My Gear Picks! (Appalachian Trail)

hey y'all say you asked for a gear of you and you might get more than you can handle right now but I have all of my stuff strode out here at Whitney's house like literally all over this room it's craziness yeah I bring everywhere this this is gear this is what you asked for so all of you you're nuts I hope you're happy for what you've done make this mess in here but anyway so I just want to start out with um there are like the main things you need to figure out when you're about to hike is what pack am I go carry my sleeping bag and my shelter so those are like to me the three essentials and everything else kind of works itself out from there so this is contact here and it's an osprey oritse new Osprey aura and it's a 50 liter pack so um you can buy all of your gear and then take it in to wherever you buy your pack I got mine in Oriya and do it that way or you can just guess and I read a book that mentioned fifty to sixty five liters probably good so I was like well I'm trying to limit my weight so I'm going to make everything fit into 50 liter packs I got a 50 liter pack and was like okay fit so anyway um it started it came with the brain this is what goes on top of the pack and I started the trail with that but you learned how to Col some stuff pretty quick so I got rid of the brain and didn't use it in for um so yeah I would recommend highly being sized for your pack um I went into Arya and I spent four hours at the pack guy I think he was sick of me he probably knew my social security number in my whole life before we left but um anyway so he really helped me you put weighted pillows and stuff in here yeah I mean it was just very helpful all the folks at Aria are very very helpful um they will spend time with you talking about ear most of them have been outdoors before and with REI you can return anything quite no questions asked up to years so that's like awesome and then also if you become a member you get like a percentage back on the purchases you make there and you know but anyway so I just like member benefits but uh oh yeah that guy helped me I walked in there and I'm like I don't really like the way that pack looks I'm not even gonna try that one on and I tried on like everything else under the Sun and then I was like you know it this isn't a beauty pageant and a fashion show so I don't really care what it looks like it felt the best and that's what I got so this is my pack um next uh sleeping shelter so I started in a hammock and a lot of people asked me why I swapped to attend so I started with a two-person hammock and I created my own rain fly I also created my own bug net so did um and those are things that you can definitely do they're a lot cheaper to do that way um but my whole hammock set up was four pounds so this tent here is two pounds five ounces for two person tent so you really can't beat that and I wasn't an experienced hammock camper so but I am familiar with tents so it was just more of like a comfort thing you know um so anyway this is my tent I have the Fly Creek ul to a Big Agnes it is awesome like I can't say enough about this hey forty dollars more for a tea person and it was four ounces more so for the two-person but I never got wet using this and there was plenty of room for my stuff you can sleep with another person in there and your packs up on your feet if you have to so I definitely recommend this you know of course I didn't have any other tent but like I would use this again in a heartbeat so um and yeah all right next sleeping bag so this is my sleeping bag here it's a 23 degree down bag but it's the treated down that I guess is more water resistant so it doesn't become completely worthless because you have either synthetic or down and with this dry down it's the down bags are usually lighter and they squish up to a smaller space so it doesn't take up as much room in your pack but it down gets wet it's known for like it no longer has an r-value so you're um you're gonna be cold basically if your down bag it's wet but there's still you know some insulating part of synthetic materials that will help keep you warm even if they get wet so that's there's pros and cons to each saying you can research that more but I went with dry down dry down back again got this at Aria and honestly I don't even remember Sierra Designs it's a men's because apparently the women's is just more expensive because it's prettier and I just didn't care about that so a two point one nine pounds for my sleeping bag so and it came with this sack here a lot of people want drop sacks for sleeping bags I in this contractor bag in my pack so I never got wet I never had any issues with that you just have to make sure you're careful to keep your stuff dry so that's that um sleeping bag liner at the beginning you'll care a little bit if you're stinky or if your stuff stinky that's another thing synthetic bag you can wash it every time you go to down bags have to be washed in special ways so if that's something that concerns you you know you might want to consider that but I just slept with a silk liner mainly um just so I could take it out and wash it if I got to town and thought that I was smelling really bad but after a while I just didn't care if I smell bad anymore so that worked really well for me in the winter the only nuts I was cold I was cold one or two nights in the Smokies when I had gotten wet during the day and then in Maine it got really cold but it got below 23 degrees a few times so but yeah mine was a 23 degree bag again in the summer time I used a fleece liner sleeping bag liner as my sleeping bag instead of my sleeping bag because it was bladder um it saved me more room and you know you just want to lighten your pack so in the summertime you don't need a 23 degree bag because you're burning up you know sometimes I had to sleep on the top of this so this definitely did the trick I carried this from some point in Virginia all the way to I think in Vermont so there yes and then Oh sleeping pad I started with a blue foam sleeping pad that I got from like just outdoors store it's very lot but after a while I got to where I could not make myself sleep on my back or my stomach anymore and I'd wake up with my hips killing me so I said enough of that and I visit the bullet and got a therm arrest and it's the like extra Laflin um I don't remember how much it weighs it's less than a pound I know that it's still kind of damp um but it's inflatable so you just you know that's you do have to blow it up every night when you're tired but yes the NeoAir that's what's called therm-a-rest NeoAir so um definitely worth the money if you can't make yourself sleep on your back so I would I would definitely use this again over a phone pad you know I thought yak and tough it out you know I don't mean it fancy cut yeah after you get tired and not sleep in for a while you'll uh you'll want a fancy sleep okay and alright so we're even on two clothes okay you learn a lot about yourself while you're doing this so you're not going to pick out the most perfect thing and you'll end up sending some stuff home and begging somebody to send some stuff team but um puffy jacket this is one thing I kept with me the whole time like even in the summer time I have a puffy coat with me and I just yeah I would I don't care about the extra weight if you get cold you want something and this was it so um mine is not down this is synthetic because I wanted to be able to wash it and honestly the reason I picked this one as it was on sale at Aria so I would recommend getting one as a hood even if you have a hat it's a bargain beanie whatever you call it if you have one of those like you're still like your next cold memory so it's just really nice to be able to have something with a little bit so I would recommend if you're deciding between two different ones get the one with the hood um then okay so when I started out and like well one started out was cool but in the summer time anyway let's go over that stuff um at first I wanted to carry two tank tops because I was like oh one for a couple days and then one gets extra stinky then I'll carry the other one um after a while I just cared about weight and I got rid of one of the tank tops but this is a Walmart tank top just the synthetic material you want to hike in synthetic clothes it's not as much of a big deal in the summertime you know they say cotton kills and it's basically the cotton doesn't keep you warm when it's wet so you don't have to thermia it's just not fun so it's safe to err on the side of everything synthetic but in the summertime it's just not that big a deal and then this top here is very Airy this is a North Face top that I got like qualms on the trail somewhere probably onto um so again it doesn't have to be fancy brands and all that oh and then I hiked in these shorts I think these are you know these are Patagonia shorts again probably on sale these held up over the rocks and the whites so maybe your shorts actually want to make sure they're pretty still um but yeah these lasted slatton because you get on your button slide over rocks all the time to the wat so Patagonia no food or any certain kind of anyway yeah these shorts were awesome just make sure you're comfortable you're going to be in this stuff everyday for like six months so just it just needs to be comfortable it's not a fashion show I promise you nobody cares what you're wearing out there more than you and after a little while you do not care as long as you're covered up um so yeah I wore the same shorts every day and then rotated tank tops until I didn't care about it anymore and then I got rid of one my tank tops um undergarments for ladies just find a sports bra that's comfortable again you're going to be wearing it it doesn't matter how cute it is or anything like that just something that's comfortable so I had two of those for a while also until I swapped out um clothes and I just got rid of one of the sports bras I don't care if I stink I'm hiking um okay while you're doing laundry what do you wear I decided at first when it was cold I wore rain gear wore my frog togs which I'll show you in a minute but um I just you know just wear something all your laundry is going by the summertime I was like well you know reindeers hot so I just got a little sundress and free ladies it was something that I didn't have to wear a bra with because your bra was being washed right so um just a little sundress and this was my clean outfit so I only wore this like while I was doing laundry and after I had showered I do not wear this on the trail at all and then um sleeping here so this is while it's warm again I chose cotton cotton shorts and a cotton tank top because and again these are for more um like an uh but anyway just something allow you to breathe you know you just want to take everything off like your undergarments and stuff and allow your body to just like air out so that's why I picked this up and again cotton is safe in summertime so um now when it's cold uh I would hike in my shorts on my tank top with my frog togs over the top when it's raining and that helps you know keep you warm cause you're truckin and you've got you know something on when it was really cold I would put on my sleeping clothes are like my puffy coat but if it's raining and cold you're just gonna have to be cold because you do not want to get your sleeping cold clothes wet hypothermia a large um get hypothermia so sleeping clothes need to stay dry at all times but I wore this shirt for a while um you could use this instead of like a tank top and ended up sit in this home and not wearing it because there was really no point I'm just to have a change of clothes and that's just that's just silly so anyway alright um also I wore these for a while three-quarter breeches or whatever um you can have this to wear if it's kind of cool out when you start in the morning and stuff like that but again it's not a fashion show of your cold put your rain pants on you know and then when you get warm take them off and wear shorts but when you start hiking you warm up it's crazy like I would be sometimes I was in shorts when it's really cold outside but it was just you're moving and you get warm so again just minimize it as much as possible but whatever makes you comfortable when you start and you'll learn um I had this Under Armour it's fuzzy on the inside again on sale one thing that I really liked about this shirt though was the thumb holes so that I could you kind of keep my hands warm on using my trekking poles and stuff I didn't have gloves until the very end at Katahdin and I should have had a better pair up as long as I had we're basically worthless because Walmart but um yeah and then these leggings so I slept in this long sleeve top and hiked in it when it was dry outside if I was really cold and then these fuzzy leggings I slept in or wore to hike in when it was really cold outside and it was dry but sleeping clothes keep track oh and then gloves get some good gloves if you're gonna be in the snow or ice waterproof otherwise there's no point have a glove really there's no one um extra pair socks you can wear extra pair socks on your hands and serve gloves I did that but much times while I was actually hacking but okay sock review um have a bunch of different pair I would sleep in a big puffy pair of wool socks around you that's what I would sleep in then when you hot you're in the neigh you want your socks to be thin because you don't want at least that's how I liked it I didn't want anything that you know made my foot tighter in the shoe than it already was so I went with something thin it felt kind of slick in it I don't know I didn't have any blisters or anything like that the whole time but those and gingi socks apparently helpful blisters but um i smart rules I used darn tough socks the one thing I'll say about darn tough socks is they dare you to wear a hole um so if you do manage to our hole in them they will replace them so that's one benefit and there they may be a little bit more than some rules but I would go with a good pair of wool socks Okies again.what merino wool helps your feet not smells bad supposedly and going to be wearing these guys for like a long long long time so the men's will be good um and I about the number of socks that I carry I carried one pair to sleep in and those were always my sleeping socks only even if I had to put on wet socks the next morning you'd have to have a warm pair sleeping socks and then a at least two pair to hike in to rotate out but I really liked having three pair - hi Kim so I probably had about four pairs of socks that might be too much but that's just personal preference and you'll figure that out and then you have to keep your clothes dry brat so I would put those down in the contractor bag also with my sleeping bag um but I had a dress act to put my sleep and clothes in at least because those are the ones you don't want get wet so this came with my parents every liter draw bag and I would just put you know the stuff I want to keep your eye in there and then last piece of kind of clothing um is you want to have a few hang keys with you um whether you ladies use them as a PA or you want to blow your nose or you your tickets wet you want something wipe it out you're like I just had a towel right now like this these become your friends so I would suggest having at least one maybe two until you figure out you know what you like okay so now like food and drink ish you know the kitchen your kitchen so this is my kitchen I use MSR pocket rocket stove um would use it again all of the stuff that I'm showing you I would use again um so just looks like this and you just screw it right on to your fuel canister and voila stove it's not hard to move this one it's like behind it boots well anyway uh alright so you could use fantasy pots I just was trying to spend as little as possible when I got this stuff but still get good stuff when I needed good stuff and then like kind of scoot back you know no chef so everyone will yell at me right now because I cooked in aluminum but you know I wasn't using deodorant so I figured it'd offset my aluminum intake you know for not moving together and on the trim but anyway this is an aluminum grease pot I don't know if you can see but it says grease on the lid there and then I just modified it a little bit by putting this guy in here and because basically what I wanted to do I wanted to be able to cook on a fire if I wanted to and it had a plastic knob on it so I was afraid that it would melt um so alright so this is my food bag by the way um seeing got some duct tape pitch fixtures there um repair and whatever um but it was still like I never had any water in it um or anything like that but anyway you can tell me anything in Star Trek here so uh yes the pot want to cook on the fire so when you want to like open the lid and you know whatever I have this little nifty titanium spork here I think it was like seven bucks go ahead and get a titanium spork it'll last you had a bunch of people that broke their plastic ones and you know we're just kind of left hanging so um this guy lasted me the whole time but you know I could just puke let's pull it off like that and check on it while I was in the fire or was on my stove you know so like that and then again it was a metal knob so it didn't melt off but this lasted me the whole time this grease pot was like seven or eight bucks at Kmart so if you want to cut a corner up so she do know this guy right here is a cozy a pot cozy I made this myself got this out of reflectix material um you can probably cut up other things to make this and then there's the tape for that but I repaired it with duct tape when it started coming apart but basically what you do you boil your foods if you're eating noodles for dinner you bowl the needles once I come to bowl you put in this and let it set for a while you just have to have the patience to not eat it sometimes you're so hungry you'll eat a crunchy you don't care um but if you let it set for about ten minutes and that way you're conserving your fuel you're not spending as much money on fuel and not using as much out and you know it still and this is said light so it doesn't really way to it um I'm a spork and you want to have yourself a good ladder this big ladder right here it lasted me the entire trail I used this same water the whole time but this is my backup just in case you want to back up fire just in case um I liked drinking coffee every morning I could have just drank it out of my pot but sometimes I made oatmeal and so anyway I would make coffee and I would put my instant coffee in this cup this is a sea2summit collapsible Cup and I just you know fit in there and everything so it's basically is for that stuff water filtration I know I showed you this in a video before this is the Platypus gravity filter so you just put your clean bag on the end and your dirty water goes in here and you hang it up and don't think about it and the water filters for you through this guy so that's my preferred method I would do that again if I win a hack another trail um this you got a clean water bottle and a dirty water bottle and you know you just have to know the difference between the two I would recommend using like a Powerade or a Gatorade because it's like thicker plastic so it holds up a little bit better you know you're always scooping on rocks or whatever um and you would be surprised how like attached to get to this looks like no I've had this one for a 300-mile I don't want to hear it away but uh yeah so and then I use a smart water bottle for my clean water bottle because um you have to back flush your filters you know while you're hacking and stuff so the little spout on the end of the smart water bottle would fit on there and also fits on the Sawyer's Sawyer squeeze two back flushing so you don't need to carry that little syringe to back pushes one less thing that you have to have so and then also a handkerchief for like my you know it's like my heat pad my hot pot holder so or to wipe up any food mess or whatever it just and it's got like t-shirt material insecticide absorbs a little bit better and then you're hanging on the other side but again personal preference to figure that stuff out but yeah my food bag was pretty cheap I don't remember exactly how much this is a wanna say 15 liter bag um and it held pretty much all my so worked out good for me alright the odds and ends um this little baggie here uh was what monthly sleeping bag came in but you want something to just kind of keep all of your little loosens and stuff together so that's what I used uh pepper spray I think that this is vital for hitchhiking for your own personal confidence in knowing that you can keep yourself safe and for your parents sanity and friends so that you're like well I brought pepper spray I'm good say you know so um pepper spray I actually kept this in my hip belt of my pack that's one thing also added mention about pack that I'm really liked um the big hip belts you know and the the anti gravity system on the pack but you just have to you'll just have to get your pair to work for you but anyways I kept that in my to belt and a pocket knife just a Gerber a light in a little goodnight and all right so back to this little bag so this is like toiletries electronics you know your phone charger your medical kit your duct tape all that stuff will go in here so this is like I've got tums in here anti-diarrheal medicine um a little like duct tape rolled up on itself a needle you want to have dental floss so like you can make repairs with your needle I've repaired frog talks like that um just band-aids maybe a little thing India's foreign you know whatever but that is some stuff that you need and then Tola trees this doesn't have everything I used in it but um super glue it's not really toiletry but um ear swabs a mirror this is a bouncy ball to roll my feet out because of plantar fasciitis but hopefully I'll wanted what was that um for girls conditioner because you don't spend an hour combing your hair out the comb and little things like that um your dental floss the hair ties you know whatever clippers but for a detailed list of all that I'm going to have like all of that detailed out in the e-book that I will be putting out soon so you and then uh Barre chord and a little carabiner on the end of it so but you'll you can read reviews on all this stuff I don't even exactly remember where I got my Barre chord from may be easy packs but hang your bear back is what that's for and then a little patch kit for my neo air dome rest my sleeping pad because that's the one thing about the playable sleeping pads if it gets a hole in it you're not really sleeping comfortably that where your phone pad won't deflate but um so you ever crack it for that and then electronics so how did you charge your cell phone backup battery charger on this one sound logic eckstein this gave me like two and a half charges so you just charge these when you're in a town and then you charge your phone from it you know walk out on the trail but there's so little it's like that but I use that one um the first one I used was this guy here and this only gave me like one charge maybe so you know you want to go ahead and go with one it might weigh a little bit more but if any more charges and then a headlamp we need to make sure you have a good head lamp because and preferably one with the red beam um anyway because when you're walking up to a shelter at night you don't want to be the jerk that has the bright light like hey what's going on you know so the red lights good or if you want to read that way you're not disrupting people but yeah you want a bright beam because if you decide to night hike go to the Privy at night whatever reason you want a good headlamp even if it weighs a little bit more that's worth it this way to fourth it and then of course all your chargers and whatnot for your backup battery charger and and then back at batteries for your headlamp but again those are all things that y'all will figure out as you go and your personal okay okay so all right so I went to so much Footwear and this isn't even all of it right here but um insoles you can read about all kinds of different insoles and you know what your feet are going to decide what they like while you're out there so maybe the good thing would be to test them out before you go in your shoes but by all means don't cancel your 80 trip just because you didn't test out insoles just you can even go with what's factory in your shoes but um these are the sole brand um the good thing about these is you can heat them up in the oven and then you put them in your shoes and they fit to your feet so that's good um I think they're like forty to fifty dollars these are super feet you will hear all about super feet and people on online forms will swear by these they work great for some people and then some people they don't um the super feet and the sole brands they did find for me you know I thought um I know I don't really know what caused my plantar fasciitis I'm gonna hazard a guess and say it was because I wore my shoes for too long and the support was gone in them I don't know but um so these are the shoes that I was wearing when I got plantar fasciitis but that's like I said I had these for like 700 miles these were my favorite pair of shoes I had these are Solomon's I got on half off at trill days and that's why I bottle their men's but Solomon's are very they're pretty lightweight they dry out fast these are not gore-tex I started with a pair of gore-tex well actually I start with boots but they gave me tendonitis and my achilles so I just didn't like that heavy I felt like like they were heavy clodhoppers or something you know so it's up a lot and I like Solomon so a more Solomon's thrust the time I wore gore-tex pair but eventually they start Lincoln I mean they're not you know made for like to last you forever right so they start leaking um they don't dry out as fast you know so anyway I would go with these pair and that's what I finished in so I'm not like oh my god these shoes give you plantar fasciitis I wore these shoes out for like seven hundred miles such as way longer than they should have lasted and so anyway I ended up my shoes set up when I finish wear these dr. Scholl's $20 insoles at Walmart for plantar fasciitis because these saved my feet and getting a new pair of shoes saved my feet so um these shoes are also know you can tell these look a little bit better than the other ones but you know it's kind of funny you'll see you walk in weird ways or whatever because like my toe busted out right here in all the shoes I had but yeah I would swear about Solomons I'm definitely the most popular brand on the trail and I think that you know either you really like them or you don't but there's a very few people I think that don't like them um so yeah if I had to just recommend a pair of somebody can be Solomon's so and I'm gonna put a link for some of these products on my blog so y'all can check that out if you want to see you know detailed pictures of it and stuff like that yeah oh and my blog whitney says to tell you is in the description below and the fashionable thing today in rain gear is frog dogs just kidding it's not fashionable at all it looks terrible you're gonna feel like a huge blob of khaki or like a blueberry because my last pair is blue but I have to brag on the Frog talks um to be completely honest they've kept me pretty dry they kept me warm they don't have pit zips so if you're gonna buy fancy rain gear get pit zips but if you want to $20 ring - and you're trying to limit your expenses on hiking matey Wow frog dogs um they do tear easy but you know what they see despite popular belief is not bushwhacking you're not like walking through the jungle and stuff like that you're like walking a beaten path so that a lot of people hike so um anyway yeah I have to brag on them and say they worked out really well for me this is my second pair so overall I spent $40 for twenty two hundred miles of trail in the way of rain gear so they repair very well with duct tape or with sewing with floss um and they I mean they're kind of breathable you know because they're kind of baggy and stuff to get a little airflow and then they're not like like a poncho feeling on the inside they're like um soft ish so anyway not cute but keeps you dry does the trick not expensive nobody cares what you wear what you look like so I would recommend frog dogs and then for my pack because you got to keep it backdraft rat this was the pack cover that came with my pack some people especially if you have a phone sleeping pad or something hanging on the outside of your pack you want a bigger pack cover but anyway this one worked fun for me this came with the Osprey packs so there you go and the only thing that I forgot was camp some people like Crocs I've never had a pair of Crocs oh but those work wonderfully um or anything that you can lick strap on your feet so when you're forwarding the rivers and stuff in Maine but some people just go barefooted our these and they work fine um but I hadn't some strap ons once for a little while but they were heavy they were Tina's and they were just like heavy plastic these foam bad boys right here they're comfortable you know they're awesome the only thing is when it gets cold you're going to want socks on with your camp shoes so um you know hat looks like a ninja turtle my feet look like neutrals because it's just like I would match it down to a my big toe so it fit but you could get toe socks and it would be a little more convenient but anyway so that is all of my here that is what it takes to hike double og trail oh except with trekking poles but those are up on Katahdin somewhere so if anybody finds a pair of REI trekking poles up on Katahdin please please please return them that would be wonderful because I'm actually very sad and trekking poles the main run down I mean there's all kinds of different ones and whatever um they're lighter pairs you know the lighter they are probably more expensive they are heavier they are the probably the cheaper they are um you do want to get a good decent parentless middle middle way I think I paid like $90 for my already islands because well they're gonna be with you the whole time and there are times where you're putting all of your weight on them to come down especially in the watts so your trust in those trekking poles with your laughs because if they collapse you're going to tumble down the rocks so definitely go with a good decent set of trekking poles if you use them some people don't need these triples but I like them they work for my knees so I would definitely also go with the cork grips personal preference because the foam ones I feel like would make your hands sweaty and they would like slide around and feel in the cork kind of absorb boom you know absorb your sweat a little bit more um so yeah but that's basically it so but for more detailed information like I said I will be coming out with an e-book that will have a section covering all of my gear and my recommendations so y'all check ok so I am here at Amicalola State Park and I am about to hike the approach trail just wait my pack in and sign the register

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 533,694

Rating: 4.9028316 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, hike, adventure, fun, story, epic, Appalachian, Trail, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, Review (Media Genre), National Park (IUCN Category), Climb, Ridge, Appalachian Mountains (Mountain Range), Appalachian National Scenic Trail (Protected Site), Auburn University (College/University), Auburn (City/Town/Village), Alabama (US State), United States Of America (Country), gear

Id: CN9hEjKZ46k

Length: 34min 29sec (2069 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2015