CDT Gear Review (Post-Trail)

hey y'all Dixie Here I am back home from the CDT and while everything is still fresh on my mind I figured it'd be a great time to go ahead and do a final review of the gear that I used during my thru-hike and kind of let y'all know how orked out for me and some things that I might change moving forward [Music] if you want to check out any of the items that I mentioned today to see maybe the weight of them or just a list in general then if you look in the video description I have my lighter packs link there which lists all of these gear items and actually links if you want to click on them to go view the product etc first things first let's talk about the big three which is shelter pack and sleeping bag so for my shelter I use zi packs duplex just like I had on the PCT I wanted to give it a second go because at the end of my three hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington I ended up getting flooded out and I noticed that the material of my tent was degraded wasn't sure what had caused it but it could have been cowboy camping on top of it it could have been not storing it in the stuff sack that it comes in to help protect it and it also could have been a bad batch of Dyneema in talking to Z packs they were willing to replace my tent for me because it did not last a full through hike which is what their warranty guarantees so they replaced it for me and I decided to give it a second go on the CD T the CD T was a longer trails in the PCT so I had almost 3,000 miles it ended up holding up perfectly until the end in Montana and I noticed I had a few little pin holes in the top now it was not the same issue where the material was just completely broken down so I don't know exactly what causes little pin holes but my tent did not leak I did not get flooded out and it was easily patchable with the repair tape that comes with the tent so it did pretty much last my whole thru-hike without any issues this time I did keep the tent in the stuff sack inside my pack there were a handful of times where I carried the tent on the outside of my pack like if it had been raining and I did notice that the stuff sack was kind of breaking down so I will suggest that if you plan to carry a duplex on the outside of your pack I would get a different stuff sack because it just seems that these don't hold up that well and especially in New Mexico where we were going through barbed-wire fences and stuff like that it's just it was best for me to try to keep it on the inside of the pack when I could overall I do really love the duplex because of how much room it has on the inside and how lightweight it is and when you have ultralight gear it it's just going to probably not last you much longer than a thru-hike you know there are trade-offs with all backpacking gear so if you have something that's really lightweight it's probably not going to be as durable as something that's a little bit heavier moving forward I think I will stick with this tent until it completely breaks down at that point I might look into something else but like I said I really do love the duplex for how spacious it is and how lightweight as far as sakes ago I used some lightweight stakes that come from z packs I know a lot of people think that you have to have a big ol heavy-duty tent stakes or else your tent is gonna blow away and that just really has not been the case for me on all three of my through hikes I actually went down to more minimal tent stakes after the 80 and I really just haven't looked back I mean if it's super windy then you can always stack big rocks on top of the stakes and the only thing that I will say with those little tent stakes that I use is that you have to watch when you put them in the ground if you're pounding them in with a rock you just kind of have to be careful because they will Bend but if you just take your time it'll work out just fine at least it has for me next up is my pack so again on the CDT I use the Z packs article that I had also used for over half of the PCT held up pretty well until the end in montana and the area that has the back mesh that kind of tightens to help create the arc on the pack one of those straps ended up tearing where it connects to the pack now luckily the way it's designed you can easily feel to repair it and just tie it to the stay and it pretty much functions the same way now I did notice that the lumbar pad and the hip belt and some of the other areas of the pack started more or less breaking down but again it's an ultra-light piece of gear that lasted me well over one thru-hike so I really cannot complain I was happy with ARC haul overall in the way that it carried the fact that it was pretty comfortable for such a lightweight pack that I had pretty much loaded down to the maximum capacity several times moving forward I do think that I'm gonna try a different pack now that this one has kind of run through its lifecycle just to try something different and to be knowledgeable in different brands but again I was pretty happy with the article and the final piece in my big three my sleeping bag has a z-pack 10 degree bag and I really love that sleeping bag it's very lofty lightweight and it has held up well in fact it's held up the best of all of the three parts of my big 3 and I had that sleeping bag from somewhere in Southern California all the way through the PCT and now all the way through the CDT and it's got a couple of places that I had to patch up a little bit as far as the temperature rating goes 10 degrees was enough to keep me warm on the CDT there were a few nights that I got kind of chilly but I am a very cold sleeper so I might have preferred to have a 5 degree to even zero degree sleeping bag just because I generally freeze at night but the 10 degree was fine and I think for most people 10 degree would be a low enough bag rating first thru-hike of the CDT moving forward I might let my mom use that bag on the PCT next summer when we go in to fill in some fire closures and try something new just for the sake of trying something new for my sleeping pad I use the NeoAir extra light the short pad so it basically goes from my head to my knees and then I sleep with my pack under my legs it weighs about 8 ounces and I went to the short pad after the 80 because I liked shaving off for extra ounces and not giving up too much comfort I mean it's not as comfortable as the full length but I have to say for an inflatable pad it lasted me a pretty long while I had it through all of the PCT and then over halfway on the CDT and it just had a slow leak so I replaced it my new one I punched a hole in almost immediately and I will say that the NeoAir is do patch up well and the patches actually hold I patched it up in Idaho and it held all the way through the end of the trail and I will probably continue to use that exact sleeping pad going forward if you are anything but a back sleeper I think that an inflatable pad is almost a necessity if you want to get any sleep for me not having an inflatable pad and sleeping on those foam pads was just miserable so I upgraded to the NeoAir extra light long thin the short and I will never look back to a foam pad now let's talk about clothing so during a thru-hike you basically need two main outfits one for hiking and one for sleeping for my hiking shirt I chose a Columbia pfg long-sleeve shirt I really like how airy you know how ventilated that shirt is I like that you can have the sleeves down to protect your skin from the Sun I like that you can roll them up to cool off a little bit I also love that it's a button-up because you can do temperature control that way by buttoning it up or you know unbuttoning it and I have to say it's durable enough to last for a third hike for my bottoms I chose the barely baggies by Patagonia and they are pretty durable towards the end of the trail ended up with a hole in my boot heinie and the seam in the crotch area also tore open but nothing that couldn't be repaired with a little gear tape and floss and you have to keep in mind when a piece of clothing lasts you either an entire through hike or almost an entire through hike then it's pretty good because you're literally wearing this stuff almost every day for about six months for sleeping clothes I wore a smart wool long-sleeve shirt and some Arc'teryx leggings they were both pretty lightweight but enough to keep me warm at night even though when I was starting out I was in the desert and you would think oh desert must be scorching hot it gets pretty chilly at night in the desert sometimes so it was a nice heaven an extra layer to keep me warm while I slept at night now once it got colder my clothing changed a little bit as far as what I hiked in and what I slept in so basically what I was sleeping in when the temperatures were warmer that became an extra layer to also hike in during the day when it was colder and then I just added new stuff to sleep in so to sleep in once it got cold I actually slept in the shirt that I'm wearing right now this Arc'teryx shirt it's nice and like fuzzy on the inside I also like that I had the collar and I could zip up to you know kind of keep some more body heat in and so this just worked really nicely and then for my leggings to sleep in I slept in some smart wool leggings that I had used to sleep in on the PCG as far as socks go I generally have three pairs of socks on me at any given time so one to sleep in and two to hike in now in the summertime when it's warmer I generally go with ankle socks to hike in and when it gets colder then I shift to longer socks now to sleep in I'm always in like a thick nice warm pair of wool socks also in its colder sometimes I'll add another pair of socks because there's just something about being able to put on warm dry socks in the morning especially if you're in a cold rainy stretch it's just such a morale booster as far as what brand of sock I use I do predominantly prefer darn tough socks because they tend to last longer than any other brand I've used also they have a lifetime warranty so you pay the price one time and basically have a sock forever buy them as long as they stay in business and I have used smart wools and also in gingy sock snails and gingi socks are the ones that have the little toes in them they have helped a lot of people who are plagued with blisters I haven't experienced that but I just like to swap it up sometimes and especially if I'm going through an area where I know I'm gonna be forward and rivers a lot then having those toe socks to kind of help with friction between my toes when they're already soggy you know it just seems like a pretty good preventative for underwear I always have two pair of ex officios I just think that two pair is really enough I tend to wear them one way the next day turn them inside out and then I'll go to the second pair for the third day and wash out the pair that I was wearing and allow them to hang dry on my pack and then the fourth day again turned the second pair inside out and if there is a fifth day then that pair that I washed and hung to dry on my pack is clean and ready to go the ex officios are comfortable but they also dry really quickly which is nice if you're gonna do on trail laundry and for our sports bra I just carry one sports bra this is one from Academy sports and outdoors and you know everyone has their preference on what sports bra they like but this is just a cheap old sports bra be CG brain one piece of clothing that I never send home or swap up during my three hikes is my puffy coat I love having a puffy no matter what because again even in the desert at the beginning or in the middle of summer it can get cold at night and the puffy that I use is the ghost whisperer by Mountain Hardwear and I have the one with the hood I just like having that so if at night I'm sitting by the fire or whatever you know just keeps my neck and my head warm and then also when I'm sleeping at night you know just having that little bit of extra way to trap in some body heat the ghost whisperer that I have lasted me the entire PCT and through the CDT just until the end when the zipper finally failed so the part where it catches the zipper gumming up just broke off so I may do to the end but I will be replacing it with another coat that is just the same another piece of gear that I had for the entire CDT is a hat now I didn't have this exact hat because I lost my hats several several times I think this was my most misplaced piece of gear so anyway on the PCT I was able to have an umbrella to help shade me in the desert but on the CDT I found it was much more windy and an umbrella wasn't really feasible as the main way to protect myself from the Sun so I ended up carrying a hat and then just a lot of the trail is exposed and I feel like a hat was really almost necessary one piece of clothing that I added to my this time and used for most of the trail is Sun gloves now this was my second most misplaced piece of gear so I went through two Outdoor Research brands those are a little more expensive this is glacier glove this is a little bit cheaper on Amazon and this does have like some leather grips on the hands honestly I didn't necessarily prefer one pair over the other they all served the purpose of just protecting my skin from the Sun because I've noticed the more and more time I've spent out there the more leathery my skin gets I just said it was a good way to help protect my hands from the Sun right at the end of the hike I did get a couple of extra layers just because I knew I was about to be hiking through some probably deep snow and I just wanted to know that I was gonna be warm enough even if some things got wet I wanted to have extra so I picked up the fleece from the gift shop at Glacier National Park the thing about fleece is that even if it gets wet it still is gonna help insulate you some whereas down if it gets soaked it's pretty much useless so the fleece was picked up in mind of an extra layer to hike in then I also borrowed this nice puffy shirt it kind of makes you think of Seinfeld but not puffy like that puffy in the way that it is a down shirt and that was kind of to help with my puffy coat not being as warm at night because it wouldn't dip up anymore so that was just kind of an extra layer to sleep in there were times where I did end up using the fleece and the puffy shirt to hike in though so anyway it was nice having those extra layers but that was something that I got at the very very end when I knew that snow was gonna be dumping on us also at the end when it started getting cold I started carrying my opossum down gloves and a smart wool beanie for keeping my head warm while I was hiking now if you're wondering is a smart wool top and Arc'teryx britches and Patagonia you know all these like name brands necessary for your clothing and I would say no basically the thing that you need to worry about is are you comfortable and are you warm enough and is the clothing that you have functional to what purpose you need it for that's really all you have to worry about now will say that a lot of times you do get what you pay for so when you're wearing this clothing over and over and over for six months during a thru-hike you know is it going to be durable enough to last you the whole time are you gonna have to fool with getting different clothes because you're just keep getting holes and tearing up so that's the only thing to think about you know is it worth the convenience and potentially having to buy something several times versus one time and then not have to worry about it again my clothing I kept in a z-pack stuff sack so I just threw it all in there rolled it up and it's Cuban fibers so it is basically waterproof I kept that inside if it was raining my compactor bag that I lined my pack with just as a redundancy to make sure everything stays dry if it's raining so I would shove it down in that with my sleeping bag and then roll the compactor bag down put stuff I didn't mind necessarily getting wet on top roll my pack down and then the pack itself is Dyneema Cuban fibers so again some other redundancy for waterproofing all right now let's talk about rain gear and it looks like I am wearing rainbow sherbert so I started off the CDT with just a rain jacket and rain pants they wear anti-gravity gear I actually had a gray rain jacket and the black rain pants but I decided to upgrade towards the end of the trail because in Idaho I but slid on some gravel not on purpose and tore some holes in my pants I notice it anti-gravity gear had come out with some upgraded stuff the jacket and the pants and I really liked this bright obnoxious color because it was huntin season and then also if search-and-rescue is out looking for you it probably helped him a good bit if you had something bright on also I was impressed that anti-gravity gear kind of made some changes so on the wrists they've always had the velcro but it wasn't elastic before and it just was a lot easier for rain to get in the arms of your raincoat and so I like this because when I have on my rain gloves it just helps secure and seal that area off from getting rain in it and on the rain pan added a zipper on the bottom of the leg which helps with getting the rain pants on over your shoes so it's not pouring down rain and you're trying to get your rain gear on and you know you can't slide it up over your shoes so it helps with that and one of the things that I've always loved about anti-gravity gear is the pit zips they have on the rain jacket because it really helps regulate your temperature when you're hiking and you're already hot and then you put on a layer that you know is trapping in your body heat and keeping the water out then you end up sweating so that just helps you regulate that so during the warmer months and when I was in the desert the only rain gear I worried about was having my rain jacket and my rain pants because a lot of times when it's hot during the day and you're hiking you must welcome the rain when it started getting colder I decided to up some of my rain gear to help keep me warm and comfortable one of the first things that I knew I had to change from what I did on the PCT was I needed something to help keep my hands warm because in Washington I felt like my hands were frozen solid and if I grab my trekking pole too hard then my hand would just shatter because you know it was ice but no CDT I remedied that by getting showa timorous 281 gloves and I actually learned about those from a review by Andrew skorca and I'll actually put that in the video description as well but the gloves basically just acted as a waterproofing layer so I would put on my down gloves my possum down gloves and then put the waterproof show a glove and they were bright blue it looked like I was about to go shell some oysters or something but on a through hack it's more about functionality over fashion something else that I knew I needed to change was keeping my feet warm so wool socks are nice and they do help but when your feet are soaked all day it's just not enough so I ended up picking up these NRS neoprene booties and they're pretty thin and they just slid right over my socks this is actually an extra-large so just put my wool sock on slide this over it and then put my shoe on and I'll tell you if I knew I was just gonna be you in really cold temperatures and have to afford several rivers in a day these would be worth the wait because they just really help keep your feet warm they do not keep them dry so this is not something that will waterproof them but it does really help to insulate them and keep them warm and I also use these when I neo is gonna be hiking in snow and I had a lot of people ask how did you keep your feet so warm in the snow well I put on the wool sock put this on over it and then put on my trail runners the last piece of gear that I suggest for the rain and also for the desert is an umbrella so on the CDT to start with I carried an umbrella in the desert and like I said before it was way more windy than I had expected so it wasn't as feasible to hike with it all the time to protect me from the Sun but it was nice to be able to take a break and just like hold that umbrella over me and not have to bake in the Sun every time I wanted to stop and take a break because there just really was no shade in the desert in New Mexico I ended up ditching my umbrella probably somewhere right before the San Juans because I wanted to be able to use both hands while I was in snow or on sketchy ice but I picked up just a cheap umbrella from Walmart later on in Montana just to help protect me from the cold cold rain the umbrella just really helped as a redundancy yes for keeping me dry but also warm because if you constantly have rain hitting your rain gear your body is trying to warm up that surface of rain gear and it just never gets it warm so having that umbrella to kind of help shield the rain from falling directly on you and having the rain jacket and pants to help keep you dry from the mist and whatever rain is you know getting under around the umbrella I'm telling you I would never hike in freezing cold temperatures in rain again without an umbrella unless somebody made me now let's talk about the kitchen so for my food pot I used old trusty which is my old aluminum grease pot that I have been using since the 80 and it definitely has some miles on it now but yeah this came from came and you can actually get it online on Amazon it's very lightweight pretty durable it's held up all this time and yeah it's a triple crown pot now so it's pretty exciting a lot of people say you shouldn't eat out of aluminum I will leave that up to y'all to research if you want to do that or not I just say for myself that you know I'm not wearing deodorant while I'm through hiking so I'm not getting my aluminum intake through my armpits so I get it through my food for my stove this year I used the BRS stove I'd heard a lot of half about these because they are very lightweight I believe this is one ounce they are tiny so they don't take up much space and I have to say they are durable because I have accidentally washed this one before and it still worked fine they are very temperamental though sometimes when I would screw it on to my fuel can it would cause fuel to spew a little bit and it's not because this was turned on either it's just because this stove does things and has a mind of its own also I noticed sometimes when I would go to adjust the the fuel level so like if I was going to turn it off even the flame would go higher again has a mind of its own also a drawback I noticed to it is that the surface area that actually covers on the pot is smaller as far as the arms the reach of the little arms then say a pocket rocket so it wasn't as stable of a system for my pot to sit on did spill a couple of meals but once you get used to that you know you adjust for it so yes it could be dangerous if you are sitting with your legs right there next to it in your pot is more unstable but again it's something you keep in mind also I noticed that if you have a very smooth pot because when my brother came out to hike with me he used a grease pot that was not all beat up on the bottom they slide pretty easily on the top of this so if you're gonna use one of these stoves I suggest having a pot that either halved in it up because you've used it before or has like those little ridges on it overall pretty happy with this stove because very lightweight very cheap I did not have the same issue as a lot of people I hear that the arms will melt or Bend or whatever you know I only ever bowled one pot of water at a time so you know and then I've cut it off so I don't know maybe if you heat it for way way too long or a huge pot of water they could melt off but I never had that issue on my pot I used the same old pot cozy that I made out of reflectix material as you can see it's been patched up with duct tape several times but this is for the purpose of keeping your food warm keeping your hand from burning you know holding a hot pot while you're trying to eat your food but the main purpose of the cosy is to conserve fuel so you can boil your water dump your food in make sure it's good and hot cut the fuel off put it in the cozy and let it sit for 10 minutes now you've got to be a little patient you know you don't get to eat it as soon as you pull it off the stove but otherwise you'd have your food sitting on the stove with the fuel going the whole time so again it just kind of helps conserve some fuels also on this through hack I used another sea2summit Cup I have had them kind of Terra on the crease in the past but this one survived the whole three hikes so maybe they're up and they're designed to be a little bit more durable what I like about the sea2summit Cup is it has little notches on the inside to measure your water so you don't have to guess like uh my pasta sides need two cups you know about how much as two cups or you know one in a third for something or whatever so anyway also I like to be able to drink coffee in the morning while I'm eating my oatmeal or whatever food I've prepared in my pot so I just really love this it's more of a luxury item than anything but pretty convenient so I have to admit I became a Spooner instead of a sparker I decided to try this long-handled tokes titanium spoon for the CDT because I'd heard all the rave about it and was like let me see that this is all about cuz I was like team spork but I'm definitely team spoon now I really love the long handle on it because especially if you're eating like something out of a mountain house packet it really gets down in there without you having to stick your whole hand and get it all gross and dirty and it gets the corners better than a spork that you know has the points on it so definitely a fan of this titanium spoon and I'll keep this going forward and finally the last piece of gear in my kitchen is a bandana I always keep a bandana with me so say I'm cooking on the fire even on my stove and the pots hot you know it's like a little pot holder deal also when I wash my pot out with water I just clean my pot with water and my finger and then I want to give it like one last good wipe just to kind of make sure it's pretty dry and kind of gets all those little particles that just rinsing it didn't and then if it gets especially grody on trail I can always rinse it off in a creek and then hang it on my pack but I normally just wait until I do laundry in town for my bear bags to put all my food in and my kitchen stuff you know the pot and the stove anything that smells like food all my scented stuff I used the z-pak spare bagging kit so it comes with a Cuban fiber sack that you can put your food in and then z-line so this is the bare core to you know hang in a tree or over a designated hanging area like in the national parks and I think the kit altogether is about fifty dollars but it is very lightweight especially this cord and everyone needs a good lighter I have to say that bic lighters are the way to go for each of my three hikes I carried one bic lighter and they lasted me the entire through HACC and for a water filtration I use this all your squeeze I've been using that for a while now I like the convenience of getting a smart water bottle just scooping up water and then screwing this all your on and drinking out of it or you know if I want to filter it for a drink mix or something like that then I can just squeeze it from the smart water bottle into a designated clean bottle thus all your squeeze works perfectly and will last you a whole thru-hike I prefer the regular-sized Sawyer to the mini it just got better flow rate and doesn't seem to clog as much from what I hear but I will say that the squeeze will last the whole through Mike if you don't kill it so I ended up forgetting on a cold night to put it in a ziplock bag and put it in my sleeping bag to keep it warm and it did freeze solid and then later in Glacier National Park I actually was in temperature so cold during the day then it froze while I was hiking and I could have put it in a ziploc bag and kept it in my shirt or coat something like that to keep it warm so it didn't freeze I just honestly was too lazy to fool with it so the water sources in Glacier were a little less sketchy than like the cow ponds of New Mexico so it wasn't as big of a deal to just kind of select an ice water source and and be careful with that in the future if I know I'm gonna be hiking in freezing cold temperatures and my Sawyer might freeze while I'm hiking then I might go with some bleach drops or some other water treatment drop just to avoid that situation next I want to talk about my neck mass so this is an in 10 Ives Genesis neck knife I like it because I can wear it right here I always know where is every day I wear it a lot of times while I'm sleeping you know just to have that extra peace of mind that if something somebody animal whatever came up I could just you know if I had to I like having it conveniently located when I hitchhike or when I just want to cut the cheese and not in the way not in the funny way but you know just literally cut some cheese or summer sausage or whatever I don't have to dig from a knife and wonder where it is you know I'm not sitting there taking a lunch break and I have to get up and go get it and this is actually one that I worked on with Patrick so it's a homemade wanderlust edition and I will be selling these I'm it seems that each year I'm gonna kind of do a run of these in the fall did one hundred last year Oh we'll be doing a hundred again this year and actually I think sometime in the next few days I will be putting these out for purchase taking orders and so my patrons through patreon will have first dibs so I'll release it to them first and then after that if there any left then I will open it to the public so I will post about it on my blog so homemade wanderlust calm if you're interested in one of those next up I want to cover some miscellaneous stuff like my a Saxon micro specs that I had to use in the sand so for my ice axe I carried the same one that I used on the PCT the camp Corsa very lightweight ice axe now I did have to get these extra little covers for the tip of the axe and end of it just to one help protect your gear from having something stab on it all the time because I keep mine in my cup holder on the side of my pack and then this from you know keeping you from impaling york hiking partner when you spin around or you know impaling yourself when you take your pack off so these are by Petzl just extra little doohickeys and then for my micro spikes this time I actually used a pair of Cotulla micro spikes that I had to get because I couldn't find the ones that I used on the PCT but anyway Cotulla is a very well-known brand in micro spikes I think generally people are very happy with that brand but just a little side note on the PCT I used some that were you know off-brand just some Bobo macro spikes and they weren't just fun this year was a low snow year in the San Juans so it was debatable whether people would even need an ice axe and mike respects but you know for me i just if i know i'm gonna be in an area where there might be some kind of chute or sketchy area where i might need to self arrest I'm going to carry in a sacks and just err on the side of safety and micro spikes on some slick ice is just a really good idea I only ended up feeling like I truly needed them in a couple of spots this year although I didn't get to do all of the San Juans but from what I hear the people who did not carry those things really wish in a couple spots that they had so again each year you'll kind of get word as you approach the San Juans and you can make that decision then but I had those items sent out specifically for the San Juans and I sent them home when I was done with the San Juans so let's talk trekking poles I stuck with the Black Diamond Alpine cork grips for the CDT like I did on the PCT I really love these trekking poles because they're lightweight they're carbon fiber and then they have the cork grips and that is my favorite type of grip I've kind of swapped out with people for just a day or so to kind of test out different trekking poles and the rubber grips and the foam grips to me they just make my hands kind of sweaty and these tend to I don't know absorb it more so also in the rain I like the way these feel better and then as far as the locks go these have the lever locks they just kind of you know snap over and snap open and snap closed I don't care for the ones that twist open and close I've just seen those be problematic for people but of course all of this stuff is personal preference and there's no one fits all for people in fact packing gear alright so for my repair slash med kit I guess I kind of have it all in one thing in a ziplock bag that repairs my gear and my body so I have my tent tape that comes from z packs I always carry a therm arrest patch kit for my inflatable sleeping pad carry floss and a needle duct tape super glue a tiny bic backup lighter and then der Tech advil and anti diarrheal so that kind of moves us into the toll trees which for that I have usually toilet paper in baby wipes toothpaste toothbrush lotion if I'm just getting into a really dry climb and I just carry the little travel things and then a brush mirror combo just one of those flip ones so I have a little mirror and a little brush and maybe a couple other things just depending on the season but if you want to see all the details of what I started with on this new hack again you can look at the lighter pack list next up I want to talk about electronics so the phone that I carried with me which I not only used as a phone but also as a camera and just to really record most of the experience that was my iPhone 10 and then of course I have the associated chargers with that and on the phone I had a moment case and you know to go with the moment lenses like I just showed y'all in the giveaway now I'm not going to go into most of my camera gear today because a lot of the folks that are going on a thru-hike are not going to be carrying as much as I had on me or Aaron had on him in the way of camera gear so we might do a video together on that later but if you're interested learning more about that equipment you can check out the lighter pack link that's in the video description of this video I'll have one for my gear that I'm talking about and then one for camera equipment if you want to see some of that so people wonder well how do you charge your phone and other electronics while you're on trail and I dabbled with using a solar panel while on the PCT but I've just found that the best thing that works for me on trail is the anchor charger or probably anything similar I just know the anchor is a reliable brand this is a twenty thousand milliamp hour charger and I also carry the ten thousand milliamp hour charger a lot of folks probably won't need that much battery power but again with how much I use my electronics I really did now this big of a charger is not going to charge in an hour while you do your resupply shopping and then you can hop back on trail these things are going to take a little bit longer of course the smaller the battery pack the less time it's going to take to charge I normally just plan on staying in town at a hostel or motel or whatever and then go ahead and plug this up along with all my other electronics and just let them charge overnight in addition to my phone my battery banks and then those associated chargers I also had a set of headphones because I like to listen to podcasts and music while I'm hiking another item on the electronics list is my watch and I have the expedition by Timex it's just a cheap watch water-resistant although I have had it submerged several times and it functions just fine a shower with it and all that it's got the basic watch functions it's available it used to be at like Walmart Target but you can find it on Amazon thing I like about it the most is of course it has an alarm so if I have my phone off at night to conserve battery but I want to set an alarm to get up it has that function but my favorite thing is the Indiglo feature so it's just a little button that you push and the watch lights up so again if your phone is off while you're sleeping at night and you wake up in the middle of the night a lot like I do and you want to see what time it is you can push that button and you know easily see also I like the convenience of having a watch just so if I want to check what time it is during the day without having to pull out my phone you know a lot and use more of the battery it's right there in the last item in the electronics category is my in reach Explorer plus this thing could literally be a lifesaver luckily I haven't had to use it for that but it does have the SOS button on it to where you could call for help if you needed to also just being able to communicate with my friends and family and send them my actual location and you know just let them know that I'm alive because last year on the PCT I found myself rushing in the Sierra Nevada to try to get out of a section that was taking me a little bit longer and it should have just so that I could let my mom know like I'm okay so I just like being able to communicate it kind of takes that pressure off also the Explorer plus has topos in there so you can see the trail along with topography as like a backup navigation source you know if your gut hook or whatever source you're using fails and then I liked being able to check the weather so you can get a weather update I guess it triangulates for your current location whenever you hit like check weather and it'll give you weather updates and that way you kind of have an idea of what to expect each day and I know some of y'all are like that's ridiculous it's over the top you know people backpack for years and years and years without that yes it's not a necessity but it is something that I have very much appreciated having and I know that it's brought a lot of peace to my family being able to contact me so if you've got loved ones who are so worried about you going out to hike alone then this might be something that can bring them a little bit of peace of mind and there for you as well okay so now I want to cover the shoes that I wore on the CDT I wore ultras for the entire through hike I just had different styles so to start with I had the ultra Lone Peak 3.5 I found them to be a little bit tighter a little bit smaller than the three-point O's which was kind of disappointing I wasn't really expecting that so they were a little bit too tight but I think even if I had moved up a half a size those might have been a little bit too big so it kind of put my foot in a weird spot they worked out fine I wear if men's 11 while hiking so I didn't end up with toenails falling off or blisters or anything like that they just weren't as comfortable I've mentioned before I usually swap out my trail runners about 500 miles into using them because I've found with having plantar fasciitis on the 80 that making sure I swapped them out at about 500 when I suppose the support starts to go in that tends to work best for me so after 500 miles I decided to try the ultra attempts and those were a lot more cushiony they were probably I would say a little bit more breathable or you know they didn't seem quite as durable potentially just the way that they were made from that kind of cloth ish material the first pair I had held up just fine you know I swapped him out after 500 miles and decided to go ahead and get another pair of the timpz because they felt like pillows they were really cushiony the second pair of got they did not hold up as well at all I ended up with a pretty big hole and I'm around 200 miles and you know to me that's really not acceptable out of a pair of trail runners so I contacted ultra and they were like yeah that shouldn't have happened so let us get you a new pair well at that point the ultra Lone Peak 4.0 is were out and I was like hey might as well try that and they had solved the problem that the three point 5s had where they were running small so these fit wonderfully honestly they're my favorite pair of ultras that have used so far they're not as cushiony as the temps but you know it's really just personal preference and what you like these are the ones that I finished in they don't quite have 500 miles which is why I kept them but the only wear and tear that I see on these is there's a little bit of abrasion right here which doesn't mess up the functionality at all and there's this thing about ultras where I'm sure you all have noticed the toe the little tab here on the front starts coming off so it kind of peeled off on one but not the other and normally that happens pretty fast again not something that I feel like alters the functionality of it but I was really impressed with this pair and I've got another new pair for my next hike some of y'all are probably wondering why doesn't she have lock laces on her like she always wears lock laces I do but there was so much going on at the end of the trail that I had a pair to put in and I just never made the time to do it just with all the stress of what the weather was gonna do and all that it kind of slipped my mind so lock laces are pretty great though if you get tired of having to tie your shoe you know stop in the middle of the trail even if you double knot it doesn't work or if you're somebody that wears out shoe strings you know you might want to try a pair of lock laces I just find them really convenient you basically string them up it's like some kind of elastic ecord and then there's this little slide deal that tightens them up and you just don't have to worry about tying them anymore they're pretty cheap I think like ten bucks for a pair of these on Amazon and I've just found them to be kind of a little hack that uh that I like and will continue using all right well I think that is it y'all and if you have any questions about the gear that I covered today or if you feel like you saw me use something on the CDT that I didn't mention today that I possibly forgot about please let me know in the comments below and I'll be happy to get to those questions or concerns and I just want to say thank y'all so much for supporting me and this channel through the triple crown and most recently on the CDT I couldn't have done it without people watching and sharing and all of that so thank you so much and if you want to know the best way to support the work I do here the easiest way to do that no additional cost to you is to shop on Amazon through Dixie az.com so you just go there click the link and it'll take you to Amazon and you continue your shopping like aways and thank you again so much and we will see y'all next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 253,082

Rating: 4.9280682 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, thru-hiking, gear, review, trail, CDT, PCT, AT, continental divide trail, appalachian trail, Pacific crest trail, dixie

Id: bNUYdfhotWM

Length: 43min 52sec (2632 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2018