Favourite Hiking Gear for the TA And My Worst Backpacking Gear Choices // Gear You Should Buy FIRST

hello guys michelle here and welcome back to my channel in this video i am going to be covering some of the best and the worst gear items that i used on teodoro now before we go any further let me level with you guys on one point even though this is technically a best versus worst gear items comparison i really couldn't say that any of the items of gear i carried with me on teardoor were bad or awful in any way so in the worst gear section instead pretty much what i'm going to be covering is the gear items that i would be most likely to swap out or change in the future at the outset here there are three items of gear that i would definitely say were hands down over and above the wrist my favorite and best items of gear on teodoro and they were my enlightened equipment enigma 10 degree down quilt my thermarest neoair x-lite sleeping pad and then of course as you'll have seen just recently my z-packs duplex tent but as these form part of my big three gear items and they are items that you have to have if you're going to be doing a long distance hike or a through hike anyway i didn't really want to include them in this video instead i wanted to show you some of the other sort of non-standard items of gear that i really enjoyed and really didn't enjoy when i was out on the trail so with that in mind the first piece of gear that i'm going to share with you is my sawyer squeeze water filter now a lot of people will tell you that on a trail like teodoro which passes through a lot of wilderness areas you really don't need to filter your water very much and whereas that might be true on the south island which really does pass through a lot of wilderness areas on the north island section a lot of the time you are hiking through low-lying farm country areas and when you've been hiking through areas where there are cows and sheep doing their business in and around streams you really don't want to be taking the chance of drinking that kind of water unfiltered for the most part on the north island you are able to fill up your water bottles at some kind of potable water source but in those other areas like for example through the central north island where you're hiking through the central plateau and you have got streams to rely on i'd still say that i would want to be filtering my water with a water filter and this was kind of hammered home to me when i started to come across in the bottom section of the north island a lot of hikers who'd managed to pick up a stomach bug from one of the huts in that section of the trail and i think that was largely because most people tend not to filter the hot waters so the soya squeeze water filter is definitely one of my favorite pieces of gear i don't want to be taking the chance of getting some kind of awful stomach bug when i'm out on the trail and i loved the squeeze for this it's so lightweight it's very very convenient the flow rate is excellent and it has the added advantage of the 28 millimeter thread which means i can screw it onto any water bottle i pick up along the way the second item of gear i want to mention in this section that i really loved on teodoro was my see to summit collapsible x mug now anybody who has been watching this channel and anybody who knows me will know that i love to enjoy a good cup of tea in the morning in fact i even have one right here and the great thing that i loved about the cedar summit x mug is that it is large enough for me to have a decent cup of tea in the morning i've been debating a lot whether or not i want to go stoveless on the south island and i'm just not sure whether i can give up my hot beverages even in the morning or at night and for the fact that this thing weighs basically nothing and it collapses down super tiny which is a great feature for a through hike it fits right in the bottom of my food pot i really don't think that i would be without this on a long distance trail in the future the third item of gear that i wanted to mention in this section is my ultra lone peak trail runners now i was a little bit wary of using trail runners as a first time through hiker especially in the rough and ready environment that i knew new zealand was going to throw at me on a through hike like teotihua but i can say that after hiking 1700 kilometers off teatador and doing over 1400 kilometers of those in the ultra lone peak trail runners these are definitely my shoes of choice for a through hike now i have been looking into some other options for picking up a different set of shoes for the south island section of tiara and that's mainly so that i can compare and contrast against a different kind of shoe i was incredibly impressed with how they stood up whilst i was on the trail and for some reason i think my shoes held up a lot better than some of my fellow hikers versions of this exact same shoe even after kilometers i've noticed that there's still a good bit of tread on the bottom of the shoes the tongue at the top here has started to delaminate from the actual um outer of the shoe but not so much that i ever had to glue it or that i was starting to trip over it and in general even though the fabric and everything is quite faded it's in pretty decent shape considering what i put it through despite the fact that i did have some issues with the zero drop nature of this shoe and i was able to rectify a lot of those by putting an insole into the shoe that was able to give me a little bit more arch support but it is so super cushioned and it is so comfortable to wear and that's a combination between that lovely cushion base that you get everywhere around the inner of the shoe is very very well padded and then of course you've got that lovely wide toe box which gave my toes all the room that they needed to move around and i'm proud to say that in these seventeen hundred kilometers i hiked on tiara and out of the kilometers that i hiked with these shoes i never once got a blister the next item of gear i'm going to cover in this video is one that i didn't even realize i wanted or needed before i set out and so it was kind of a surprise to me when i eventually found it out on the trail if you've watched my pre-tear gear list video you'll know that i was struggling a little bit with choosing some kind of a towel to take with me along the way in the end i ended up stitching together two yellow dusters and sort of making a makeshift towel for myself but after about five or six weeks on the trail trying to use this and just ending up freezing cold and basically not getting myself dry at all i knew that i had to try and find something else so that's when i ended up picking up this see to summit airlight towel this thing was absolutely amazing it is incredibly large just show you the kind of length that you're looking at there it's quite narrow but you'd be surprised at how well this works to dry your entire body and even like me if you've got long hair it worked incredibly well at getting that dry when i was showering in towns it has some really great features that just make sense for through hikers for example it's incredibly lightweight and not only is that great for the backpack but also it means that it dries out incredibly quickly it's very absorbent and it packs down into the tiniest little package that i thought was even possible for a towel it would basically fit into the palm of my hand nice and comfortably and i enjoyed using this as my main towel so much that i actually ended up picking up a smaller version to use with my cook kit a little bit further along down the trail the final item of gear that i'm going to mention in this section i'm quite proud of for a number of different reasons not least of the fat because it's the one that i personally put the most effort into and that is my homemade pot cozy i wasn't sure if the 40 odd grams that it weighs was going to be worth it when i was actually out on my through hike but this very quickly became one of my very favorite pieces of gear on the trail it has of course the added advantage that you don't need to use quite so much gas and even in the north island where you're able to walk through towns on a regular basis it can still be very difficult to find a supply of gas canisters along the way so any gas that you are able to conserve is a bonus i can't believe how well it worked considering i basically did this as a last minute thing before i set out on the trail and i just loved it i got the personal satisfaction out of knowing that i made it myself with my own two hands and i will definitely be taking it with me on any adventure where i'm carrying a stove in the future so those are my five best items of gear but there is one wild card that i wanted to include in this group the reason why it's a wild card is because it's something that i don't think i would be able to find again because i picked it up on a fluke many years ago but that is my sukhoi iron man branded sleeping top that i used it's basically an incredibly lightweight fleece that's made out of some kind of synthetic material and i used this every night when i got to camp just as an additional insulating layer for keeping me warm after a long day of hiking it is incredibly lightweight i love that it compresses down to basically nothing so it doesn't take up too much space in my clothing gear and i wish that i could find something similar to recommend to you guys i have had limited success in looking for equipment from this brand um in the past but if you're able to find any or recommend anything to any of the other people who are watching this channel please go ahead and leave a comment down below okay so now we are into the worst gear item section and just a reminder they're not necessarily awful i don't necessarily recommend not purchasing them it's just that i will more than likely be replacing them for something different for the south island league of my journey and for those of you who've been watching my channel for a little while especially my post tiada or through hike videos you'll know that i can't do a section like this one without mentioning the z packs titanium v stakes still to this day even after six months since i returned from the trail i cannot believe how poorly these performed in the new zealand conditions i was not expecting to have three or four of the eight stakes that i bought bend within the first few weeks of being on the trail and i know that the ground in new zealand can be a little hard i was just really surprised at the fail rate of these tent stakes now i did end up switching to the msr groundhog stakes when i got through to hamilton which is about 600 kilometers down the trail and i was really happy with the way that they performed the groundhog stakes have more of a cross design like this as opposed to the v design which sort of sits like this on the d-packs titanium v stakes and i think that just gives them a little bit more stability in fact when i was on the queen charlotte section of the track i was using the groundhog stakes and the ground was so hard that i was having to bash them into the ground with decent sized rocks and they still stood up really well but for these babies they are out of here the second gear item i want to talk about in this section is my treeckology ultralight inflatable pillow now i have to say that my relationship with this pillow changed substantially over the course of tea when i first started and for probably the majority of the north island section i was super happy with the way that this pillow performed it's incredibly lightweight and it's also quite a budget option when you consider that the sea to summit equivalent costs around about two to three times as much as this pillow will cost you i like the fact that it comes in a whole bunch of really neat colors and it's also super comfortable i wasn't quite sure about how comfortable i was going to find an inflatable pillow like this i struggle with getting the proper pillow even at home in a normal sleeping environment let alone trying to make do out on a through hike but i was really impressed with this pillow in general and then all of a sudden when i hit the wanganui journey section of the trail the pillow just started deflating on me i'd blow it up at the start of the night go to bed and within about two or three hours i would find that i'd basically lost all of the air out of it and to this day i cannot figure out why there doesn't seem to be any punctures in it that i can tell and so i can only assume that maybe the valve in the back is potentially not functioning properly it's not that i wouldn't recommend this particular pillow it's just that i think you have to bear in mind that for the price you might not be getting quite the same quality as you would expect in the sea to summit pillows now that i know that i really do enjoy using something like this trekology pillow when i'm out on the trail i'll probably now just splash out and purchase the see to summit pillow because i know that i'm probably going to get the life out of it that i need so the final item of gear that i wanted to talk about in this section is one which really exemplifies why you should make sure and do your research before you set out on the trail and that is my signet power delivery wall charger now the reason why i went with this in particular was because of that power delivery charging option through this little slot on the back here i wanted to be able to charge up my anchor power bank as quickly as possible whenever i got to town the thing that i didn't realize though is that you need to have a special power delivery cable in order to take advantage of that charging and i was really disappointed to find that that doesn't come standard with this particular charger at least not in this region of the world so i got this out on the trail and then i couldn't use it for the purpose that i wanted to use it for even though this could work really well if you're properly set up with it i think for me it was a lot of money and a lot of extra weight and finally to finish out this section i did want to mention another wild card on this part of the video and that would be my outdoor research sun gloves now hiking through new zealand and knowing that i was going to be subject to the very strong sun and the awful uv that we have here i really wanted to try and protect my skin as much as possible in fact one of the favorite gear items i haven't mentioned in this video is my big wide brimmed straw hat that i just loved to use for anybody that uses trekking poles in particular you'll probably have noticed that the way that you use them means that your hands are constantly out and exposed to the sun so i wanted to try using something like this to protect them a little bit better now i opted for these particular sunglasses because they said that they had a cooling action but i still can't figure out how that cooling action works my experience with using these gloves on the trail was that they made my hands feel incredibly hot when i was hiking and so instead i opted to basically not use them and just make do with the sunscreen that i was carrying along the way now on the south island i am probably going to go back and try to use these again in some kind of a capacity because i will be hiking through a lot more exposed areas and in particular in areas that are a lot higher in elevation and therefore closer to the ozone layer i really want to try and protect my hands they're starting to look like old lady hands now so i'm going to give them another go again but i have my doubts about whether or not these are going to make it into my permanent through hiking kit all right everybody we are at the end of this video i hope you've enjoyed hearing what my best and worst gear items were maybe it's given you a few ideas of extra pieces of gear you can purchase for yourself in the future or maybe it's even confirmed some suspicions that you have about existing pieces of gear that you owned whichever way make sure you go ahead and leave me a comment in the section down below to let me know what your best and worst pieces of gear are next week i'm going to be covering everything you need to know about that awful thing that you have to deal with on tiarador and that is road walking so make sure that you stay tuned for that next friday at 7pm in the meantime if you liked this video go ahead and give it a thumbs up don't forget to hit that subscribe button and ding that notification bell until next week guys take care and stay safe out there [Music]

Channel: Long White Gypsy

Views: 1,309

Rating: 4.8421054 out of 5

Keywords: te araroa, long distance tramping, te araroa trail new zealand, thru-hiking for beginners, long distance hiking for beginners, gear for the ta, favourite hiking gear, worst backpacking gear, hiking gear you should buy first, favourite backpacking gear, don't buy this hiking gear, long distance hiking gear, how to choose good hiking gear, best backpacking gear for beginners, hiking gear i love, best hiking gear, nz tramping gear, tramping in nz, gear for the te araroa trail

Id: cmLLQlL8HOw

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 24 2020