Backpacking gear I should have bought sooner! 2021 edition

what's up everybody welcome back to the channel uh this is dan becker here um so this is the third video i've done on this i've done uh one in 2019 one in 2020 and now this is the 2021 edition uh this is backpacking gear i absolutely 100 should have bought sooner if i had known it existed actually i didn't know this stuff existed but i should i just should have bought it sooner uh the first thing on the list is actually um stakes uh tent stakes not that i haven't bought 10 stakes before but i wish i would have bought better tent stakes so these are the msr groundhog stakes and the reason i say that i should have bought stakes like this sooner is because i've used just a ton of different types of stakes the real thin like titanium ones i've used cheap walmart ones i've used just you know tent stakes that come with the tents which are almost always garbage no matter how good of a tent you buy no matter how much money you spend on a tent as a matter of fact some of the tents that you buy that are super expensive don't even come with tent stakes like seriously really but these are by far the best tent stakes i've bought and i don't even have a single bend like at all in any of these stakes whatsoever now you can get knock-offs of these tent stakes but i don't recommend you buy those at all just get the real deal it's gonna cost you like 20 bucks to get six tent stakes and uh people have complained on my channel about how expensive that is they're not expensive at all that's for a good steak these things are awesome they actually work as winter stakes as well even though they're small they do work so you just basically lay them in the snow like this you just kind of lay them down in the snow and then you can bury them under snow and they'll lock like in cement they go into all types of terrain from sand to dirt to rock all that stuff and they've never really pulled out on um any of my tents at all tent stakes are certainly something i should have bought sooner all right i know i'm gonna hear it from you guys on this one because there's like two groups of people on this particular product uh there's there's people a lot of people that hate it i love it uh because i'm a weekend warrior guy i'm not a through hiker through hikers you're gonna like the other version of this just watch this okay i wish i would have bought the katadyn befree filter sooner man i've had this for almost a year now i think ish and i love it super fast flow rate filters just as good as far as like what it filters as the other popular filters on the market it's very light i can carry it right here i strap it on the sternum strap in my backpack with this little aqua clip here that does not come with it you can get these separately the biggest reason i love this is just because of how convenient it is it's so easy to filter the water with this so fast so quick people complain that it you know clogs up or whatever if you're going out like me you know weekend trips um you know you're not on a thru hike you're not going millions of miles kind of thing this is perfectly fine for you and i have yet to have one completely clog up on me i have yet to have the bag have a pinhole you know leak on it this is the original bag i've used this on multiple multiple multiple trips i've dropped it i've scraped it on stuff i've accidentally stepped on it when it was full of water um love this thing 100 wish i would have found this and bought this sooner real quick though before we get into this next uh piece of gear item that i should have bought sooner i got to tell you about our sponsor the awesome people over at art of the trek are working hard to research and add campsites trailheads water sources and scenic locations to their public map the good news is you can now add your own points of interest to the map and help other people plan their trips if you have a favorite campsite trailhead water source or scenic location that you'd like to share with others head over to artoftrack.com turn on some points of interest from their overlays menu and select the orange plus sign at the bottom of your screen to help other hikers plan the best trips possible if you contribute at least a dozen or so of these they will be happy to send you a free swag bag all right another gear item i wish i would have bought sooner i'm actually sitting on it well like several layers down it's this right here it is uh it's a closed cell foam sleeping pad um this one just happens to be the gossamer gear i love this thing for so many reasons it's it's about um torso whip it's a little bit longer than torso length it goes down to like about my calves to the back of my head um but i can use it for so many things i can fold it up and use it as a sit pad and then i like it underneath the pad because it stops my sleeping bag from i'm sorry it stops my sleeping pad from slipping around on the bottom of the tent which is super annoying when that happens so um i love it for that reason also this sort of squares out the back of my backpack because i can fold it up and then put it up on the inside of my backpack up against my back and it acts like a a little bit of a cushion you know for the stuff that might be in my backpack that would kind of push on my back so that's why i like it for that um and then it also adds a little bit of r value they claim that it adds like a .5 r value so it can kind of warm up uh your sleeping pads anyway multi-purpose weighs next to nothing it's like two two and a half ounces totally worth it love this thing i wish i would have bought this sooner okay another uh piece of gear item i absolutely wish i would have not that i haven't bought this sooner right i've i bought this like when i was a kid like my parents bought it for me when we were car camping and stuff but i wish i would have been using it sooner in my backpacking situation not that i don't love the other version of this but it's kind of like the um the water filter the be free water filter there's totally two camps on this i wish i would have bought an actual sleeping bag sooner so i started off backpacking with a quilt like a lot of people uh backpack with a quilt and they love it and i do love it i still love it i'm still gonna use a quilt i use it in the summertime especially but there's just something about being completely enclosed and cocooned in a sleeping bag that it's just so comfortable i can roll around and not have to worry about my sides coming up on it and even warmer i find it to be warmer not a lot of people find sleeping bags to be warmer i do find them to be warmer and i have used quilts all year long i have a zero degree ugq quilt that is awesome i absolutely love it and i also have a 20 degree ugq quilt that i absolutely love and i'm still going to continue to use those but i i've just been using sleeping bags this is the big agnes uh torchlight 20 degree bag this is the first night i'm using this this bag is super cool because it expands so you can this isn't the zipper to like open it up this is the zipper to expand it and it goes down the length of both sides so like it can size to you which i'm really excited to try this out and it doesn't like reduce any of the insulation by doing this so that stays just as warm at least that's what they claim um and so it's narrow when it's closed it's wide when they're expanded and so side sleepers can use it and adjust it you know you can have the top open and the bottom closed or if you like a big foot box you can open up the bottom so really cool this has also got 850 fill down inside of it and it's really lightweight for a sleeping bag i think this weighs like two pounds six ounces so i really like this and then this one is my the one my son's using this weekend this is the western mountaineering alpine light this is another 20 degree bag fantastic bag this is my favorite bag of all but he's using that one tonight uh anyway i just love the sleeping bag i really do i really really really enjoyed it i wish i would have bought a sleeping bag sooner and i wish i wouldn't have felt like i needed to like buy a quilt because everybody was telling me to do it so another item i wish i would have bought sooner is a real pillow so i've used in the past uh for years this trekkology pillow which is a good pillow it's you know comfortable for what it is it only weighs like three ounces um and it's it's decent right um but when i finally um just i totally bought this on a whim when i bought this the therm-a-rest um compressible pillow this was a game changer for me like an actual game changer like i didn't realize what i was missing out on with a actual pillow to be able to sleep so good at night now the weight penalty on this is it's seven ounces and this is the small version but i love it so much i bring two every time i go backpacking i take two of these with me i for the longest time used really lightweight pillows even before i had this one i had like a little plastic bag pillow it weighed literally like i think it was like a half an ounce it was a like a ziploc bag that you blew up with a straw and it had like paper towel material on one side [Laughter] to like as like a coating on it and it it was the worst pillow ever but you know what i graduated to this and then i finally graduated to this and i'm just loving it i'm loving having that comfortable sleep at night so man i wish i would have bought a real pillow sooner 100 okay and the last item you guys are gonna laugh at me i know it i'm gonna hear it in the comments oh here it's hanging above my head this is an actual air pump to blow up my sleeping pads a lot of you guys could be like why would you do that just blow it up with your lungs right well in the winter time i don't recommend you blow up air pads with your lungs one you're filling it up with moisture right and that moisture will get cold at night especially in the winter time and it's going to reduce what your air pad is capable of doing so that r value that's claimed uh it's actually going to be reduced by that moisture that you're putting in that pad so that's a great reason to bring this especially when it's in cold weather but this is only like three ounces like really that's that's like an average headlamp um and this is a generic version this is the flex tail tiny pump this one is super cool for one reason it's got a camp light on it check that out goes up to 400 lumens it'll fill up my air pad and i don't know probably three to four minutes and that's a full-size air pad like a 25 inch wide long air pad and i filled the nemo up the nemo tents are up that quickly and it also filled up the therm-a-rest this is the x-term this is the large version of that and this is the regular wide version of this one very very quickly i didn't have to you know feel all out of breath after hiking a long day oh and it's rechargeable check that out like totally rechargeable usb but not that you'd ever be out that many nights with it maybe you would but uh if you're using it as a camp light super cool so totally wish i would have bought this sooner 100 what is it that you guys bought this year you would have bought uh you wish you would have bought sooner uh the stuff that you guys finally found you're like man this was a game changer for me let me know in the comments below that'd be really cool to hear i'm going to put my instagram right here make sure you guys follow me there also guess what i started to tic tac so you can follow me there i'll put that right here um and then make sure you like this video and i'll see you guys on the next one

Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 119,321

Rating: 4.8984833 out of 5

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Id: p_ptY-Fh_l0

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021