backpacking trip is to plan ahead and prepare it's important to do your research on the area that you'll be backpacking and camping in to find out if there are any permits required this is typical in a national park that you would have to have permits for camping you should be prepared for food storage requirements and have a general understanding of the rules and regulations of the area in which you will be camping after a day of backpacking the fur step into setting up camp is selecting an appropriate site the general rule for backpacking and camping is that you want to travel and camp on durable surfaces so preferably in a pre-existing campsite you want to check that the area meets your shelter requirements so flat ground if you're planning on tinting and trees obviously if you're planning on hammock camping if you are camping in an area with trees be mindful of limbs overhead that could fall on you especially dead limbs and other hazards a lot of times I go and set up camp and I forget to check above me because I'm so focused on finding a perfect spot for my tent if it's windy there may be some wind breaks around you like bushes or shrubbery or even sometimes the lay of the land just whatever you can use to block the wind coming in your direction riparian areas like lakes and stream thanks should be avoided you should camp at least 200 feet from those areas because they tend to be a little more fragile finally wherever you set up be prepared for rain even if it looks like a beautiful sunny day and there's really no chance of rain in the mountains especially storms can roll in unexpectedly so you want to make sure that you're in a well-drained area you're not in any kind of natural dip where water will collect under your tent I guess if you're humid camping this isn't as big of an issue as far as a well-drained area on the ground but it still could affect where you set up and how you set up also avoid setting up in channels a lot of times the ground is nice and soft there but even in a channel where it looks like there is no water flow ever you can get a heavy rain somewhere not even where you are and next thing you know you're getting washed away in that channel just remember as you're selecting a campsite that if you can minimize your impact to any area that you choose to camp then that's the best rule of thumb because more and more people are getting out in nature to enjoy the outdoors and with more people and more traffic definitely comes more impact so being able to reduce that impact in any way possible is best when I get to camp the first thing I do is set up my tent and my air mattress and sleeping bag that way I know I have the best light available and it gives my sleeping bag time to loft before I climb in to go to sleep for the night next I bathe off and freshen up and then into my sleeping clothes after I'm changed into warmer more comfortable clothes it's time to cook dinner when I'm in bear country I implement the Bermuda Triangle method by having my camping area my food prep / cooking area and my food storage area in three separate locations that kind of form a triangle with one another at least a hundred yards apart of course part of this is protecting yourself from being attacked by bears but also respecting wildlife because once we teach the wildlife that they can come have free handouts from humans then they start associating humans with food and there have been bears euthanized because of this carelessness after cooking and eating my dinner I washed my food pot a hundred feet from a water source and away from camp if I'm using the bare muted triangle then I'll go ahead and wash my pot in the area where I prepped my food the same thing goes with doing trail laundry or bathing off especially if you're gonna use soap you want to make sure that you're 100 feet away from a water source and you might not want to do those things in camp because the scent of soap and other toiletries may lure in bears mice etc after I'm done with cooking eating and cleaning I usually brush my teeth in that same general vicinity where all of the Senate items have been once I have everything cleaned up and I have my cookware and other scented items like Tola trees inside my food bag or other bear proof container like a bear can or earth sack then it's time to go hang your food the reason I mentioned bear cans or earth sacks depending on where you're camping there will be different requirements if you're in bear country an earth sack is always kind of a convenient thing even if you're not in bear country because it can be rodent proof again food storage is going to tie into your preparing and planning ahead of time before you go on the trip because for your specific area the food requirements might be different and there might even be food storage containers provided like bear boxes or designated bear hangs in the camping areas next let's talk about campfires I love having a campfire at night after a long day of hakkon and sometimes I like to cook on a campfire instead of on my stove also I think that campfire smoke is like a natural deodorant because I usually smell so much after sitting by a campfire before you have a campfire though you need to know our campfire is allowed in the area that you're backpacking and camping and just because campfires are permitted in the area and there are no fire bans is it good conditions for having a campfire is it a windy evening you just want to think about all of that because having a campfire in that little bit of enjoyment really isn't worth burning down thousands and thousands of acres of land let alone injuring people animals etc if you are going to have a campfire it's a good idea to have it in an already established firing and this may be a requirement for the area that you're in if you're gonna cook on the fire then the fire ring should be located near where your food prep area is if you're in bear country if you are permitted to have fires in your area and it's not required that you have them in an already designated firing then you should learn how to build campfire so that they leave no trace when you're done you should use only downed and dead wood and keep your fires small be sure that your fire is out before leaving the area unattended and remember in backpacking it's a big rule pack it in pack it out so you shouldn't be burning your trash on your campfire while you're backpacking and camping is important to dispose of waste properly so that means your human waste and also the waste that you create like food wrappers etc the call of nature may strike while you're backpacking during the day or sometimes at night or in the evenings while you're camping I send to be a morning pooper it really just depends on the schedule of your body regardless wherever you are while you're in the backcountry you want to make sure that you're 200 feet from camp sites the trail and water sources when you decide to dig a cat hole to go number two if I'm in camp I obviously just leaves my campsite set up as I step away of course I make sure to secure any of my food products or toiletries anything that might attract animals in that want this while I step away whether you're in camp or you're on the trail you simply want to step away and make sure that you get to an area where people can't see you I tend to aim for shrubbery or big boulders and I make sure that the trail doesn't wrap around in a way where people are going to end up behind me even though I think the trail isn't some people like to carry their pack with them when they go off trail to go to the restroom personally I usually leave mine sitting by the trail because that way people that I'm backpacking with will pass it and know ok I'm ahead of Dixie now or if I'm not hiking with people then it kind of lets somebody know hey there's probably a hiker off in the woods using the restroom so I'm gonna put my blinders on and look ahead so I don't see something that I don't need to see this is definitely a personal preference and you do want to be careful of this in bear country because an unattended pack with food in it can be a tasty treat for a bear also some people are a little cautious of leaving their pack because they're afraid if they go off trail and get disoriented and can't find the trail again and their pack then they're left with no gear for the night I make sure when I leave my pack that I find something either a tree that looks a little different from the others that I keep my eye on while I'm walking into the woods to go to the bathroom as far as the other trash goes like your food wrappers you definitely want to pack those things out if you pack it in in backpacking you pack it out and after I deal with bathroom Duty then I kind of do everything in the reverse order from the evening before so I get my food cook and then pack up before I leave I like to scan the area one last time to make sure I'm not leaving a trace so any kind of litter or even gear that I actually do want because I have certainly left things before like tent stakes keep in mind in the backcountry that even though at times it feels like you're completely alone there may be other visitors nearby you might be sharing a campsite with other people or they might be in earshot so if you're one of those that goes to bed kind of late or you wake up real early just be mindful that other people might be on a different schedule and try to do things as quietly as possible once it gets dark and you're walking around camp it's nice if you have the red beam option on your headlamp that way you're not blinding other hikers as you walk past them and if you use your headlamp when you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom you're not spotlighting people's tents and finally this kind of ties in to selecting a campsite but also being respectful of other visitors you don't want to hog a campsite unless you know that you've got the whole area rented for the night but if it's kind of an open area where other people could show up later you want to keep some room open for them too and one final tip to remember while leaving camp and during backpacking in general is to leave what you find I know a lot of times in nature you'll find a cool feather or a rock or even some sort of artifact but it's important that we leave those things out in nature just like you pack it in you pack it out you leave what you find on the trail again the main thing that you want to be sure of wind backcountry camping is that you're not leaving the area ruined for other people you want to minimize your impact and Leave No Trace I did incorporate the seven Leave No Trace standards into this video and I'm also going to include a link so you can learn more about the details of how to incorporate these principles into your backpacking and camping in the backcountry alright y'all well that is all I have for you today if you have any questions please feel free to leave those in the comments below and myself or one of the other subscribers I'm sure will be happy to answer your questions and also if you have any advice for the newbies because I'm just one person with one opinion then feel free to share that too because this could be a great resource for folks who just have no clue how to even get into backpacking and I really feel like nature is therapeutic and as cliche as it sounds that the world would be a better place if folks did get out and spend more time in nature and this is what this channel was originally based on is beginning backpacking because when I started my truck on the Appalachian Trail I had never been on an overnight backpacking trip and I learned the hard way and I wanted this channel to be a place where I could share the things I learned so that other folks maybe didn't have to have such a hard time getting into backpacking anyway thank you all for watching and we will see y'all later you

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 999,317

Rating: 4.8300443 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, Appalachian, Trail, PCT, CDT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, camino, continental divide trail, pacific crest trail, beginner, hobby

Id: VC0MIV8OTtM

Length: 223min 41sec (13421 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 15 2019