Gear to Lighten your Load on a Budget!

hey guys it's Darwin here today with four pieces of gear to lighten your load without breaking the bank [Music] all right so lately I've been on a bit of a quest to find some ultralight gear to help you guys lower your base weight without investing too much money I know there's a lot of people out there that want to get ultralight but don't want to invest too much money into gear before they know that they really like it so I figured I would compile a list of four pieces of gear they're going to help you lighten your load significantly without getting too invested alright so number one is a stove there are a lot of different types of backpacking stoves on the market all the way from a jet loyal to the classic MSR pocket rocket to the stove that I carried in 2015 and 2016 on the Appalachian Trail and that is the Snow Peak light max stove now I switched to this off of a jet boil back in 2015 number one because I wanted to get ultra light and number two a little more minimalist with my backpacking found that a jet boil was kind of overkill for doing something like a thru-hike which a lot of hikers have found out I didn't want to go to alcohol just yet I still wanted to use a canister stove and this was a really good option now the light max stove is ultralight way in at 2.2 ounces and that's with its little stuff sack but one of these guys is going to run you $60 now don't get me wrong I highly suggest this stove it's amazing totally worth $60 I'm on year three of it it's still holding and strong it's a great piece of gear and it's super light but recently I found a nice alternative to it and that is the BRS ultra light stove now this guy weighs point nine ounces 0.9 ounces with the stuff sack and are you ready for this it's only 18 dollars you can find these little guys over on amazon.com now all of the gear that I mention today I'll leave a link in the description box below so you can go check those out for yourself but this is a killer little stove now I've already put it to the test a handful of times the boiling time on it is phenomenal it's only like three seconds slower than my light max getting a full boil on two cups of water its ultra light its ultra small it's built very well and as you can see if we take both the stoves and kind of compare the size it's much smaller and half of the weight of the light Mack stove the stove is definitely an ultralight option on a budget only being $18 so I highly suggest this now in the coming weeks I'll be doing a full in-depth gear review on this but so far I'm really loving this guy and again nice piece of ultralight budget gear all right so number two is a Sleep System there are a lot of different sleeping pads on the market either closed-cell foam self inflatable fully inflatable all kinds of pads now the pad that I typically use is the therm-a-rest NeoAir x-lite I love this guy these only weigh 16 ounces that's for a large and they're about three inches thick so super comfortable now again this is my favorite pad and this is the pad that I would suggest over anything else because I put a lot of time on it but one of these guys is going to cost you one hundred and fifty dollars sometimes you can find them for a little bit less but right over that hundred dollar mark it tend to be a little expensive again well worth the money ultra light durable and a great option but if you're looking for something a little bit cheaper that's not going to quite break the bank and get you down to that ultra lightweight this is the outdoorsman lab ultralight sleeping pad I recently picked this up to do a gear review on it and to compare it against my pad and I love this thing now these guys only weigh in 15 ounces so it's an ounce wider than my thermal rest and they're only forty seven dollars over on amazon.com so much much cheaper and about an ounce lighter the difference between the two however is this has a much lower value than this does so the thermos is definitely going to be a better all-around pad better for winter and higher elevation camping whenever it gets really cold at night the outdoorsman lab pad would be really phenomenal for some summer or spring hiking where it's not going to get that code however if you're just getting into ultralight backpacking this would be a phenomenal choice to start out with and then you can always add to it I've heard suggestions of people taking maybe a piece of reflectix with them or even a closed cell foam pad and putting it under there on those colder nights so you can add some r-value to this but just keep in mind this is not going to be the best pad for those really cold nights but it is a great pad for a lot of other backpacking so definitely check that out that's definitely going to help you get your base weight down without breaking the bank number three is a water filtering system again tons of different filters on the market something like a pump filter that I'm not a huge fan of you have gravity feed systems the SteriPEN or even drops to help disinfect the water but what I typically use is a Sawyer squeeze this is the tried-and-true filter that I've been using for the last few years it's what I used on the 80 that's what I used on the Arizona Trail and what I used on the Continental Divide Trail and probably what I'll be using on the PCT and they're not that expensive from the get-go they're typically around $30 and that's going to come with a handful of dirty bags that used to hook up to this side to squeeze out the water now these guys only come in at three ounces so already an amazing alternative to something like a pump filter it's going to weigh sometimes even close to a pound and these things will filter a hundred thousand gallons of water before they're done so $30 is definitely worth checking one of these out however if you want to get a little bit lighter and a little bit cheaper this is a new filter that I recently picked up by a company called hydro blue and this is the Versa flow now this thing is very similar to a filter that Sawyer makes called the Sawyer squeeze mini however through testing this I found out that this has a much better flow rate now these things are only twenty dollars over on hydro blues website and they weigh 1.4 ounces so much lighter than the regular Sawyer squeeze they don't have necessarily as much of a life in them these will filter ten thousand gallons of water however I don't think that I've ever filtered ten thousand gallons of water so that's still a pretty damn long life now obviously it's also a little more compact then the regular Sawyer squeeze and again it's about half the weight so that's definitely a product worth checking out for only twenty dollars it's going to be great in the field and a lot lighter and a lot cheaper than some of your bigger pump filters so along with the filter that brings me to my number four piece of gear that you can use to lighten your load and that is water storage so for years hikers have been using the classic now gene bottle this guy is 32 ounces it's made of hard BPA plastic has this big nice screw top and they work great super durable they last forever I typically carry one from day to day going to work traveling stuff like that however I would never use one hiking because they are a bit heavy so the bottle itself weighs six point eight ounces and then factor in adding that 32 ounces of water to it you got a pretty big brick in your pack so a good way to lighten that load is switching that out for a smart water bottle this here is actually a Trader Joe's off-brand smart water bottle this is 33.8 ounces so more water storage than that Nalgene and it only weighs one point three ounces and as most of you can guess this is about only $1 to $2 at a grocery store a gas station pretty much anywhere you want to find one so this compared to this is saving you a ton of weight it's much cheaper it takes up less space because it's a lot smaller and then the best part about switching to this ultralight bottle is if you're using that ultra light filter like the Versa Pro it's going to screw right onto the bottle and then you have your complete hydration system right there for only twenty two dollars much lighter takes up less room and much cheaper so the bottle is typically add uh most people know about that and all the trails that I've been out on lately in the last two years I'm starting to see less and less now jeans and clean canteens and those bigger heavier bottles and most people are making that switch to the disposable bottle the other reason I like using this is after a while of hiking with it whenever I come into a town I can easily just dispose of this and get a new one with wall are already in it and then use it until that one starts getting nasty too they're easy to dispose of or recycle which is what you should do get another one and super easy system to use so obviously some of this gear isn't going to work for everybody everybody has their own opinion and their own gear that works for them when they're on the trail however if you do want to lower your base weight and not spend too much money think about checking out some of these products because they've really helped me lower my base weight and make me more comfortable on the trail and again I'll put the links to all these products in the description box below so go and check those out you haven't got a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures of some past hikes so go check that out if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Darwin onthetrail

Views: 821,515

Rating: 4.9275212 out of 5

Keywords: Appalachian Trail, AT, Thru-Hike, AT Thru-Hike, UL Backpacking Gear, Backpacking, Hiking, Camping, Adventure, Hiker Trash, PCT, Pacific Crest Trail, PCT Thru-Hike, CDT, AZT, Arizona Trail, Section Hike, Long Distance Hiking, SnowPeak LiteMax, BRS UL Stove, Therm-a-rest, HydroBlu, Budget gear

Id: leMyVAsgFjU

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017