GEAR I should have gotten as a BEGINNER backpacker

what's going on hikers in today's video gear gear gear we are talking about gear i love it you love it let's talk about it i'm actually going to show you and i have a lot to say about gear you don't have to stick with the same brands that i've picked but i want to inform you of things that i wish i would have purchased whenever i first started backpacking that could be i bought something else and then later on down the road i replaced it with these specific pieces of gear or it could have been i just done without it like uh this isn't in the list but a chair for a long time a ton without a chair and then sitting in the miserable rain on a cold wintry day with the shield brothers and mr backpacking with jason sir i was like no longer going without a chair if you're new to the channel my name is jeremiah stringer and here we talk about all things hiking and backpacking so if you're into that kind of thing consider subscribing to the channel that's exactly what we talk about oh don't adjust your screens i know if you're not new to the channel i shave my beard it's been about three weeks it's growing back out be patient okay let's start with number one on our list i want to talk to you about filters so whenever i first started backpacking i bought a sawyer mini it worked okay until i discovered the sawyer squeeze which is the full version of that same filter now this is what i wish i would have purchased whenever i first started backpacking because dealing with the mini and the flow rate just wasn't for me even though it is a little lighter and this will be a common theme you see throughout this whole video sometimes for sacrificing money sometimes for sacrificing weight it just depends on the item i also tried out this sawyer micro and i don't really suggest this one some people it hasn't given them issues but for me this thing the flow rate completely like completely shut off on me i basically had to start using other people's filters whenever i was backpacking on the long trail i was out there for a month and a month on trail is a big deal it's a big difference between just a weekend okay let's go to number two on the list what else should i purchase when i first started backpacking yeah like i said a lot of things to show you one thing that i just done without when i first started backpacking is a warm puffy i didn't bring a puffy at all on my very first trip and then the trips after that i mean my first trip was like in may and then later on that year i didn't get a puffy until probably i went the whole summer and then into the fall i got a ghost whisperer and if you don't know much about it it's a like a eight ounce puffy it's not super super warm in my opinion and it's not great for winter but you know pretty fair weather it'll keep you warm and then i bought something that is a little heavier super loud you can hear it that's one of the downsides this is just a north face puffy and i paid a couple hundred bucks for it whenever i was at an outfitter in tennessee so one thing i wish i had bought when i first started is a warm puffy and i'll tell you why even on the warmest of days sometimes you wake up and you're a little cold so you can just get up do some jumping jacks whatever but puffy fantastic and one thing i like to do is in my sleeping bag i will get in there right and then if i don't feel like it's going to keep me warm enough or if i have a little bit of chill whenever i'm going to bed i'll zip up my puffy and then i'll put my legs in it and pull the puffy up toward my waist and then it's a nice little like cozy extra layer for me while i'm laying there in my tent number three number three on our list today is the stove that i purchased i want to show you the very first stove i took backpacking it is definitely a learning experience folks and i know especially when you first start out you're on a budget so what i did was go to a local sporting goods store and i bought this heavy heavy stove i mean this thing weighs basically the same as three stoves it is so heavy but what was great about it is it was stable my pot would never slip off of this even on an incline and then i change to what's called a brs stove brs it's a lot more flimsy and i have dropped water slid off in my cook pot multiple times using this thing probably three or four times and once into somebody's lap whenever it was boiling hot so uh got to be careful and also make sure if you're going to use something like the brs you want to make sure it's on level ground now let me show you what i should have bought when i first started it is a heavier stove this is a msr pocket rocket deluxe it's got a big old burner on it and it's very very stable that's my favorite thing about it i wish i had bought something like this or maybe a pocket rocket even though it may be a little bit heavier than this brs because this thing weighs like 27 grams this thing's substantially heavier and i'll link a video above if you want to check it out more but it's been my favorite stove thus far so just to recap i should have bought a more stable stove probably stuck with it but hey we all like experimenting with gear you live and you learn number four i have actually sold my very first one actually salted somebody that only backpacks pretty much in fair weather like summertime ish it is a good quality sleeping pad now i first started out i hammock now too but i spent some time in a tent i first started out in a tent what do you need you need a sleeping pad to sleep on and i just went on amazon and i was like 50 bucks yeah i'll definitely spend 50 bucks on a sleeping pad no big deal because what i was checking out is things like this the neoair x-lite and this the nemo tensor this is actually the alpine version and i got it specifically for wintertime i wish i had bought a good quality sleeping pad i went through a cheap one from amazon that was basically a knockoff of the xlot neoair x lot and the r value was pretty much nothing it was just an inflatable pad like you'd buy at walmart so offers no r value and if you don't know what that is to keep it simple it's just a measurement of how good it's going to be in certain temperatures for instance like the higher the r value the warmer it's going to keep you so we'll keep from going in depth there but i should have just got a higher r value and spent the money that 50 bucks come back to buy me i got me one and i got my wife bridget one and we found out real quick that it wasn't super comfortable and it wasn't super warm so if we were backpacking anything below i don't know 60 70 degrees at night it was a little chilly and you don't think about this but the ground just kind of sucks the heat right out of your body so i don't care how warm your sleeping bag or your um your top quilt is that you're pairing with your sleeping pad you're going to get cold if it's a cold night and you don't have a good sleeping pad and that actually brings me to today's video sponsor i would like to thank backcountry.com for sponsoring the video i actually ordered this and a number of other things some i'm going to be showing you today from backcountry.com best part there's i don't know when you're watching this but right now cove it's a thing and i didn't even have to leave my house to buy this sleeping pad every time i've ordered stuff from backcountry it came in super quick i don't have to leave my house to shop at all and while i was shopping on there i was like i don't know if i want this sleeping pad for winter or another one so i went down and talked to one of the gear experts their gear heads are experts in the field and they knew exactly what they were talking about now i've been backpacking for a few years now and i could tell the person i was talking to it was like having a conversation with somebody who actually knew about the gear i'm talking about and we set and we talked through it and i decided on the alpine so i'm going to link below everything that i can find a link to that i'm talking about in today's video and i would love for you to check out backcountry.com it's a one-stop shop for all kinds of your back country needs backpacking camping all kinds of things in the backcountry so thanks again backcountry for sponsoring today's video now i'm not real good with numbers but i think this is number five i found a head lamp and i think it was i don't know six or eight dollars and i was like yeah i need a headlamp well come to find out i prefer a rechargeable headlamp and this is not a rechargeable headlamp i bought it on amazon super cheap i think i found it in some other people's videos it's a good budget one but it completely stopped working on me like completely crapped out and i was like how can i lose a little bit of weight using a headlamp so i went with this thing this is the nightcore nu25 super super light you can even mod it out to make it a little lighter and uh i recently purchased a new headlamp hold on i'll grab it and show it to you got it you're talking about light man this mack daddy right here is super super light this is the petzl bendy and i'm actually taking it out on its trial run this week tomorrow shh don't tell anybody taking it out in the backcountry headed out it is so so light i would definitely if you haven't bought a headlamp or if you want to just cut a little bit of your base weight this is a good way to do it not lugging around extra batteries even though yeah it could die but i'll talk to you that about that here in just a minute but petzl bendy let's see how she does have you used it comment down below tell me your thoughts numero six number six on our list today is about your feet and whenever you're backpacking your feet are everything so the lighter your base weight is or just how much weight you're carrying on your back and the better your feet are that's a good combination so what i did to up my game in my footwear is yeah i bought good quality shoes right off the bat i did a lot of research i bought some shoes tried them on decide if they were going to work with me and then i actually upgraded them even more and you're like how do you do that well it's the same shoes but i bought some inserts that were not the factory inserts now me personally i deal with plantar fasciitis which is where a tendon in your foot gets really tight and it can cause you a lot of issues especially a lot of foot pain spurs on your feet that kind of thing so some extra support really helped me out and i'll link below my buddy that i do the backpacking podcast with his name is john kelly and he has his own backpacking youtube channel he has partnered with a company called treadlabs and i haven't tried their stuff but i trust him and he's he has talked a lot about them and how great their products are so if that's a company you want to try out um for sure check out his videos on his channel what i've been using since i've started backpacking and i use it every day at work is these inserts called pinnacle power steps i'm still on the search for the perfect insert so whatever you use if it's not factory and it adds some support i think that's always better than just using that little flappy piece of foam that they stick in their shoes but just one man's opinion right maybe it doesn't work for you we're all different number seven what else do i wish that i would have bought as a beginner i know i know exactly what i wish i wouldn't have bought these cheap walmart dry bags that i was using as a food bag now they're super cheap and you can just go to your local walmart and pick them up but i took them home and weighed them those things are freaking astronomical in weight i was like my food's already in these ziplock bags i just need something to hang it in whenever i'm doing my like bear hanging at night bear hanging we're not hanging bears i'm hanging my food away from the bears right you you get what i'm saying well here's what i went with i decided to leave the walmart ones at home and got an osprey food bag and i was like the mouth on this thing is not wide enough maybe i can use it for electronics or something and then i went with a light af one it was super cool and then my buddy from hilltop packs ben mcmillan if you want to check out his website he can customize food bags for you this one has my entire instagram feed and it has my logo that's at hilltop packs.com and you can pretty much upload whatever you want and i've been using his food bags ever since so highly highly recommend i wish i had gotten a big food bag for multiple days that had a big wide mouth opening on it whenever i first started backpacking instead of wasting my money for those cheap ones at walmart that were way too heavy for me to carry number eight in today's video i still have some foot stuff going on here you're like what you're sick no no i'm talking about what kind of socks that you wear so these are darn tough love them because they have a lifetime warranty except not these i bought them at t.j.maxx so they're actually they have no warranty they're irregular ones but the special thing about them is they are merino wool and the cool thing about merino wool is it doesn't lose all of its insulation value like cotton does whenever you get it wet now when i first started backpacking and actually have on a pair right now is some of those cotton nike performance socks now i don't know what the performance is they don't make me jump any higher or anything like that but i wore took a number of those on my first backpacking trip and i was like it'll get me out on the trail which is true but what i should have done is invested in some better socks like these darn tough merino wool or these smart wool socks and the wool doesn't just stop there i got this is another thing i got from backcountry.com and i wish i bought a long time ago now they're expensive i'm not going to lie but a good base layer this is smart wools 150 weight shirt and is unless i'm mistaken that means it weighs 150 grams so this is like their lighter version merino wool base layer and let me reiterate please don't take cotton in the back country unless you're just gonna wear it around camp or something like that but if i'm backpacking i'm either taking like a synthetic shirt or something like this a merino wool base layer because again you know a lot of people get hypothermia in the summertime because you get wet you don't think you need a jacket and then you're out there in the elements and then guess what your core body temperature starts dropping so please if there's anything you take away from this video stay safe out there wear the right gear in order to protect yourself gear is everything in the back country that and your wits number nine on our list let's talk a little bit about electronics whenever i first started backpacking i used the lipstick side no no i wasn't using lipstick i was using lipstick size battery packs and they're like i don't know 3 500 milliamp hours that's not enough to charge my iphone one time so i would have to take multiple and then i was like well true this i'm going to upgrade to something bigger now keep in mind i do youtube so if i'm going to film in the back country it's going to take a lot more power plus i like a rechargeable headlamp as previously mentioned so i bought this big bad rav power 20 000 milliamp hour battery pack and this thing has never died on me when i'm in the back country now i think i overdone it a little bit and if it were me going back i would probably get a 10 000 milliamp hour charger now that's gonna last me probably for a couple days it'll charge my phone i don't know three and a half four times if you have like for instance i have an iphone 11 plus i believe it is and this would be great if it's two people using the same battery pack or if you're doing something like i do and have to recharge camera batteries or something like that in the backcountry but i have it on my christmas list and hopefully my wife bought me a smaller battery pack because i just went and weighed this thing right before our video can you guess how much it weighs nope that's not right it weighs 15 ounces too heavy too heavy i got to go down in size stick them with electronics and we're not done here but this is number 10 on our list these have become a lot cheaper and you don't have to go with this brand like i said before in this video you don't have to go with any of these brands what this is just a little wireless headphone this is apple air pods i don't know how much they are you can probably get them on sale right now since it's around christmas time if you're watching this right after i put it out but i had no idea how annoying it was especially with my trekking poles if you're somebody use trekking poles sometimes i would catch this the cord not the string the cord that comes from my headphones in my trekking pole and i just ripped that sucker right out of my ear and i was it would make me so mad and then you know you're annoyed you're sticking it back in there and you may do that multiple times saving grace right here now the only issue that i run into with these wireless headphones is if i'm like laying in my hammock at night and you know i got my phone on my hang time hook and i'm laying there watching a movie or listen to a podcast and i fall asleep i'll i'll either wake up with one of the the airpods like stuck in my side or i won't be able to find it until morning time so that's something to keep in mind if you're going to consider using wireless headphones in the back country but in my opinion a lot less hassle do have to charge them though so that is a downside number 11 on our list how about this crinkle crinkle crinkle crinkle these these can be yours for a low low price no i'm not gonna sell you mine this is an upgrade when i first started backpacking i used the basic frogtalks and i do understand if you're on a budget that may be the best option for you but hear me out on this 20 yes you can buy the basic frog togs and you'll look like a giant beige colored yeti or something right unless you get the blueberry ones for ten dollars more i bought the frogtogs uh mr backpacking with jason sir makes fun of me all the time because they say they say something on them about being too poor but these are supposed to be like the x-lap version they're a lot tougher and miyagi on the trail i actually ripped these not too long ago and you can you can put like dyneema tape even though yeah that's really expensive but i would highly suggest try spending 10 more dollars and getting a at least slightly tougher frogtog or different rain jacket again if you're on a budget and that's what all you can afford whatever is going to get you out in the backcountry as long as you're safe but this is a hard deal to pass up on and these have lasted and lasted and lasted me i even took them on my through hockey the long trail and i'm still wearing the same jacket and that was like i don't know a year or two ago and i'll take this thing every time i go into the back country man i am feeling long-winded today maybe we can edit this sucker down i don't know i doubt it check out the links in the description below thanks again backcountry for sponsoring today's video if you've enjoyed it give me one of these helps out the channel subscribe and kick the notification bell for the latest notifications we'll see in the next video yep yep i know i know the the sleeping bags and the under quilts in the background they're hung vertical and all the down's gonna fall you don't have to tell me i'll change it i promise so hey i'm trying to shoot a video in here be quiet dogs silly dogs

Channel: Jeremiah Stringer Hikes

Views: 611,474

Keywords: beginner backpacking gear, best backpacking gear, backpacking gear, beginner backpacking, budget backpacking, hiking gear, backpacking checklist, backpacking gear list, backpacking gear review, ultralight gear, appalachian trail, essential hiking gear, ultralight backpacking, cheap backpacking gear, ultralight backpacking gear, ultralight backpacking gear list, discount backpacking gear, beginner backpacking list, beginner backpacking gear list, backpacking for beginners

Id: ga1w4LFXDlw

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2020