I Tried Backpacking With Only Cottage Gear…

my goal on this trip was to fill my pack with gear made entirely by Cottage Brands but I did have to make some compromises I'm not exactly sure what the definition of a cottage brand is but we're going to explore that question as well as whether Cottage gear can handle the harsh conditions in the mountains of Utah or are better for cushy through hikes like the Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail I'm on this trip with Stephen from my life outdoors and we're in the uintas just outside of Salt Lake City Utah's got record snow this year so we might be encountering snow as we get up to higher elevation and those Creeks that you can hear down in the Little Valley there are going to be raging it might be a little bit sketchy trying to cross them and I know that we have at least five or six different creek crossings just on day one so we're coming up to the first Creek Crossing it's definitely raging let's see if we can find a spot to cross yeah looking looking good right here not not too bad hopefully we have bridges for for the next five free Crossings because that'll make things a lot easier look how look how much this River's raging we would not want to be trying to cross that it'd be pretty sketchy [Music] foreign [Music] I was going to start by talking about the pack as the first piece of cottage here that I wanted to to share with you guys but I'm going to save that for later because I think it's gonna warrant a bit more discussion because it is kind of a controversial gear item so instead I'm going to start with my clothing I had to make quite a few compromises with clothing my hat is just a hat that I made myself my top is a from a cottage gear manufacturer it's an Appalachian gear 80 20 alpaca Sun hoodie this is made with alpaca wool which is awesome because it dries very quickly it has a UPF rating of 50 plus and then it doesn't stink I've used this shirt for five days on trail and then had people smell me in the parking lot and they said that I did not stink at all my pants are just pants from Mountain Equipment company which is like the REI of Canada and then my shoes are hoga speed goats there's not a lot of cottage Brands making good shoes for hiking especially when you're getting up into the deep mountains and having to do stream Crossings and maybe hiking on snow so I had to go with something that's reliable and that I know is going to work well for my feet while we're here might as well talk about the fanny pack as well because this is not as controversial of an item as the pack this is a fanny pack made by Red Paw packs I love it because it has this little top pouch here that I can throw things like snacks in and then you have a main fanny pack pouch right here the pack that I'm using on this trip doesn't have hip belts so a fanny pack was a really nice addition to my kit in order to be able to store things while Montreal and have them easy to access as I said the goal for this trip was to have as much Cottage gear as possible as you've already seen I wasn't able to get Cottage gear for every item but for most of it I was able to do a pretty good job and once we get to Camp I'll share with you things like my cook kit my tent and then maybe my sleep system we might have to save that for day three because we're gonna run out of time and especially if we start hitting snow then it's going to be a big day we hit another Crossing but on this one we have another Bridge it's it's less of a bridge and it's probably going to continue on that trend for the rest of the hike as we get further further into the back country and further along this Creek I bet eventually we just have have no more bridges but this one you have one railing don't fall off the backside so as we're gaining elevation here we've we've come a long way on the valley bottom this peak right here is 9640 feet tall and we're going to be getting up over 10 000 feet this is the first time ever in my life that I've probably gone over 10 000 feet so it's gonna be it's gonna be a journey I haven't had altitude sickness before but it's something that we're going to be keeping an eye on because if that hits you that can be very debilitating so yeah gonna just keep crushing miles I'm feeling pretty good right now but that might change very quickly [Music] [Music] I don't know much about high elevation hiking most of the hikes in the Canadian Rockies top out at about 9 000 feet but I do know it's important to stay fed so stay hydrated and take your time so it's nice that this pack has water bottle Pockets that I can actually access because that's not all always the case in all packs we got to our first true River Crossing no Bridge here there are some logs that are piled across the creek but those those can be sketchy they're slippery and if you fall and hurt yourself then then you're in a tough spot so let's go down and Scout it out see where the best place to cross might be so you have this log here and then it connects this big one but there's a lot of water moving over that big log right about there and it looks really slippery I can see a little bit of algae on it might be worth worth it just uh go straight across get get the shoes wet get the bee wet instead of risking uh slipping and hurting yourself yeah so I'm just gonna get my feet wet probably snake through there [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] water treatment system I'm using a sawyer filter Sawyer is not necessarily a cottage brand they're they're a decent size and they're definitely not working out of a garage anymore but they're really cool brand that's on the smaller side definitely smaller than the bigger Brands like platypus and they're giving back to the community a lot I think that's an important thing that you see from Cottage Brands quite often is that they're investing back into Trails or giving back to the world in some way and Sawyer definitely does that the other thing that I use with my water treatment system is a cnoc bag or a knock bag if you're pronouncing it correctly so this is just a big bag where the top opens up into a big wide opening that makes it easy to fill up water with and then the bottom spout here connects to the Sawyer filter and then you can squeeze water into your water bottles it's a really effective system in my opinion knock has really revolutionized water treatment especially when it comes to squeeze filters this is what I use with all my squeeze filters whether it's the Sawyer or the Platypus or any other one and I do consider knock a cottage brand there they've been around for a while but they're still a small team and they're innovating a lot which is something that I love to see and that is usually found with cottage Brands opposed to bigger Brands which may not be innovating quite as quickly or quite as often I'm definitely feeling the elevation my heart rate's up around 130 and I'm not moving very fast right now just a little bit of lack of oxygen but we're not even at 10 000 feet yet that's probably going to be tomorrow where we get up at that high and get up to the highest I've ever hiked we're getting pretty close to the first potential camping area there's a lake a couple kilometers down the trail there but I don't know if we're going to stop there it'd be really nice to get a little bit more mileage going but we're both feeling pretty beat physically I feel pretty good but I just am very lethargic feeling very tired and then I just felt a couple raindrops as well you can see there's some storm clouds kind of circling us hopefully they blow over but if they don't then I think that kind of locks in that we're gonna stop at the lake just up ahead we made it to the first Lake it is spitting rain right now and there's a lot of snow up here the next lakes that I was talking about earlier that we kind of have has an option for camping will probably be even more snowbound so the best bet might be to try and find a spot a snow-free spot at this Lake it is beautiful it's a very beautiful spot looks like that side's a little bit more snow covered so we may need to to try and find a campsite along this Southern Shore so we're kind of 50 50 on whether we stay here or carry on it looks like this rain might go past us it's even checked the weather and it said zero percent chance of rain definitely not the case so we decided to in good old Steven and Justin trip fashion flip flip a coin all right here we go you gonna call it sure oh wait yeah okay tell me when it's going it's going heads we stay as we stay all right let's let's see all right now to find some campsites for some tent sites we got our tents all set up Steven's using the Z packs duplex zip and I'm using the six Moon designs lunar solo six Moon designs was one of the first if not the first to release a tent in this style where you have one trekking pole and then the mesh enter and single wall they're one of the Pioneers in the ultralight outdoor space and still kind of hold true to their Cottage roots and I just love this tent it's a great tent made with sill poly holds up to rain snow wind it's a solid tent it started raining a little bit harder still still going so I'm just chilling in the tent got the Sleep System all set up hopefully it dies down it seems to be that in the mountains right now and of Utah there's a storm that rolls in or some rain clouds I roll in kind of in the late afternoon and then it dissipates by by evening as it kind of cools off once it stops raining I'll share with you guys what I have for a rain jacket as well as my pack they're made by the same company like I said a little bit of a question mark as to whether they're a cottage company or not we'll we'll have that discussion that I'll share with you my cook system and the plan for tomorrow it's looking like tomorrow might be a pretty gnarly day the rain jacket that I'm using is an ultralight rain jacket from z-packs zpax is one of the the top brands for ultralight gear but the question is are they a cottage brand they definitely started off with cottage Roots working as a smaller company and innovating producing really cool gear that no one else was but they've grown there are over 100 employees now they're producing a ton of gear and you guys let me know in the comments whether you still consider them a cottage brand the pack that I'm using is also from zpax it's the zpax arc haul it's my first trip out with it and it's one of those pieces of gear that zpax made that kind of put them on the map as far as Innovation goes with the mesh back that it has in order to provide ventilation and the curved carbon fiber stays these are the kind of things I think zpax is still kind of doing they're they kind of have that Cottage Vibe I'm not sure if they're a cottage Company still but part of it is just having that Vibe and and being a company that is pushing the limits while still kind of seeming like they're a small company they're definitely not like some of the brands that I have and some of the pieces of gear from those Brands I have on this trip where they're literally making the gear in their garage whereas zpax has a big Factory and Warehouse that they're working out of so maybe I'll put a little star next to the links in the description for brands that are really really tiny like the one two three person teams that are producing not a lot of gear but are really kind of producing some really cool stuff do you know where the best place to buy Cottage gear is including gear made in people's garages the answer is the sponsor of today's video garage growing gear they carry dozens and dozens of different Brands and best of all no lead times and you don't need to be tracking a bunch of different deliveries a lot of the different gear we're looking at on this trip including the tent as well as my alpaca Sun hoodie are from garage door and gear all the links in the description so you guys can go check them out for yourself for my cook system I wasn't necessarily able to find Cottage gear the stove that I'm using is the BRS 3000 stove I looked around and couldn't really find that many Cottage options for heating up Meals other than maybe going with alcohol stoves from someone who's making cat cans or some sort of titanium option then the pot that I'm using is the tocs 550 titanium pot tokes in my mind is kind of a bigger company so definitely not a cottage brand but they make really effective titanium pots so that's what I'm going with but for meals for meals I am going with smaller cottage-like Brands this is a new brand that I've encountered wild Society they have these awesome little pouches with tons of calories 760 calories per little meal package that you have here and it doesn't take a lot of water only one cup and a quarter for this meal and this steak fajita and rice looks really tasty I checked out a bunch of their other meals and they also look very good and then for day two I have bushka's Kitchen meals you guys know that I love bushka's kitchen they're a cool small brand they're starting to grow so definitely go give them your support because the more meals that they make the better I think because the ones that I have tried are delicious all right let's try out this wild Society steak fajita here still very hot good flavors though I'm excited to try the other meals that I have from them I think we're probably gonna eat dinner and then hit head to bed pretty early tomorrow I'll share with you the Steep system that I'm using I was able to go with pure Cottage manufacture for the sleeping pad quilt and pillow that may be a surprise you because there's not a lot of smaller Brands making sleeping pads some of you might also disagree with me as to whether the brand that made the sleeping bag is a cottage brand we'll have to we'll have to have that discussion tomorrow should be what do you think a tough tough day uh it's gonna be interesting to say the least I'm expecting a lot of snow yeah hey just I think we're going up another we're going up another like 500 feet thousand feet I think we're going up another thousand feet thousand feet yeah so we'll probably be hitting snow tomorrow it's gonna be a tough day we're getting up into even higher elevation and the elevation was kicking both Steven and my butts butts today we're definitely feeling pretty tired and lethargic so yeah be an interesting day tomorrow we'll we'll catch you then and and keep you updated on how things are going foreign good morning started packing up got my ursac I'd say ersacks are kind of a cottage brand they're definitely a bigger brand but a niche item and that's all they do they're kind of a smaller company too really nice if you send them an email you're going to be getting an email back from someone that's very familiar with the product so kind of in that 50 50 50 50 ROM but time to eat breakfast this is my homemade breakfast so I guess is that kind of make it a cottage brand in a rugby bag rugby bags probably not a cottage brand but very good for the environment because you can just reuse them over and over their dishwasher sits safe this is what I'll pretty much eat all my breakfasts and now and then I'll also use the bigger ones the sandwich size ones for homemade dehydrated meals so great little products and uh yeah my oatmeal chocolate chips and dried fruit classic for Justin Outdoors and my toke spoon again we talked about toast already but not a lot of cottage Brands making long-handled spoons some are making some Wooden Spoons but I don't like the mouth feel of Wooden Spoons so I stick with the titanium an item that I love but it's kind of controversial are mayfly sandals I've seen some reviews for these about how people can't cross streams in them or they've tried hiking in them they've Fallen apart yeah they're gonna fall apart if you try and do those things they're not durable they're basically pieces of really durable cardboard with some string attached to them but what I love these for is I put them outside my tent at night and then if I need to go to the bathroom or something like that I can slip these on and I'm not having to put my nice clean dry feet and socks into dirty potentially wet shoes I use this poop emoji bag from space bear bags and then inside of here I have some hand sanitizer okay maybe maybe that's not made by college Brands but I have a cooler cloth we'll talk about that in a second here in order to dig the cat hole I use this really ultra light trowel from bogler trowel it has serrated edges which makes cutting through Roots really easy and as really good ergonomics when you push down top of it has this little nubbin so it doesn't hurt your hand and then I am using a Backcountry bidet I love Backcountry days because my butt gets really clean normally I use the culo clean but on this one I'm using uh manuf one manufactured from a cottage brand so this is from Pika Outdoors you may know them as the brand who makes the powdered soap so I use that a lot in this little plastic container the powdered soap has two purposes first of all it's in order to provide soap as I'm cleaning my butt with the bidet but then also to wash my hands afterwards and they made they made this little bidet system that attaches to a water bottle just any sort of standard water bottle and it works pretty good I don't like it quite as much as the culo clean but I feel like this is a first edition they're gonna adapt it a little bit and then make a better option and that's a cool thing with cottage Brands a product may not work for you now but they're usually tweaking and adapting things so quickly that it might in a month or two it's crazy how quickly The Innovation happens with cottage Brands all packed up hotter morning poops time to hit the trail [Music] we've got a few main obstacles today as we go down the trail the first one is that wind you can already hear it blowing really hard today was supposed to be an extremely windy day getting up to about 50 miles per hour in the Alpine so as long as we're protected by trees we should be okay the second thing is snow as you can see and as we talked about yesterday there's a lot of snow and as we get up to 10 000 feet and then up to 10 500 feet that snow is only going to get deeper then the third thing is again Watercourse Crossings we had Bridges this time but Steve and I were just looking at the maps and chatting with someone who knows the area and the path that we are looking to go down in order to get back down to the trailhead has nine nine water watercross nine and bridges may or may not be there and it's supposed to be a bigger Creek maybe even a river so we're gonna have to scout that out we want to get stranded halfway down that trail and then have to hike all the way back up only to hike back our emergency exit Road we've made it to 10 000 feet this is the highest that I've ever hiked and it feels feels pretty cool this is like I have a sense of accomplishment that I didn't think I'd have getting up here because 10 000 feet for a lot of people isn't that big of a deal but it's pretty cool for me this is one of the highest points on the trail I think it's the highest point I think we have one more pass that's gonna be a little bit higher but it's beautiful I feel great at a 10 hour sleep last night and that really put me in a good position to to hike up this elevation and and feel good while doing it from here we're gonna drop down into this Valley here down the drainage to those two lakes that I talked about yesterday that we might have camped at it would have been tough going coming up to this pass and then heading down there so I'm glad we camped at the lake that we did Trails like this and conditions like this is where I really like having a watch with maps on it definitely not a cottage brand this is the Garmin in zero two it's my go-to watch but I can navigate through snow and areas where the trail may come and go really quickly without having to pull my phone out a bunch it's kind of been a lifesaver in this area because my instinct would have been to head down with the elevation straight down to the Lakes but we're kind of cutting across the slope a little bit here and contouring with the with the slope we've made it to the Lakes they're just over this little Ridge line here but they're draining a lot of water you can tell that there's more snow up here than there usually is and it's melting and creating just these giant Creeks some people tried to cross right here by laying down some logs I think there's a rocky kind of stepping stone area down there that we're gonna we're gonna try out but decided to go check out these Lakes I think they're pretty big and pretty cool looking foreign [Music] made it to the lake that we're kind of thinking about camping at last night probably a good idea that we didn't it would have been quite a bit of work to get up here it's at higher elevation so it would have been quite a bit colder but it is is a beautiful Lake we're heading around the lake and over another pass to get to our next campsite and once we're there I'll share with you guys all the camp clothing that I'm using to stay warm it's a pretty cool little system and then all of my sleep system which like I said is mostly made from Cottage manufacturers foreign we made it up onto the pass I think that's big elk Lake down there you can see scattering clouds of precipitation kind of throughout the mountains we got hit by a sleet as we were coming up here which made us put on a rain jacket so it was quite cold with the wind as well I'm pretty happy that the precipitation was freezing as it was coming down because rain is way worse to deal with than sleet or snow or hail and it looks like we have some clear skies and Sun kind of coming towards us which which is nice foreign [Music] Lake this is a spot that we're thinking of camping today but it's very windy by the shore where it's a little bit open and there's tons of snow as you get into the trees there's even more snow because it's more protected from the Sun so we have to kind of poke around see if we can find something otherwise we'll have to move on [Music] good [Music] we're debating whether to Camp here at Big Elk Lake I went across this little stream here and checked out that Forest Area it was it was pretty good there's a couple good tent pads very beautiful views but again we decided to flip a coin on whether we stayed there or headed down into the valley a little bit deeper and down to another Lake the coin said go down so that's what we're going to be doing trying to find our way down this Cliff area and then around that Marsh and then further down the valley [Music] made to Camp got my sleep system all set up let's take you on a tour of this awesome Sleep System made by pretty much Cottage Brands let's start off with the sleeping pad this is the Outdoor vitals Oblivion sleeping pad some of you out there might argue whether outdoor vitals is a cottage brand or not I'm kind of basing the answer to that as yes from the fact that they're a very small team they have less than 20 people working for them probably even less than 10 I'm not exactly sure but there's basically no Cottage brands that are making sleeping pads especially ones that actually perform and the Oblivion has performed better than I expected I didn't really expect much from outdoor battles with this I thought it was going to be kind of a dud it has an R value of 3.5 but I found that it kind of outperforms that it sleeps as warm as some of the pads I've tried in the 4r value range one of the reasons why it might sleep warmer is due to the reflective top that it has I'm not exactly sure why but I kind of have a feeling that that's the reason why it's sleeping warmer for me especially when I'm using a quilt it's as comfortable as I thought it was going to be it kind of has these vertical baffles but then introduces tiny dimples on them as well kind of like the Nemo tensor and it's probably on par with the Nemo tensor for me I do have my arms falling asleep a little bit if I really spend like four or six hours sleeping on one side and then I have to turn over for my top installation I'm using a hammock gear Econo burrow quilt this is a very affordable quilt but also really high quality uses high quality down high quality shell materials and keeps me very warm I have the 20 degree version here and it's kept me warm on some pretty cold nights up in the mountains here for my pillow I'm using something you guys have never seen on the channel before but I've modified it to make it my own so it's the Big Sky International dream plate pillow so it's an inflatable pillow basically just a big air bladder a lot of people just use that on its own because it's very lightweight but what I did was I wrapped a buff around it and I took an extra pad strap from a quilt in order to attach it to my sleeping pad this way I have a really lightweight comfortable pillow this pillow is more comfortable than I thought it would be and it locks down onto the sleeping pad my dream is for someone to make a cover for this pillow that's very lightweight and warm but also as an included pad strap that weighs under 50 grams once it starts getting cold that's when I put on my Camp clothes my farpoint outdoor gear fleece is one of my favorite pieces of insulative layers it's made with Alpha direct fleece and because of that it's extremely lightweight but still very warm I'll throw this sweater on from Far Point over top of my alpaca wool Sun hoodie and then along with my Merino wool 2 that'll keep me warmed down to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit or a little bit colder if it starts getting colder than that or if it's windy because this is a very airy fleece if the wind picks up it's going to start getting cold I'll throw something else on over all of this and I'll show that to you right now the next layer that I throw on is my rain jacket my z-packs vertis rain jacket this just blocks the wind and then locks in all the heat it maximizes the effectiveness of the alpha direct fleece that the Far Point is made out of and this combination is extremely warm I can get down to probably just above freezing and be nice and toasty as you can see it's very tough to put together a gearless made entirely from Cottage Brands but I feel like I did pretty good there's a lot of cottage brands in here hopefully some that you've never heard of let me know in the comments who your favorite Cottage brand is so I can check them out and maybe include them on the channel if you're interested in ultralight gear then go check out this video right up here I spend an overnight in the desert with a base weight of only five pounds I took the thermos Uber late on that trip and let me tell you it had my heart going a little bit at times putting that down onto the desert ground

Channel: Justin Outdoors

Views: 26,214

Keywords: Backpacking, Hiking, Camping, ultralight, backpacking gear, backpacking gear list, camping gear, hiking gear, ultralight gear, best backpacking gear, best hiking gear, Appalachian Trail, ultralight backpacking, hiking trails, gear review

Id: j_8pqEJW0-I

Length: 28min 50sec (1730 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023