How To Pack for Kayak Camping | Kayaking 101

hey everybody welcome back to the headwaters channel seth here and today we are going to be talking about how to pack for kayak camping trips i've done a ton of kayak camping over the years between kayak fishing trips white water overnighters and just going kayak touring on fun camping trips on flat water so i've really dialed down my kit to a pretty lightweight compact kit with a great way of packing it to keep everything dry and safe so i'm going to walk through my kit this works really well for me most people over the years as they do more and more trips they'll kind of figure out their own way of doing things with little modifications here and there i do want to mention that this is not sponsored by anybody so if i harp at a brand or a specific product in this it's because i really like it like i said i've been doing this for a long time and i've really figured out exactly what i like to use so if there's something that i've got in my kit it to me functions really well i've got a big pile of gear on the floor behind me here we're going to jump down there and i'm gonna explain what everything is pack it down into the boat see how everything works let's check out this gear okay so i've kind of got everything divided up around me into piles here i've got my camping gear i've got kind of some safety and repair stuff i've got my hydration and my food and then i've got a big pile of dry bags i'm going to start off with the very basics which is my setup for sleeping the first thing i've got is a sleeping bag it's just like a 40 degree bag i don't even think they make this one anymore but it's really lightweight it packs up really well and it served me well i have another sleeping bag that's like a 20 degree bag that i'll use if it's really really cold if i'm going out in the early spring or even sometimes going on paddling trips in the winter but nine times out of ten i'm gonna bring a 40 degree bag just because it packs down smaller so usually i don't use the compression bag that comes with these because i'm putting it in a dry bag even if it's going in a hatch that's sealed behind a bulkhead i still will put this in a dry bag because if this thing gets wet at all i'm not going to sleep well below that i use just a little collapsible inflatable climate sleeping pad same deal i've been using this for years climate has proven in my opinion to be a really good company my wife has the same one she's had a couple warranty issues with hers and they've always taken care of us so i'm a big fan of this one and this one does in fact get really small this is one of the bigger ones so this is like the large one so next up i've got my shelter i sleep out in the open a lot anytime that i can i just love doing that it's a huge part of the experience for me but i always bring a shelter with me the one that i'm gonna bring is this outdoor research bivvy this thing is i think a great compromise between size and weight and also being comfortable of course you can get like the bivvies that have no structure whatsoever and they should fall on your face but this is actually waterproof it actually has a little pull that goes over your face i pack this into a dry bag as well once again lack of redundancy and i actually leave the tent poles out because then i can get the bibby shaped differently um it'll fit better in the boat i can actually pack it down quite a bit smaller than this it's only gotten used a couple of times when it rained unexpectedly but it did its job then and that's huge for me and then my final bit for sleeping i don't always take this but i do enjoy having a travel pillow this guy is just packs down really small let's actually start with hydration i bring i'd bring a normal water bottle this is my cool fun water bottle that has all my kagging stickers on it i keep this just in the boat with me all day so this stays in the cockpit very accessible because i want to stay hydrated and then i generally as long as i'm anywhere with reasonable water quality like if it's not disgusting i just use this little sawyer filtration thing you basically just open it up you scoop water into it you close it back up and then you kind of just slowly let the water flow out of it it works really well i have used it a lot and i have not gotten sick so i trust in this thing pretty heavily so these two is it for hydration for me we'll move on to actual cooking setup just a msr iso pro oh what size is this one this is just a 16 ounce can i know obviously there are smaller ones i like bringing a bigger one just in case somebody else runs out of fuel and then a very important piece this this is my wife's camp stove actually she she had it when we started dating and i've kind of just adopted it because i use it more than she does but it is snow peak which is a really cool brand their stuff is not cheap but it is generally pretty amazing i mean this thing is just mind-blowingly tiny that's it that's your whole bowling unfolds screws right on the top has a little ignition right here this thing is amazing and i love it it's super super crazy light and super small insanely packable so big fan of this one for my actual you know kit of stuff that i cook with and eat with and such a little gsi outdoors uh pot i got this at walmart six or seven years ago it's been awesome uh has two bowls inside of it this one actually came with four bowls i just bring the two i feel like this is plenty a little fork spoon combo it's by a company called light my fire i'm starting to kind of get tired of these plastic ones i've actually broken a lot of these they're really cheap and i'm kind of starting to feel bad for the number of them that i've broken i've got a metal one that i think i'm going to start using because these plastic ones like i said they just keep breaking and i feel kind of bad about it so the reason i've got this exact setup this gsi with just the two bowls in there is because boom that fits perfectly in there for food i try to stick with just camp food i'm not really picky about brand of camp food i usually try to find something that's on sale it all kind of tastes the same to me if you want to go like super super super crazy ultralight there is a really cool uh company called oatmeals that i have used in the past for whitewater trips when i needed to cram like a bunch of stuff in and the cool thing about them is you don't have to filter your water or anything um basically you just pour you can just pour river water unfiltered straight into the bag there's a separate bag within that has the food it's got this crazy little heat conductor in there that reacts with the water i don't fully understand the science kind of pricey which is why i don't really use them that much i'll usually stick with something like this as long as it doesn't sound like an egregious flavor i'll probably eat it so this is veggie burrito bowl sounds great it is worth noting that i am not going to pack a full kit of meals right now because i don't actually have a full kit of meals just finally running low on camp food and need to stock up but i will leave plenty of room i might even inflate a dry bag to the size of how much space food would normally take up and put it in there to show how that fits that's the whole setup for hydration and eating as far as what i pack for clothes the most i'm probably ever going to pack is if i'm paddling during the springtime in which case i'm going to pack something warm to sleep in and i'm going to pack some extra base layers because i'm going to be paddling in a dry suit if it's still cool out something cozy sleeping pair of pajama pants got this sweet super soft immersion research hoodie this thing is ridiculously cozy and one of my favorite things wear around camp kind of big and gratuitous but once again sleeping is important i like to be comfortable after a day of paddling so bring that and then i'll bring a union suit this thing is awesome if you're not familiar with union suits basically this is just like a one piece base layer that you wear under your dry suit keeps you super warm and comfortable this one's like a micro fleece i've been using that for a couple years and i love it then i'll have merino wool base layer shirt and wool base layer pants and that's two extra days worth of clothes so if i get wet on day one for some reason under my dry suit then i'll have that i'll bring a sun shirt just in case it gets warm so got this nrs nice sun shirt with a hood and a face cover two extra pairs of wool socks and that's it so lastly i kind of have a very small i guess you would call this like repair and first aid setup so for first aid i don't have anything super fancy adventure medical ultra light kit this is a waterproof bag i still stick it in another dry bag i want to keep this as sterile as i can but they do make this little waterproof guy it's about 20 bucks and has like gauze band-aids all your basics in here gerber multi-tool um in case anything goes wrong with the boat this thing's got screwdrivers knives a little saw everything you need to make magic happen a sponge you don't have to have one that's shaped like a fish but it's kind of cool and then gorilla tape specifically gorilla tape because if you crack a boat while you're out camping you can usually get by with just gorilla taping both sides of the crack it'll usually get you through a weekend trip and then you can plastic weld or get a new boat or whatever you want to do when you get home but gorilla tape will get you a lot further than you think it would uh if you're if you're really in a in a tough spot in the water so gorilla tape is something that always goes as well so that's everything that i actually pack and then of course i've got all my dry bags that we're going to take a look at and start packing stuff up and put them in the boats all right so i guess there's not anything left to do now except get packed something that's pretty cool and not talked about a lot if you're going to put everything in a dry bag it's called a stow float so if you've ever seen a float bag if you have a sit inside kayak that doesn't have those sealed bulkheads behind the seat or anywhere a float bag is highly recommended right it's going to give you that positive flotation if you flip so this is basically a float bag that's also empty on the inside so you basically can fill all your gear up in here get it packed like you would for camping seal it up just like you would seal any other dry bag roll it over a few times and then if it's full entirely you just stuff it in the boat if it's not totally full there's an inflatable bladder in here so you can just blow it up the rest of the way uh and then you have positive floatation filling any empty space in the boat and you have your gear in a dry space i highly recommend them i got this one really cheap um there are also some really nice ones out there watershed dry bags for example the company makes a really great stove float if you can swing it but this is a really cool piece of kit if you want one big bag to throw everything in if you like to compartmentalize stuff then you can just use a bunch of small dry bags i basically got a stack of 15 liter bags and i've got a 10 liter i've got a 5 liter i've got this 22 i've got my stove float and the other thing you have to keep in mind when you're packing this way is being realistic with how much space you have you have to be mindful of if you have only you know an 8 or 10 inch hatch well you got to make sure you don't use a really big dry bag like this 22 liter that when it's fully stuffed may not even fit in there you might have to shove it at a really awkward angle so in that case you would want to go with smaller bags like 10 liters maybe i think what i'm going to do is i'm going to pack my camping gear into the stove float here that's pretty big and we'll set that on the sit on top see how that looks we'll also do it in the creek boat that's much smaller sit inside with no bulkhead i think pretty much everything else into these smaller bags so let's do that [Music] so you'll notice i'm not insanely meticulous about how i put all this in but one thing you really want to do is make sure if you have like an inflatable sleeping pad like this make sure your valves are wide open when you're packing it up because otherwise you can end up with some air trapped in there make things take up unnecessary space this guy's got a little air trapped in it so i might need to roll it back out here oh there we go one of those valves was open that was keeping some air trapped in there now i'm kind of able to just roll a little bit of excess air out it's looking a lot better so with something like the stove float you want to keep in mind the shape of the things you're packing so what i'm going to do here i'm actually going to put in my bivvy first i'm going to take the the tent poles out really small but it still kind of takes up some space i'm gonna take the bivvy itself out because i don't need two bags i'm just gonna shove this thing down in the bottom of this stow float and boom nice small thing fills out the bottom nicely i'm gonna take my pillow pop that down in there next i'm going to take my sleeping pad put it in here after that so i'm probably going to call it there there's a lot more room in this so i'm only up to about here but i think if i stuff my sleeping bag again a couple of things are going to happen so first of all it might overfill it to a point where i can't get a really good roll on this and having this rolled adequately is what keeps it dry right this is not a ziploc bag it just seals by you rolling it so i don't want to overfill it so the second thing that's going to happen is it's going to kind of get big and rigid and and i'm not going to be able to flex it now i want to be able to do this in case i'm stuffing it down in a hatch and i need to kind of bend it and then shove it in the rest of the way or whatever i've got to do i want this to be able to to shape be malleable and be able to flex and get into nooks and crannies so i'm going to leave it here and we will put the sleeping bag a different one i'm going to roll this down about three or four times boom so there we go i've got my bivvy my pillow and my sleeping pad all in here i know this looks kind of big for what's in there but it's going to probably shrink up even more and what will probably happen when i put in the boat is i'll actually probably open this back up and let more air squeeze out and it'll cinch down in there really nicely we got this pile of 15 liter bags i'm gonna toss the sleeping bag in here real quick [Music] sleeping bag is ready to get packed now got my tent poles i'm not going to put these in a dry bag i don't care if these stay dry um they're just going to be on the outside of my baby i'm more concerned with them breaking and if i put them in a bag with a bunch of other stuff i'm shoving it in it can flex and so on which of course i have my gorilla tape so i can fix this if i need to but i would rather keep them in good shape so i will just shove them kind of in to the boat with everything outside of the dry bags got a little five liter bag and this is just going to be my medical kit and my gorilla tape so med kit in there got my multi-tool got my gorilla tape that is that that gets down really small this is in a nice bright orange bag so i can find it really easily i will probably put it in the boat last so it's right on top in case of an emergency i got a 10 liter an rs bag it's a nice heavy duty bag that i've had for a super long time we're going to throw our camping stove and cook set in there got the actual stove piece super super tiny i'm going to roll up my filter so i'm going to actually get that loose roll that up a little bit so it takes up even less space into the bag you go and yeah um honestly it looks kind of like the 10 was way overkill for this probably could have gotten away with a five but that's okay i think i can get all this into this 15 liter [Music] there is one last thing that i almost forgot to mention that i have discovered over the years is really important bring an extra pair of shoes to wear at camp so i will usually bring a pair of chocos even if it's cooler out because i can just wear a pair of socks kind of stomp my toe down there and just wear them with the socks and they protect the soles of my feet you're gonna have wet shoes you're probably not gonna wear your wet shoes around camp you're gonna want to get dry at the end of the day when you've been on the water all day so i like to bring a pair of chocos they pack down really easy throw them in a dry bag and just keep those kind of off to the side as my as my shoes for camp you could definitely go with something more lightweight than these but i feel like these are really utilitarian if i wanted to go on a side hike or something one day i could wear these as well if my paddling shoes were still wet if you have room and you can swing it definitely want to bring an extra pair of shoes five liter bag i'm gonna drop this in there boom no there we go roll it up real nice and boom got our extra pair of shoes since i only have these two camp meals what i'm gonna do is kind of roll up this bag with some air in it to about the size let's see how many meals would i want for three days two nights that have dinner for day one because i already eaten lunch breakfast lunch dinner breakfast lunch so about six meals is really what you need for a three-day two-nighter and that is plenty of room for six camp meals right there so this is it this is everything that's going with us we got food we've got our sleeping bag we've got our camp me our camp cooking set up we've got our safety gear we've got our clothes and then we've got our bivvy and sleeping pad etc other sleeping stuff in there so that's everything it's really small we'll pull the tarpon out and kind of set everything on it pack some stuff down in there see how easy this is so i'm going to start by putting things in my front hatch here and i generally i like to start with the bigger stuff in this case we got plenty open space i'm putting my clothes in first that's one of my bigger bags i'm going to shove my sleeping bag in here it shoves nicely up into the bow my camp stove and such right on the bottom there camp meals shove them in there extra pair of shoes boom and then on the very top my first aid safety kit gorilla tape and first aid stuff so that's really easy i mean there's you know it doesn't look like there's a lot more space but i could easily fit a ton more stuff in there you know if you've got a red kayak like a pungo or something like that that has just one hatch you could easily have pulled that off and then we've got the stove float in this case with the stove float i'm just going to shove this on the back under the bungees here and i'm going to clip the top of it the bungee boom super easy all good there my sponge i'm probably actually going to keep on top of the boat shut right here and my water bottle is going to stay up here with me almost forgot my tent poles i'm actually a little torn on this one in this case i'm going to put them right here and just kind of wedge them in the front where i can see them i don't have to worry about them escaping so there you go so that's how easy it would be to sit on top that's about as easy as it's going to get a few minutes packing really easy to throw on the boat it'd be really easy to access all my gear at the end of the day and everything's nicely divided up so now we're going to pull down this uh piranha 9r which is about as tough as you're going to have of a boat to pack because even most rec kayaks are going to have a lot more space than this and we're going to have to kind of work to get all of this in the stern behind the seat so let's go ahead and do that this 9r is going to show us really how difficult can be and it's not because it's a 9r or anything along those lines it's just because the only way we can get gear in this boat is in this gap behind the seat so it you know can be tough to pack this if you've got you know a smaller recreational kayak like a 9 or 10 foot sit inside this is kind of similar to how your packing experience is going to be the good news is that normally sit inside recreational kayaks will actually have a little more open space right here and the seat won't be as connected so it'll actually be a little easier if you have one of those smaller sit-in sides this is pretty similar to what you're in for and once again if you're doing this with one of those smaller insides i really really do recommend something like a stove float because it's going to make your life a lot easier so on that note we're going to start with the stove float i'm actually going to open the top of this bag up to let any air that's left inside kind of push out and we're just going to shove this guy down in here you can see i'm already kind of having a tough time with the back band and these little straps kind of get in my way but we're still making some good progress boom got that in there i don't really need to inflate this anymore because it's in there pretty snug and we still got a lot of gear to get in this boot all right there we go we got it in there it's shaped nicely to the inside of the hole right so now make sure i've got a couple of rolls here oh yeah yeah at least two there's three and we're just seal this up shove it back in there about as far as we can and that's great because that actually leaves us a little bit of room for another bag so i'm going to take some of my smaller bags it's my extra pair of shoes i'm just going to put that right there right in front of it got our clothes next another kind of bigger bag and i think this is going to be pretty snug i may have over packed on clothes in this case and once again you see all that air is bubbling up we're just going to open the dry bag oh yeah a bunch of air just came out get in there the rest of the way roll it back up make sure nothing's in there got our three rolls and that ought to do it there we go shove that back in all right sleeping bag next and this is going to get pretty snug this is always just every time i pack into a boat like this it always just comes really down to the wire on space and i don't think it's going to be any different this time i might end up actually having to put some stuff in the front in between my legs oh yeah there we go nice a little bit of the sleeping bag kind of trying to leak out there but got back in and got three rolls it's good to go oh yeah we're gonna be pushing max capacity here so what do we got left we got our cooking kit which once again this isn't too big of a bag i should have gone with like a five for this and now i'm paying for it but got most of that air out of there i'm just going to roll it down and should have room for this it is snug i tell you oh yeah we're gonna be up to the wire here get my water bottle in up front we've got safety gear and food left buddy yeah food once again this has got a little extra space i bet it would get down smaller than that knife that you can fit right there nice [Music] it's tight but it goes the bungee's tightening back up here boom and my sponge and last but not least temples just slide in the side and the top maybe oh there we go just enough room for those bad boys right there so snug like i said that's that's about as hard as it gets we've got everything in there there is one last little bit of safety gear that i kind of recommend if you're doing white water you're already going to know about this but it can be a really helpful thing to have on trips that is a throw rope you never know what's going to happen especially if you're out with other people so if somebody's boat floats away and you need to go track it down you can use a throw rope to tow it back if somebody is just getting swiped wiped out in a river or something you would rescue them with a throw up so this is a really handy piece of safety gear that that literally is for saving lives and saving boats so um highly recommend having a throw rope if you can if you can swing it i highly recommend having a throw rope on you and i like to keep mine right there in between my legs so that's it that's gonna do it for our video on how to pack your kayak for camping i hope you enjoyed the video if you did be sure to leave us a like and if you want to see more content like this and more paddling content be sure to subscribe to the channel if you've got any questions about paddling about kayak camping please leave those in the comments below we'll get back to you thanks again for watching and happy paddling

Channel: Headwaters Kayak

Views: 67,943

Keywords: headwaters, kayak, kayaking adventure, how to kayak camp, kayak camping, how to go kayak camping, how to pack for kayaking camping, how to plan a kayak camping trip

Id: NxzAITvLYRo

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022