What NOT to Bring Backpacking - My First Backpacking Trip -

yes I'm wearing tights hey guys welcome back to the channel got a really cool video for you today something I've been wanting to talk about for a while now my first backpacking trip and what I carried and what you shouldn't carry on your first backpacking trip if you are in the planning stages of that if you end up liking this video hit that like button let me know that you want to see more videos like this in the future and I'll keep putting them out there for you okay so my first backpacking trip August 2013 I went to Lake vesuvius with three of my dude buddies oh man here she is here's the backpack I still got it good old trusty Walmart Outdoor Products non backpacking backpack this is just almost looks like a normal school backpack here definitely a little bit more bells and whistles than an average pack because it's got water bottle holders on the sides it's a mesh in the front not your ideal back packing bag by any means at all it's what I had at the time and I thought it would do the trick just fine and it did it got me into a hobby that has now cost me thousands of dollars so starting off already kinda on the wrong foot here with backpacking but whatever get your foot in the door works I mean I personally think that everybody's first backpacking trip should be with a terrible backpack way too much weight then you should carry and it should just be a kind of an eye-opening experience my first backpacking trip was not perfect in any means at all and I wouldn't take it back though I knew before I even left the woods I was already planning in my head and other backpacking trips and trying to take my wife out as soon as I was in the woods and I had this feeling of not knowing where I was gonna sleep that night and just carrying everything that I needed for a couple days on my back I knew I loved that feeling I knew it was and it wasn't fiction for me immediately so what did I carry in this bag that made my trip so miserable I mean memorable but miserable to say the least I put this thing on my back we were trying to find the trailhead I'm walking around the parking lot and I remember thinking man how am I gonna carry this this thing is so heavy like it hurt bad before we even left the parking lot immediately after putting it on it felt terrible normal backpacks like this don't distribute the weight properly for backpacking if I pack this thing completely full it's gonna stick two feet off my back and all that weights gonna be pulling me backwards so food and water I honestly don't remember what I brought for food on that trip but water I brought a two liter water bladder and two bottles similar to this this was actually one of them that I had I just dug this out specifically for this video these are overkill water bottles like this I think the conception is it's sturdy you know if you drop your water bottle you're not gonna break it and lose all your precious water it kind of has somewhat of an insulating value to wear if it's colder your water might not freeze as fast truth be told is this is just extra weight that you do not need and don't get me wrong if you carry now jeans or anything like that you know that's fine whatever works for you if you're not into super ultra light minimalist backpacking a bottle like this might be absolutely great but if you are a gram wienie if you are counting your ounces trying to drop all the weight you can you might want to go with something like this this is about 6 ounces empty this is about one and a half ounces and not to mention it has more carrying capacity so I had two of these over probably a pound and a half a piece and I also had a two liter water bladder filled completely full so I had tons of water something I could have definitely dropped weight on is if I would have carried a water filter I didn't know anything about water filtering back then and it has saved me tons of weight because water is the heaviest thing you're gonna carry when you're backpacking my water bladder itself 2 liter with the hose coming around I don't use water bladders anymore they're actually pretty heavy when they're empty and I've been cutting weight for years now and that was one of the first things that went it's it is convenient and it is nice to have and I still use bladder packs biking and maybe on day hikes and stuff I'm not carrying everything I need for a week's worth of travel on my back they're really convenient and nice but if you're hiking multiple days and you're carrying so much weight that every little bit counts you can throw that bladder out you really don't need it it's not that much of a hassle to reach behind you and grab your water bottle out all right so let's get more into the big four you already saw the backpack Outdoor Products my tent 8 by 7 quest brand tent from Dick's Sporting Goods it is an eight pound tent that's eight pounds for shelter alone not light in the slightest not meant for backpacking it's a good tent I still have it I still use it every now and then I've slept with my dog in it a few times it was a good test tent for her three of us on that trip actually slept in that tent so it kind of helps some people out that I provided the shelter for the trip sleeping bag I had a Eureka 15 degree sleeping bag and I've used this bag a lot it's in a lot of my videos I actually used it as recently as last December I think I had it in Mohican I've used it up until I started getting more expensive better quality down quilts down quilts are where it's at the weight that you save using down is amazing and you pretty much get more warmth than a synthetic material but the eureka sleeping bag weighs four and a half pounds I believe so we're already over 12 pounds with just the tent and just the sleeping bag but the sleeping bag is decent it was actually one of the only like almost good backpacking pieces of gear that I brought on this trip okay sleeping pad no sleeping pad I didn't know what a sleeping pad was I don't know none of us even thought to have anything to lay on and area where we ended up camping was so overgrown that there was just so much cushion on the ground that I don't I didn't even think about having a sleeping pad all night clothing for the trip was interesting I definitely brought way too many layers I believe I wore a t-shirt in or t-shirt the whole evening in the morning I'm pretty sure I brought two maybe three layers of clothing I probably brought a disposable poncho I assume I don't remember but I'm pretty sure that's what I would have done at the time but hoodies like an underarm or base layer totally not necessary for Ohio in late August now that being said bringing extra layers is not a bad thing it comes with experience backpacking and experience being outside knowing what your body can handle knowing the climate the area that you're at to know what you're really gonna need I hardly ever bring extra clothing now pretty much everything I bring I use on every trip and I don't advise people to just start off not bringing extra clothes because if you're gonna bring extra of anything it's clothes and probably food too because I've made that mistake in the past too but you definitely don't want to be an inexperienced backpacker and not bring enough clothing because man that will just ruin your trip if you're freezing all night long backpacking pants I wore jeans I never been a khaki guy so I don't even think I owned khakis at the time but I brought an extra pair of jeans an extra pair you know we were going to Lake vesuvius so I didn't know if there was a lot of water crossings or how marshy it would be I had no idea going into this what it was gonna be like I just wanted to be prepared that if I fell in the glade or if I fell in a creek crossing I wouldn't freeze to death because I didn't have any other pants to put on I'm looking back at it now late August I mean an extra pair of shorts like thin little athletic shorts would have been perfect for like camp shorts or a backup if I needed something to wear bringing along a pair three pound jeans it's not the best decision at all and it definitely definitely just was worthless things that I brought that I had to carry for 16 miles and did not use at all I'm gonna bring up a clip here of that trip I actually have a video on my channel it's like the second video I posted was the first backpacking trip I went on I don't recommend watching it it's just a bunch of shaky footage wasn't even meant to be a video I just brought the GoPro because I had it and I just started turning it on and ended up making a video out of it but I'm going to show you some footage from that trip right now okay so here we are alright there she is there's the outdoor product you can see my my tent poles in my bag here my sleeping bag a bungee strap to the back that's pretty comical what actually took me like a long time to figure up this configuration you can see my metal water bottles here carrying carribine to the compression straps on the side now this back here I actually brought a grill that was probably that long by that wide and that wasn't very heavy and it actually served us very well we all cooked our food on that find another clip here of it there she is it's like the honey clip by a good clip I have a side angle of it just looks ridiculous but it did the trip I mean I'm estimating that that bag as it sits in that picture close to 45 50 pounds you can see actually right here I have a pair of boots and I'm wearing a set of New Balance trail runners I knew that hiking in these boots might not work I knew they were pretty worn and it might cause a lot of pain so I actually strapped trail runners that I had just bought to the back of my bag thinking they're light you know if I need them it'll be a lifesaver and I ended up using them on day one we probably hiked five or six miles before I had to get out of those boots and those shoes were awesome on that trip the only downside being that I had to carry my 8 pound boots hanging off the back of my backpack again so it just made everything even heavier but it was worth it for the comfort my feet had now back here some of you guys might have seen this this is the good old trusty i-car the Red Cloud 90 by Kelty it's my first real backpacking bag it's a six pound bag empty super super heavy I do love it though and I still use it from time to time if I'm just gonna go out and do like a little bushcraft overnight or want to carry like an axe on the side a bunch of a bunch of extra stuff that I would never think about taking backpacking hiking with the girls and stuff if I got a carry extra gear it still works great it's comfortable I like it it's overkill though once you start getting smaller gear like my sleeping bag that now is this big go I probably wouldn't even fill this thing half full if I went to take it out on a solo trip by myself I'm gonna bring up a picture here actually this is a good one okay this is my second backpacking trip this was me and my wife in North Carolina now look at this setup this guy knows what he is doing am i right two sleeping pads I learned about sleeping pads and I jumped on that train right away had one here for the wife because her first backpacking trip she got the same experience I did she got the luxury of using that outdoor products bag for her first trip she was not happy with that we actually had ordered her a bag already and it didn't come yet it actually came like the next day after we left for North Carolina but she used that bag much much lighter than when I used it and believe it or not in this picture that bag weighs 29 pounds which is not terrible at all for egor second time backpacking not really knowing what's going on and let's look at this check out this machete here I don't know what I was thinking like that I had just learned how to like process wood and baton wood down and I think I just assumed I needed the biggest knife possible back here I had big winter gloves very lightweight glove would be perfectly fun I mean these would be fine if it was like down into the tens and I don't think it dropped into the 40's that night I actually had my Mountain Hardwear rain jacket on here it was brand new and this at this time it's still like that thing just a little bit too heavy for long-distance backpacking backpacking is an evolution everybody that backpacks out there has bought the wrong gear several times before they found the right gear there's a lot of gear out there that's misleading that's really expensive that really is overkill it's either too heavy or it's just too many bells and whistles some people that's cool I miss the organization of this backpack there's a lot of things I miss about the days when I wasn't an ultralight backpacker the convenience of having all these pockets and stuff it is really nice but you gotta weigh the pros and the cons and pretty much every time when I backpack with this back bag here I was in pain and I would constantly think to myself like man why am I out here doing this but I don't feel that way backpacking anymore my system is so down to the T lightweight that it's it's not a hassle at all it's not hard in the slightest for me to go any amount of distance so you really want to be able to enjoy the outdoors and enjoy your backpacking experience without being in pain the entire time and that takes like I said time and money I mean the light stuff is not cheap at all I'm a budget shopper and tons of my stuff clearance I mean even the Red Cloud here I got that for a hundred bucks I thought it was a steal at the time it was Black Friday so you don't have to spend tons and tons of money I actually think there's nothing in my system that I paid full price for if money is an issue price check everything look everywhere check eBay Amazon you'll find that decent deals come up quite often if you just patient well thanks for watching the video guys I think that pretty much wraps it up here as far as what not to bring back packing there's plenty of stuff not to bring back packing and I only covered just a couple things here but hopefully it's helpful to you guys in some way and the biggest thing if you're new to back packing just do your research the amount of YouTube videos out there for planning backpacking trips is amazing it is really really a great resource for fellow backpackers so get out there go buy some cheap gear from Walmart or wherever you can use stuff you got laying around the house whatever gets you out on the trail gets you start it gets you addicted to that outdoor feeling thanks for watching the video guys if this helped any of you guys out if you enjoyed it hit that like button let me know that you want to see more videos like this in the comments this is kind of a new format for me I'm gonna try to do some more informative talking videos here if you guys want to see that you got some ideas for me put them down in the comments I'd love to hear what you guys would like to see and if I like it maybe I'll make a video out of it so thanks for watching guys we'll see you on the next one [Music]

Channel: Bryce Newbold

Views: 545,240

Rating: 4.4987969 out of 5

Keywords: what not to bring backpacking, gear to leave at home, my first backpacking trip, backpacking ohio, ultralight backpacking, ultralite backpacking, kelty redcloud 90, backpacking gear to leave at home, top backpacking gear, hiking clothes, backpacking clothing, backpacking gear, bad backpacking gear, terrible backpacking choices, backpacking problems, how to backpack, backpacking basics, best backpacking gear, worst backpacking gear, backpacking mistakes, backpacking disaster

Id: aLPPwEb4ZFU

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 28 2018