Taking a RISK With NEW Outdoors Kit ( Durston X-Mid 1 )

there is a real possibility that this could turn out to be a complete disaster I am wearing shoes that I've never hiked in before I'm using a backpack that I've never used before and tonight I'm going to be camping in a tent that I've never used before I'm also wearing several items of clothing I've never worn before I'm going to be using a sleeping mat I've never used before I'm going to be using a cook system I've never used before I'm going to be eating camping food that I've never eaten before right we will be taking a look at all that new shiny kit over the course of the video but the question is why am I doing this and this is all part of my preparation and training for my 4-day attempt of the pretty much 100 miles of the West Highland Way in [Music] Scotland but before I left the house this morning I had my first disappointment and my first disappointment was with this pack that I'm wearing this pack is the Instinct Alie 40 it's a 40 L running fast packing pack made from three layer rip stop nylon it weighs about a kilo which is on the heavier side but it looked you know super robust and still quite lightweight it's different from a normal backpack and that there's no waist strap which is very very difficult to run with and you tend to get pain over long periods of time this is more like a running vest where it sort of grips around the sides grips your body so the weight is evenly distributed so it might not look like it but I feel it very little of the weight is on my shoulders it feels more like it's just wrapped around my body it's like the bag is hugging you and a big thing that I need for carrying my cameras is a lot of up front storage and this has tons it's got half a liter half a liter half a liter half a liter that's 2 lers of storage on the front I've got my water bottle in here we got my snacks in here camera accessories in here then carrying my DJI pocket 3 which I'm shooting this on and my mini tripod in here so on paper it ticked a lot of the boxes but there's a roll top section on the top of it here so the meain bit in the back has got 28 L then there's a separate roll top I'll show you it later um there's a bit of velcro secures that you pinch it in then roll it that velcro ripped off the third time I used the pack that is supposed to be attached to that side it came off it wasn't just you see it's completely frayed and shredded so that understandably has me a little bit concerned as to its durability which is why getting out and testing it today is so essential it does boun around quite a bit when you run but I find that's unavoidable unavoidable unavoidable once a pack gets over a certain weight now my ideal weight to carry for fast packing would have been about 6 and 1/2 kilos um I'm carrying just over 9 kilos because you know I've got all that camera equipment so a deal I made with myself for every kilo I go over 6 and 1/2 I have to lose that body weights over the last 3 weeks I've managed to lose 2 and 1/2 kilos oh hi well he scared the life out of me now you might wonder how did I manage to lose 2 and2 kilos in the space of 3 weeks well a combination of things intermittent fasting improving the quality of my diet and calorie counting because no matter what anybody says all diets come down to you basically consuming less than you're outputting it's as simple as that now yes there are some foods you absorb the calories differently than others and some people may have condition that mean they absorb calories different but for the average person it's quite simple cut your calories and exercise more it's quite simple so what I've been doing is I've been sort of setting a target, 1500 calories per day so that's me running about a 500 calorie deficit but I can earn more food I can earn more calories by going out and doing exercise but I can only consume half the calories for the exercise so if I go out and run and burn 1,000 calories I can then eat an extra 500 calories of food but it means that I'm not overeating after I exercise cuz that's a mistake I've made in the [Music] [Music] past I thought we'd talk about a couple of bits of clothing I've got first of all of all these are pagonia windshield trail running trousers which I've just discovered if you pull them up and tighten the zip they grip the top of your Cal and you can fold them down and turn them into handy 3/4 which I didn't realize which is which has been useful because they've been a bit too warm and I've got these because one of the biggest problems that gone to Scotland is of course midies horrible flying insects that bite you so I wanted a pair of of f length bottoms that I could wear when it's colder or wear in the the evening and I hate wearing leggings when I'm running I just find them really uncomfortable and sticky and yeah I wanted something with a little bit more room for everything to breathe inside worst casear if think it'ss really cold I'll have shorts on these on and then waterproofs over the top so I should be able to warm myself up and then on my feet I've got these weird looking shoes these are the ult ultra Olympus 5 trail shoes you might be wondering why am I not wearing my Vivo Barefoot don't I love those so much well I do but the thing with Vios is you have to train for the distance you're going to do in them I've never done multi-day in the diff evos so this is a case where I feel that it's best if I have something with a bit more padding so these they're still Barefoot style they've got a wide toe box but uh and they zero drop but they've also got a decent chunk of cushioning one modification I've made to these that I've replaced normal laes with these elastic lock glaces um I find that these give a more even grip over your entire foot because they're elastic they kind of adjust to the Contours of your feet a bit better than normal laces and I find them a bit more comfortable and it also means when I get into the camp at the end of the day I can just loosen this up loosen all the laces and I'll turn these into a pair of slippers [Music] this is called Browning forest and it is absolutely beautiful and I'm here because down at the car park there's a cafe and one of the things I plan on doing during the West Highland Way is only sort of carry about a day worth of food but try not to eat any of it and try and sort of use fil used cafes and honesty boxes and things like that as I travel to cut down and weight so that's the plan today I'm heading down to the cafe to get lunch before heading back up into the mountains to find somewhere to camp for the night just bumped into their subscriber Morgan here now we are about to head back up into the mountains to find somewhere to camp for the night so this is where I'm going to bring out my PS to help me get up those Hills by the way I've just discovered another unexpected benefit of these shoes because these are elasticated if I get a stone in I can slip them off like that shake the stone out and put them back [Music] on it's so quiet in here we're completely Shed from the wind it's also absolutely sweltering I'm sweating buckets [Music] this is Kodak corner and it is probably one of the most photographed views in Northern Ireland I'm a little bit angry because just as I was turning to leave Kodak corner I noticed that the backs of the trees hacks and chunks taking at them someone some absolute blackard has tried to cut down those trees do not understand the mentality of people who do things like that picking up some extra water with my filter bottle filters out all the nasties and makes this water taste a lot nicer [Music] okay so now you're going to see exactly why I bought this the dur X mid one this is one of the easiest tints I've ever pitched you just Peg it out with Just Four Pegs in a Square insert two hiking poles and that is pretty much it pitched all right let me quickly give you the grand T of the tent you'll notice I've added a couple of extra guidelines I've added one here there's one the other end as well and I've also added this guideline attached to the stick that I brought up from the forest because if you do this that is attached to the inner and that pulls the inner out which means you end up with more space inside this thing's class it's got two entrances either side which means I've got two veses which means I can keep one for sort of cooking in and I can Chuck my bag into the second one opened up at the front that's magnetic uh you can see I've got my pole in here uh this is a carbon fiber hiking pole this is a higher hellon pole these are really nice quality affordable option this pitch is ridiculously bumpy I don't know if you can tell but if you look here that corner is about half a foot or maybe even a foot higher than down in there um and I've still managed to get it looking mostly okay this side's sagging a bit and I think that's because it's not the world's best pitch but it's still pretty solid okay Zippity Zippity Zip There we go ah perfect storage in here there's these two high meshes up up above which is really handy cuz means you can stick a head torch up in there and then it'll work like a lantern there's a couple of toggles for hanging things in both in both corners and the crazy thing is this tint weighs less than my RAB riderer you know that coffin tint I've used a couple coup times it's like 980 G this is I can't remember exactly I think it's like 850 right let me give you a closer look at the rest of of this backpack quickly in the top here we've got this stretch mesh stretch mesh section and then I've got storage underneath here now this whole top bit is supposed to come off it's supposed to be detachable but you have to do it by sort of thread get in the webbing through this buckle and it's actually really difficult it's a bit annoying I thought I was going to be able to take this off really really easily and nope it's it's too thick it won't go it won't fade through the strap I am tempted to just cut the little stop on the webbing and re and do redo it myself because if I look at it it's got three loops and I think if I cut it um and Resto it with just two those lips it would come off and on easier there's loads of straps on the side uh so you can put things right down the side of it in this case I brought this tonight potentially will'll get down to be 6° cious so uh and the mat I've brought is only R for down to 10 so I've brought this really thin foam uh really thin foil and foam pad to put under my sleeping mat to add a little bit of heat and another advantage to carrying something like this I find is it means if you don't want to have to inflate your mat and you just want to rest you just unravel this Chuck it into the tent and instantly you've got somewhere you can go and lie down from and you protect it from a lot of the cold in the ground so that's quite handy xir ultra zero sleeping bag which has a comfort rating of 6° C which I figured should be a good option let's put that in there okay I'm going to show you one last feature of this bag I'm not going to go through all the kit there brought with me because I want to make a kit video but I want to make it after I've done the West Haden way because there's no point me saying this is the kit I'm going to use and then I find that some of it didn't work so I'll will make the video in retrospect you've got a nice mesh pocket on the front here which you put a coat or bits and pieces I've had some snacks in there but one my favorite features is it's a front loading pack so I unzip this and that opens up and I've got access to all my stuff so what I can do is um I can set this bag as is in the other vestibule with this stuff in it and then if I want something I just open the door and I reach in and dip it and out of it like I've got my little a little cupboard oh one last thing I probably should show you quickly is this new airmat this is a I think it's 350 G or 375 G something like that air mat now this is one season so this is R it to 10° C which is why I've got that foil and you FP this by using the included pump sack which takes about three fills and it's done [Music] [Music] [Music] look we've got there is it very very very tiny hint of a sunset is it enough to put a glow on my face it is actually did not think I would get that right sun is gone um I want to try and get to sleep soon if I can because there's really heavy rain forecast all night and if I don't get to sleep before the rain starts I'm not going to get to sleep I've got my ey mask and earplugs in there the ultra Olympus have been great super super comfy all day I feel like um I could have done more miles in them uh no problem this is little citronella tealight this will burn for I think nearly 3 hours it weighs 15 gr and you can buy them for very very very cheap that has pretty much the same effect as a thermacell at a fraction of the weight save your money don't buy a thermos cell buy some citronella candles if you are going to use them don't leave them home when you're sleeping and don't accidentally set your tent or the surrounded area on fire but for now I going to wrap myself up and attempt attempt to sleep before this R comes so hopefully I'll see you in the morning oh wow I appeared have woken up in a cloud not going to be good for cing session yeah everything is damp can't do much about condensation or when you're literally in a cloud and everything's cold there we go so my thinking is um for the actual West Highland Way yeah I'll I'll keep my inner and outer separate because what it means is it means I can have a shelter quite a big shelter like this up and ready to shelter in make my lunch in have an in in the middle of the day in about a minute something I didn't mention about these shoes yesterday that actually really impressed me was I remember I walked through a river and got these absolutely soaked uh well they completely they completely dried out by the time by the time I got to this campsite so it's good to know that on a day you know when it's not wet all day if I do get them dump they'll dry out and now that I've got myself all sorted in this nice big space I'm going to roll this up take down the poles and then uh pack away the tent right there we go packed up I was never here he may have noticed my my jacket my higher lond jacket and this is a synthetic jacket and I've kind of decided to bring it with me because I've given up a little bit on Dy jackets I mean they're really really lightweight they're brilliant but I feel like they're really designed for drier climates and I found in the past that my D jacket got damp either a little bit of rain a little bit mess or I just sweated in it and when D gets wet it stops insulating you and it gets very very cold very very quickly and very very useless so with the synthetic insulation it's a little bit heavier but it does mean if I do get get it wet I do sweat in it it's still going to at least give me a little bit of warmth I should point out by the way that it is freezing not literally freezing but my guess would be it's about 5° C and um yeah none of that kit I was using to sleep in last night was RAR it was RAR it for these conditions so and I slept actually surprisingly fine I got about 6 hour sleep I did wake up at 2: a.m. cold so I put a couple of extra lays on slept through the rest of the night so at least that lets me know that if conditions are colder than I'm hoping for that I'm going to I'm going to survive the night don't slip and fall don't slip and fall on your head cuz if you do you might be [Music] dead that me back onto the trail and I am thinking I got to change some of my plans uh I'm no longer that confident about no it's getting windy I'm no longer that confident about being able to do the West Highland Way in 4 days and make quality videos along the way so I'm thinking possibly what I'm going to do is I'm going to have a 4-day plan and a 5-day plan so that way if you know part of the way through it in the second day or something I realize I just cannot hack this distance I know I can fall back onto my 5day plan thanks for watching and I'll catch you in the next video which might actually be one of the West Island w videos we'll see [Music] [Music]

Channel: Stephen J Reid

Views: 12,267

Keywords: new camping kit 2024, wild camping in scotland, camping ireland, durston X-mid 1

Id: 4gd3ranvhLo

Length: 21min 58sec (1318 seconds)

Published: Sun May 05 2024