What I Do With My Backpacking Gear AFTER a Trip!

I just went backpacking and I want to show you everything I do with my stuff as soon as I get home from a trip when we come home from a backpacking trip generally stuff is wet it's dirty you've got trash and like bacteria ridden stuff in your bag and so taking care of it as soon as your home is super important to make your gear last a long time this is my stuff we're gonna put it away [Music] this is my show gosh darn I just filmed a video on the day in the life of a Backpacker and this bag is actually packed from that trip if you haven't seen that video you should watch it next but in this video I'm going to unpack my bag and put all of my stuff away and show all of you how I do that and how I organize I'm going to talk through everything that you should do with your backpacking gear as soon as you get home from a trip but realistically none of us are going to do this right away if you can do it within 24 hours you're probably doing better than 90 of the Backpackers that I Know Myself included so it's really just more about knowing the best processes for how to make your gear last a long time how to store it properly and to just build in like systems and habits that you can hopefully continue throughout your life of backpacking I have not yet unpacked or touched this bag since my trip but the one thing that I did do is throw away all of my trash from my bear canister that is something that I do at the trailhead if they have a trash can or that I'll throw away like at a gas station on my way home I have just run into too many situations where I've forgotten about trash in my bear canister and like how had a disgusting mess to deal with weeks or months later oh actually it's story time so a friend told me a story about how one of their friends left all of their backpack trash in their bear bag for an entire winter season and when they went back to get their bag they had a bear bag full of moldy disgusting stinky trash that had just like Turned black on the inside of a smell proof bag throw your trash away people yep yeah people Rainer have you thrown your trash away from have you thrown your trash away since this trip yes I I threw away the trash on this trip after like four days okay that's not too bad do you wanna know something really bad back before I used a bidet and I would like carry out my toilet paper and I forgot about it until my next backpacking trip when I went to like open up my poop kit and I had a little plastic baggie of poopy toilet paper in there I want a bidet on my toilet but you can get sponsored sponsor me bidet people this is Mike but Dave gosh darn anyway back before I had a system for dealing with my backpacking gear when I got home from a trip I would actually just take my whole bag and shove it in a closet but the problem that I ran into is that I would just forget that my bag was there because I wasn't looking at it so now my system is actually to intentionally put my bag in a place where I have to see it every single day until I unpack it because I'm not going to forget about it normally if I was unpacking my bag at my house I would just pull items out piece by piece and just put them away but because this is a video I'm going to empty my entire bag and then from there we'll go ahead and organize it and sort it oh well let's do it foreign [Music] that's it this is all of my backpacking gear completely unpacked in front of me first I'm gonna do is put all of my dirty laundry in the hamper so I have my hiking clothes my base layer that I slept in my jacket I have my beanie my cooler cloth my bandana these toe warmers little thing I used to wash my face and my shirt if you haven't cleaned your insulated jacket in a while then it should definitely go in the wash my rain jacket's still in pretty good shape but if you have noticed that your rain jacket is starting to wet out or if water is starting to soak into the fabric of your jacket then it's probably time to wash it and dry it which will revive the durable water repellency or dwr on your jacket that's laundry great wow that worked out way better than I expected the next thing that you should do when you return from a backpacking trip is put away your perishable and non-perishable food and wash your dishes when you're washing things like your Spork or your pot make sure you include in that your water bottle and the tube to your Reservoir Rainer when was the last time you washed your Nalgene fine washed your analogy how's everyone's last time you washed the water bottle I use Smart Water oh because we're smarter Listen People your water bottle has to be washed so you know what dirty mouth bacteria and water in a water bottle create perfect environment for mold wash your water bottle Rainer you know how many of my nail jeans smell like just like vaguely just a hint of noon and yeah if you're putting noon tablets in your water bottles like there's just always going to have like essence of noon maybe the noon perfume essence of noon is the essence of beauty great please For the Love of All Things good in this universe wash your water bottle with soap and water as far as food goes like I said I already unloaded the trash from my bear canister but I have a couple other things in here I have to put away leftover snacks now all that I'm left with in my beer can is my trash bag this is what had all my trash in it before I emptied it out and threw it away this does actually need to be washed and then I'll hang it up to dry this is my full cook kit and on the inside of this pot I have my stove Piezo back up lighter a fuel canister even though my fuel canister goes into this pot when I'm backpacking to save space I don't actually keep my fuel in my pot when I put my gear away I have this fear that I'll be like oh there's fuel in my pot and I'll just go on a backpacking trip and I won't check the fuel levels and then I'll end up not having enough fuel to cook so for that reason I always store my fuel canisters together so that I can pick the one that has the most fuel in it so I'm always like actively packing fuel for a trip so once all this stuff is washed and dried I actually put my full cook kit and food system in my bear canister to store it like that now this is all Compact and ready to be put away poof look at us we're already Woodland whittling down this is my toiletries bag I actually store this with the rest of my toiletries in my bathroom at home because I need to restock things like medications toothpaste so this just goes with the rest of my toiletries so we've done laundry we've cleaned dishes we've put away food we put away toiletries so now we're left with the really big stuff and then the really small gear I keep all of my smaller pieces of backpacking gear in an action packer in one spot action Packer packable hat hand sanitizer bug repellent sunscreen headlamp but I want to make sure it's locked first lights this is the Nemo fillow Elite pillow and it has revolutionized the way that I sleep at Camp it's a pillow that I didn't even want and I got and I love it now you know it's good when someone's like I don't even want this thing and then when they got it they loved it this is exactly the plot of Pride and Prejudice oh Mr Bingley anyway my fellow Elite small enough to store it in my action backer poop kick bidet trowel the bag of clean toilet paper do not store poopy toilet paper in your poop kit better yet use a bidet never have poopy toilet paper again Phuket first aid kit I have been known to have a improperly stocked first aid kit my process now is to write down anything that I use from my first aid kit as soon as I get home from a trip and then immediately restock it before putting it away this is just so that I don't accidentally forget that I've used Band-Aids over the course of several trips now that my first aid kit is fully stocked it goes in here trekking poles sleeping pad the camping trip that I just went on was completely dry but if my sleeping pad had gotten damp I would open it up and allow it to dry out before putting it away since it didn't get damp at all it is ready to put away last is my water filter on this trip I actually wound up using my Sawyer squeeze filter and then I had these three bags for storing water these will be dried out it will go back into this bag with my filter and into the oh hell bin now this bin has all of the Small Things All the Small Things get stored in the bin [Music] all the small stuff in the bin and then this is ready to go back in my closet now that I've put it in my lunch and put away the smaller things for my backpacking trip I'm really just left with the big stuff I have my closed cell foam sleeping pad my tent my sleeping bag and then obviously my pack of all the stuff that we've talked about this stuff requires the most care except for maybe my clothes off of sleeping pad these things are functionally indestructible the only thing you don't want to do is like leave something with a heavy corner on it give me an example of a heavy Corner Shakespeare's folio [Music] but that's out of the way we are left with my tent and my sleeping bag if you've been backpacking in the rain you should absolutely take your tent out of the stuff sack and leave it somewhere to dry immediately if you have a long drive on your way home you should probably even open it up in your car it's that important if your tent gets really wet that moisture can actually cause mold it can cause the tent material to deteriorate it's not that your tent can't withstand rain it's just that the tent can't be stuffed in a storage sack with rain because it'll mildew and that will affect it and make sure that you open it up and allow it to dry out completely before you store it long term when you get home in my case I live in a tiny apartment building but I have a rooftop so I'll actually dry out my tent on the roof of my building if it's raining a whole bunch and I can't do that then I'll just hang up in my shower to dry instead ready all that we're left with is my sleeping bag the most important thing about storing your sleeping bag when you get home is storing it lofted sleeping bags get compressed in the bottom of our packs but then when you're at home or whenever you can you should leave the sleeping bag in a sleeping bad mother not again this is like your major malfunction the sleeping bad with the sleeping bag with a sleeping bag with a sleeping pad God damn it this is real good cheat I forgot what we're doing sleeping bag the most important thing with your sleeping bag is that you want to leave it lofted which basically means in its poofy State as tempting as it might be to store your sleeping bag in a compression bag you don't want to do that long term because it will break down the insulation and then it no longer provides warmth leave it poofed up do not leave it like compressed this is bad this is good now if you have been storing your sleeping bag in a compression sack and you're watching this video now being like Oh my god what have I done it is possible to somewhat revive your sleeping bag sleeping bags can be washed and they can be dried in large commercial dryers and that can help restore some of the Loft so now that you have a sleeping bag that looks like this I store my sleeping bag in the large storage sack that it came with so this is what my sleeping bag looks like stuffed in that storage sack and I've stuffed it and not rolled it please don't roll your sleeping bags if you're putting it into a storage sack you just stuff it in there and this is that you don't create repeat folds in the material would cause cold spots in your sleeping bag and break it down over time unless it's like a Coliseum stuff just breaks down sleeping bag now all that we're left with is my pack I know some people will store their backpacking gear in their pack before they go on a trip I prefer to store my bag completely empty because I want to go through the act of repacking my bag before every single trip I find this really helpful because it allows me to build a habit for packing but it also allows me to be kind of modular in terms of what I pack depending on the trip another reason I unpack my bag is that a lot of my gear crosses over between backpacking and car camping or even sometimes climbing trips and so I want to have all of my pieces of gear stored in one spot rather than like spread out in different backpacking bags so just makes it easier for me to know where to find things like my headlamp if I need it for a Day hike or whatever a lot of people ask about how to clean a backpack if you want to clean it because it looks dirty I would say just embrace the dirt it's just like part of its character but if you want to clean it because it smells bad I would focus on areas like the shoulder straps and the whole harness system and just do a spot clean guess some soap just get in there and then let it dry out completely before you put it away but now that my bag is completely empty I have checked the hippo pockets for things like wrappers from bars I've checked the brain of my pack I've removed all trash now it's just time to store and put it away what I like to do is Buckle everything up and cinch down all the compression straps and just get it as small as possible foreign I will just take this and put it underneath my desk at home where I have some storage space but you can also hang your empty bag on a hanger in your closet easy way to do that is just to slip The Hanger through the shoulder straps and then through this top Loop like that you essentially are like hanging it up like a jacket and that's it we're just figuring out that you need to take care of your gear right when you get home start with a couple of these things and just start kind of taking care of the big items that would be your tent your sleeping bag your food and just making sure that stuff is dried put away cleaned free of bacteria and dirt well really free of bacteria it's not going to be free and dirt it's backpacking gear get sturdy that's just how it goes if you have any of your own tips for how you store and put away your backpacking gear I would love to hear them in the comments below and as always if you liked this video make sure that you hit the like button subscribe to our Channel and hit the Bell so you get notified of all new videos and I will see you all in the wild bye foreign ER come here bud not right not right there no no no no no body sorry bud ready when you are okay come on come on he's like I don't get it it's like I have to say you're the cutest distraction we've ever had

Channel: REI

Views: 45,157

Keywords: how to organize backpacking gear, how to unpack your backpack, how to pack for backpacking, unpacking backpacking gear, organizing backpacking gear, mistakes backpackers make, beginner backpacker, first time backpacker, solo female backpacker, best backpacking gear, best lightweight backpacking gear, miranda in the wild, miranda rei, miranda goes outside, cleaning backpacking gear, rei, storing backpacking gear, backpacking gear storage, hiking, mirandagoesoutside

Id: phmE83cdB8Q

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023