BACKPACKING GEAR SURPRISES in 2020

hey guys justin here today we're talking about backpacking and camping gear from 2020 that i thought was gonna be complete garbage but actually surprised me by not completely sucking and in many cases the gear we're gonna look at were actually contenders for my favorite pieces of gear in 2020. i have six different items that we're gonna look at and what's interesting is not what each of these items are but why they surprised me the first item is the catidine b free water filter so this filter has been around for a few years i know a lot of people have used it have told me to get it but i was just a little bit hesitant to use it because i've heard a lot of stories out there of it slowing down and becoming unusable really really quickly but that hasn't been my case at all this is my primary filter that i use in 2020 and i've probably put over 200 liters through this for myself and friends and it hasn't slowed down not one bit i'm still trying to figure out if i just got really lucky with this filter or i'm really good at taking care of it but it's a light compact filter and was a nice surprise in 2020 because of how well it performed for me the next item that surprised me in 2020 were pants and i've always been a short sky i liked having breeze over my legs like that shorts are a little bit cooler and i didn't like the idea of all the extra material in pants i need to dry if you got them wet but in the spring of 2020 i was using the mountain equipment co-op mica 2 pants because it was a little bit colder and that just kind of continued into the summer and then fall i've been using pants all summer and i did not use shorts really at all and the reasons i stuck with the pants were the lightweight nylon that the mica 2 pants are made of isn't really warm is nice and lightweight and protects my legs from sun as well as scrapes that was a big thing that i found this summer when i was doing some bushwhacking trips the pants were just awesome for that more often than not i found myself reaching for pants in 2020 and i don't think that's gonna be something that changes in 2021 as you might know i like to hike and i hike a lot and some of the times that i'm hiking it's really warm hot temperatures and i'm sweating a lot or long days and something that i often forget about is managing my electrolytes and making sure that my electrolytes are up to snuff in my body in 2020 i got a bit of a wake-up call on some of those hot long days and had access to electrolytes and they were game changers i went from really low energy not a lot of motivation to being able to fly up mountains once i added some electrolytes to my water and that led me to bringing electrolytes more often over the course of the summer if especially if i knew that the trips were going to be long or the days were going to be really hot and the ones that i used were noon so this is a very popular one out there they're just little tabs that they dissolve in your water the other one is tailwinds so this is a powder and you pour this into your water no tail wins it also comes with some calories so if you're on a really long day and you just need a little bit of calorie to keep you going through the day then the tailwind is a really good option electrolyte supplements are really expensive so i don't bring them on all my trips but it's definitely something that i'm going to keep in my mind and be more aware of going into 2021 and i'll definitely at least have them with me on some of those hotter days and longer trips and the fourth item that surprised me were frameless packs specifically i used the mountainsmith zerk 40 pack in 2020 i've always thought that frameless packs had a really low weight capacity at around 20 pounds max and that they were pretty uncomfortable and added a lot of strain to your shoulders but i picked up the zerk 40 last year for a trip to prue that was gonna do because it is a pack that's small enough to fit to carry on as a lot of frameless packs are and even though that trip got cancelled i ended up using the pack a whole bunch in 2020 and the reason i really liked the zurich 40 wasn't because of the frameless aspect but because of another feature that a lot of frameless packs has and that's a lack of hip belt so the zurich 40 doesn't have a hip belt and i found that really freeing for my hips and really nice for range of motion and mobility when moving through the mountains i'm not sure i like frameless if it had a hip belt or didn't have the carrying capacity that the zurich 40 has but because the xerx 40 has all of that i'm pretty much sold on freelance packs if you want to pick up any of the gear that i'm talking about today i'll post links in the description i do get a small commission off of any purchases at no extra cost to you but does help to channel it the next thing that surprised me were freeze-dried meals in the past i've always dehydrated my own meals for backpacking trips but i just did not have the time in 2020 so i decided to turn to the convenience of pre-packaged freeze-dried meals a lot of the meals i've tried in the past are flavorless packed with salt and just generally not very nutritious and i thought that's what i was going to be encountering with freeze-dried meals this time around but i picked up a bunch of meals from different companies that i've never tried before peak refuel being one wild zora good to go and happy yak and was pleasantly surprised and a lot of the meals did not completely suck peak refuel was actually the one that stood out the most for me these guys make some really good meals first of all they're very well flavored they taste delicious and they're also very nutritious these meals have a great nutrition profile but the number one thing that stood out for me with them was the amount of water that the packages used most freeze-dried meals use a couple cups or more of water in order to rehydrate but the peak refuel meals often use less than a cup of water which is unheard of in freeze-dried meals and a really nice feature i'm really glad there's a lot of freeze-dried meals out there that are tasty and nutritious these days because moving forward i don't think i'm gonna be having more free time so i'm gonna be having to rely on freeze-dried meals a little bit more often the last item that surprised me in 2020 were toe socks so toe socks are basically socks where each toe has its own individual mini sock and i used two different kinds in 2020 this is the eonige i don't think i'm pronouncing that well at all and i also used a toe sock from decathlon and all you guys are going to say these are just knockoffs of jinji and jinji is one of the more recognizable toe sock brands out there and i reached out to jinji three times and did not get a response at all i was asking about ip and patents as i didn't want to talk about these socks and recommend buying them if they're infringing on njng's patents or intellectual property rights but in jinji never got back to me they had their opportunity so here we are i always thought toe socks were kind of gimmicky and a little bit more trouble than they were worth but this year i dipped my toes in with the enoji sock from aliexpress as i saw their five dollars which is a fifth the price of in jinji and really made it easy to try them out but what i found were that toe socks are super comfortable i wear shoes with a wider toe box and what's really nice with the toe socks is that it allows my toes to splay as i'm walking as well i sometimes get little blisters in between my toes on really long days that are really hot if i'm going over 30 kilometers and it's really hot day then i might get blisters and the toe socks prevent getting the blisters between the toes toe socks are still super finicky they look silly but they are something that you should look at if you're going on longer hotter trips or you do like the toe splay of your toes i guess that's a lesson of don't judge a book by its cover as that book could become your favorite piece of gear if you are interested in a list of my favorite pieces of gear from 2020 i'll post a link to that video right up there gear surprises are a ton of fun i'd be super curious to hear what you guys were surprised with in 2020 otherwise thanks for watching guys and we'll see you next time

Channel: Justin Outdoors

Views: 29,158

Rating: 4.916501 out of 5

Keywords: Backpacking, Hiking, Camping, ultralight, backpacking gear, backpacking gear list, camping gear, hiking gear, ultralight gear, best backpacking gear, best hiking gear, Appalachian Trail, ultralight backpacking, hiking trails, gear review, best gear of 2020, best packing gear of 2020, favorite backpacking gear, befree, peak refuel, toe socks, nuun, katadyn befree, freeze dried meals, backpacking food

Id: QU1LGlpWsxA

Length: 7min 16sec (436 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 20 2020