Ask Darwin Q&A #24 (Answers)

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** Stuff/Gear I Mention in this Video **

UL Gear on a Budget - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZVZ_QplWE0&t=25s

NPS Annual Pass - https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm

Big Agnes CopperSpur UL2 - http://amzn.to/2uBpjin

ZPacks Duplex - http://www.zpacks.com/shelter/duplex.shtml

SMD Skyscape Trekker - sixmoondesigns.com/products/skyscape-trekker

GeerTop UL 1 - http://amzn.to/2vAFOwI

AT Gear List - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2016/05/03/darwins-2016-at-gear-list/

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Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,AT Thru-Hike,Hiker Trash,Thru-Hike,Hiking,Backpacking,Camping Adventure,AZT,CDT,PCT,PCT Thru-Hike,Long Distance Hiker,Big Agnes,Six Moon Designs,NPS,National Park Pass,ZPacks,Duplex

Video Transcription

hey guys it's down here with my weekly QA to answer more of your questions if you want to ask a question for next week's QA you can either leave it in the comment box below or send me a video question over to Darwin on the trail at yahoo.com and then next week I'll answer as many as I possibly can all right so let's go ahead and get into this week's first question do you use a ground sheet or footprint for your tent if not have you or why don't you any longer what materials do you recommend so the tent that snows and I used in 2015 and 2016 on the 80 which is the Big Agnes copper spur UL 2 we did have a footprint for that and Big Agnes actually makes a footprint for all of their tents so that's the one that we use for that tent now the tent that I carried on the Arizona Trail last year in October and the tent that I carried this year on my CD t-section height which is the six moons design skyscape trucker I also had a footprint for that and that was a polychrome footprint a footprint that six moons design sells for most of their tents but you can typically pick up poly Crowe from some sort of a hardware store now the new tent that I'm using which is the Z packs duplex haven't picked up a ground sheet for that and I don't really know if I'm going to it has a pretty tough cuben fiber bathtub floor but if I do pick up one it'll probably be another piece of poly crow or a lot of people like using tile X now tyv X can be a little bit heavy sometimes and it doesn't compact down as small as what poly crotas but you can usually pick it up pretty cheap and it's not a bad material at all so say if you're looking at getting a footprint for your tent number one see if the manufacturer of your tent does make a specific footprint for that tent or either pick up poly Crowe which is a great material and like I said you can usually find it at a hardware store or Tyvek which most companies actually sell pieces of Tyvek for their tents or you can buy it off eBay or sometimes you know anybody that's a construction worker you can usually score some from them yes I usually use a footprint for most of my tents but I'm not currently using one now hi Darwin my name is Ajay I'm sitting on the South Mountain here in skiing

and I had a question about national and state park passes if you were to purchase an annual pass is that count for a calendar year or from the date that you purchase it and further what are those passes good forward you need a separate state and a separate national and our national forests included under that hoping to clear this up thanks for your time and I love your town so great question AJ and a good timely question I actually just bought a brand new national parks pass this past week so I can fill you in a little bit on how they work so first off a national parks Pass is essentially an annual pass that allows you to get into national parks national monuments national forests and some national museums and recreational sites it doesn't work with any State Forest or anything like that that is going to be a separate type of pass and they're good for a full 12 months from the month that you bought it so it's not necessarily the day but say you buy in August that means it's good to be next August my thought has always been if you go to like at least two national parks or two national monuments a year just buy an annual pass they're just around 80 dollars and man they save you a ton of money in the long run the first one that snuggles and I ever picked up is when we were doing a lot of traveling to the national parks in 2015 we picked one up at the Grand Canyon and man it totally paid for itself within like two weeks because of all the parks that we went to some parks are cheaper but some parks can be pretty expensive per car whenever you go in plus it's always good to have hanging from your rear-view mirror whenever you go into some sort of a National Forest so a lot of times I shoot my videos here in the National Forest around Albuquerque and if I didn't have that Annual Pass hanging from my rearview mirror I would have to pay two dollars every time I parked at a trailhead look like you're having an awesome time out bike packing I really need to get out again myself right on have you ever used bivy sacks for shelter yes so I actually have used bivy sex a couple times and I can tell you I'm not a big fan number one I'm a little bit claustrophobic so typically when I'm in a bivy sack I kind of feel like I'm in a coffin which is not exactly the feeling that I want when I'm out backpacking plus I like a little bit more room I don't like to be so confined in a little bitty area it's one of the other reasons I'm not a big hammock camper I like a little bit bigger of a tent I like to spread out I like to have all my gear on the inside so I don't have to worry about some critter going through it I don't have to worry about it getting wet I like feeling like I have a little home out in nature especially when I'm doing something like a long distance hike the end of the day I want to have my shelter I want to have my home a place that I can relax spread my stuff out have all my gear inside plus if I get trapped in some sort of a rainstorm or snowstorm or something I want a little bit of room to actually live in when you're in something like a bivy sack being trapped in that one little spot and that little confined area for that long no not not me at all now bivy sacks are good if you're doing some sort of ultralight bike packing like bike packing racing there's a lot of cats out there that will use a bivy sack because it's super light it's super minimal and they're only getting a handful of hours of sleep but if you're going out and you're putting in big miles and doing something like a long distance hike I would suggest getting a tent or even a hammock bivy sacks aren't bad in a pinch or if you're doing something like racing or even if you're going out and like trying to beat a record say you're going to go out and try to get the fastest known time on the 80 a bivy sack would probably be a good option because chances are you're not really trying to relax you're just trying to finish that trail so just having a small spot to sleep for a few hours probably wouldn't be that bad but for me no Divi sex because you recommend a budget trekking pole tent so yeah Cole actually about two weeks ago I did a new ultralight gear on a budget video where I showed a tent called the gear top ul1 threw about a hundred dollars and you can pick them up over on Amazon a really decent tent that comes in just a little over two pounds now spent a little bit of time with it but here coming up I'm going to be doing a full gear review of it so keep an eye out for that but until then if you want to check that video out I'll put a link up here in the corner and you can go check it out for yourself you can find that link in the description box below but like I said four hundred dollars it's a pretty decent trekking pole tent so go check it out what would you do if snuggles was not into the thru-hiking lifestyle but you are that is a really awesome question really awesome so luckily I've gotten snuggles into through hiking and backpacking over the years and she wasn't at first she wasn't that type of a person now I grew up hiking and camping my entire life being in Boy Scouts growing up in the woods snuggles was the exact opposite she never grew up doing any of that stuff so when we first got together I took her on our first camping trip I took her on like her first hiking trip took on our first backpacking trip now snuggles has kind of become a one-and-done type of person she wanted to hike the 80 she doesn't really aspire to do anymore long distance trails she loves backpacking and doing smaller trips like maybe 10 days so section hiking but doing a full through hike is not really in the cards for her anymore which is why she's not going out and doing the PCT with me next year but the thing that we've learned over 10 years of being married is compromise she hardcore supports the fact that I want to continue to do trails just like for eight years I raced triathlon she had nothing to do with triathlon could care less about it but she supported me in every race that I did she was there at every race she supported me during training and she took a lot of interest in what I was doing so it's the same with thru-hike I don't really know what I would do if snuggles wasn't into through hiking because that's kind of how we built our relationship we've always supported each other and what each other wanted to do but again that is an awesome question thanks is there a reason you don't use a camo bet I use one and love it I'm kind of amazed that you and other hikers don't use them so what are your thoughts on camel bags so I really don't like camel backs like a lot of hikers um mainly because I don't want this big sloshy jug of water sitting on my back and to me it's kind of inconvenient to whenever you're doing something like a long distance hike taking that water bladder out every time you come to a water stop undoing it filling it up making sure the hose is clean I don't know I rather just have a bottle be able to take out of my pack real quick leave my pack on fill the bottle up get my put it back and whenever it gets nasty I don't have to worry about cleaning it out I just throw it away I get a new bottle which is why I use smart water bottles I've never been into the whole hydration bladder thing now last year in October when I went out on the Arizona Trail I did carry a hydration bladder I carried a 2 liter Osprey hydration bladder in my pack and if I had to do it again I wouldn't do it I hated it I hated having that on my back the entire time especially when I was in that biking position you know all that weight all that water sitting on my back just sucked I'm just not into it and I think that the other reason why other hikers aren't into camelbacks is kind of for the same reason I said it's just it seems inconvenient to have that and kind of unnecessary it's just a lot of parts right you have the bladder you have the hose you have the bite valve you have the lock sometimes you have that insulated cover for the tube it's just not a thing that I'm into I like to keep it simple I like to keep it lightweight and a Camelback just doesn't really allow me to do that hey Darwyn Joe here and I have a question about some three day backpacking with my Scout troop kind of just a meal planning and hitting a three thousand calorie per day for our food and it seems like the easiest way to do that is around dinnertime but it just seems like hit three thousand calories you just have to have so much of that at dinnertime I'm not sure I'd even be able to eat you know multi packets of ramen potatoes pasta etc so what thoughts do you have for splitting up the calorie intake throughout the day with the minimal amount of cooking Thanks great Channel so that's a really good question man and I think it's a question that hikers and through hikers ask themselves all the time it is damn near and possible to get like anywhere near 3000 calories a day especially for the weight that has always been a big battle on the trail is how can I get the maximum amount of calories for the weight and for the space plus trying to cram all of that food in can be hard so what I typically do is try to find the most calorie dense foods I possibly can I bring a big jar of peanut butter and basically put it on absolutely everything so if I'm eating a Snickers for a snack I'll grab that thing a peanut butter dip the Snickers in there so it's adding a ton of calories to that I know there's a lot of hikers that use coconut oil and take that with them and they add it to just about everything same with olive oil because you're upping those calories and then as far as snacks I try to find snacks that have a lot of bang for calories for the buck and for the weight and for the space so one of my favorite go-to snacks on the trail is a probe are now pro bars can be a little bit expensive when I'm doing something like a thru-hike I don't necessarily get them because I can't really afford to get them but if I'm doing a section hike or a weekend trip or even a day hike I always have Pro bars in my bag so you can find pro bars that have like 350 to 400 calories for a single bar if you have that jar of peanut butter dip it in the peanut butter and you're adding like another 200 calories to it so you can really up your calorie intake that way yeah man there's no like real definitive answer to that I am always always always along with other hikers trying to find that perfect food and that perfect amount of food to carry to where you can pack in as much calories as possible all right guys so last question of the week I would love to section hike getting supplies gathered and routes planned it looks like I won't be doing much this year so I was thinking I could at least do some trail magic along the sht question what is your favorite trail magic awesome question Paula my favorite trail magic is any trail magic I think all trail magic is equally amazing anybody that takes time and money out of their lives and their schedules to go help someone else is amazing to me so whether that trail magic is like a cooler full of beer growing a hamburger or even just a bottle of water I think they're all amazing and they're all my favorite now when it comes to food and I'm on the trail when I come to a clearing what I always hope for is a beer and a burger tons of calories super super satisfying and I've only really gotten that a handful of time I'm on the trail but I would say that is my favorite food trail magic but honestly my favorite type of trail magic isn't food at all it's actually conversation and connecting with somebody out on the trail so when you're out on a road and you throw your thumb out and you hitch somebody picks you up and during that ride to town you share some sort of a connection or a story or conversation with somebody that's my favorite trail magic it always has been I love connecting with people and kind of putting this thought in their head that they too can get out on the trail and hike one of my favorite all-time hitches and trail magic was snuggles and I we're trying to leave Gatlinburg to get back up into the Smokies and this 18 year old girl pulled over and picked us up she was scared as hell to pick us up but during that ride we made this amazing connection with her and she ended up telling us how all her life she wanted to do something like it through hike and now she'd be looking more into it and we really inspired her later on down the trail we ended up sending her some trail magic ourselves I picked up an 80 patch and a postcard and we actually sent it to the place that she worked in Gatlinburg because she had told her that she worked there but it was making that connection and inspiring somebody that's my favorite trail magic because it goes both ways you guys want to read that story if you go over to Darwin on the trail dot-com and look in these snuggles diary there's a entry called the 20 question hitch go read that that's that full story that we hitched in 2015 at a Gatlinburg but that's probably one of my favorite trail magic of all time but any trail magic you do is going to be amazing to a hiker it's just taking time in doing anything for a hiker is amazing trail magic and thank you so much for being one of those people that want to do that and give back to hikers all right guys so if you want to ask a question for next week's QA you can either leave it in the comment box below or send me a video question over to Darwin on the trail at yahoo.com and the next week I'll answer as many as I possibly can you haven't got a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I'm posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that stumbles and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

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