Ask Darwin Q&A #9 (Answers!)

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----- Gear I mentioned in this video! -----

Joby GorillaPod Mini - http://amzn.to/2oc6pM2

The Stick Pic - http://www.thestickpic.com

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Canon EOS T6i - http://amzn.to/2kACQOU

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Canon EFS 24mm - http://amzn.to/2mSAXSn

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TakStar Shotgun Mic - http://amzn.to/2kMsAnM

- TriPod -

Targus 360 Trigger Tripod - http://amzn.to/2kMsU5Y

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Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,AT Thru-Hike,Thru-Hike,Backpacking,Hiking,Camping,Adventure,CDT,Section Hike,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,Gear,Joby GorillaPod,Hiker Trash,Long Distance Hiking,PCT Thru-Hike,Six Moon Designs,Zpacks

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin so typically I do my Q&A outside if you haven't noticed today it is really crappy and windy so here we are however I did put my pack back here so hopefully that helps if you want to ask a question for next week's Q&A you can leave them 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 alright guys so let's go ahead and get into the first question I was wondering what camera tripod you use on the trail I bought a mirrorless camera for landscapes mainly and in debating which tripod to buy to go hiking any advice thanks so actually I do carry a tripod I hear the Joby Gorillapod mini a little bitty guy weighs barely anything folds up really nice you can cinch it on to a tree put it onto a rock sometimes I even wrap it around my trekking pole to kind of get a wide-angle shot if I'm not using my stick tick but the other thing that I use is a stick pick great little device you can put on the end of your trekking pole to get really nice big wide angle shots and you'll see me using that a lot in my trip videos I actually did a gear review on that not too long ago if you want to check that out I'll put the link up here and then I'll also put a link down in the description box for that Joby Gorillapod and for the stick pic so definitely go check those out now that you have used the skyscape trekker what are your impressions regarding space for those six foot plus I'm torn between the trekker and so long six so I have been using that tent for a while and I didn't want to give my super solid opinion until I spent a little more time of it now I got it to take it out on the Arizona Trail back in October of 2016 and I just got back my section hike of the CDT

and used it out there as well at first I was in a giant fan of it on the Arizona Trail for a couple reasons one I was new to it - I thought the condensation was a little rough on there but taking it out on the CDT did kind of confirm whether I liked it or didn't like it and I do I liked it quite a bit so for all seven days that I was out on the CDT I didn't have any problems with it it was really easy for me to set up super comfortable and as far as you being six foot plus it is great I'm six foot one it gives me tons of room I'm able to put out my full pad have a little bit of room above my head to put some of my stuff in the middle tonight I have room on my sides to deal with but stuff and I can put my pack at my feet so it has tons of room now the only reason that I'm going to be getting rid of it is just because I want to go with something a little bit lighter now I originally got that tent to test it so it was really never supposed to be the tent I was going to stay with but before I go and do the PCT next year in 2018 I'll be eating a z-pack cuben fiber tent mainly because I want to shed the weight and for a couple other reasons I tend to like a little bit bigger of a bathtub in a tent and the V packs have a really big bathtub the trekker does have a little bit shorter of a bathtub but I've never had a problem with it flooding out in the rain I just tend to like a little bit bigger bathtub in my tent but as far as the height as far as how easy it is to set up and its weight it's great in a great great tip if you haven't seen my pre-review that I did I'll put a link up here in the corner I'll also put a link in the description box and you can go check that video out where I talk about the tent when I first got it and how to set it up so go check that out but yeah between the two tents I would definitely suggest getting the trekker if it's a weight issue and you want to get a little bit lighter they do make a version of it called the sky skate trekker X and that one is made of Cuban fiber

I thought about getting that but a thing on a stick was e-pass so that is an option for you as well I've had it with both in mice and shelters but I hear that setting up a freestanding tent and a shelter is frowned upon what about a very small footprint UL 10 without the fly if not how about a free singing closed-in bitty set I already don't eat any we're near the shelter and all food and smelly stuff is in a bear bed my still like to come and door check by hopping on my head and body and waking me up girl so I think regardless and what is just a sleeping pad and a sleeping bag do not set something up in a shelter it is very very friend upon both in 2015 in 2016 I was in a couple situations where somebody did that and people just don't like it the reason for the shelter is so you do not have to set up a tent or a bitty sack it's for if the weather is insanely bad and you don't set your tent up you have a roof above your head so if you have a tent just tent next to the shelter there's no reason to set it up inside of the shelter if you want to sleep in a shelter just sleep in a shelter now part of sleeping in a shelter is the mice in the bug and it's just something that you have to deal with but if you have a tent if you have a bivy sack just some of them outside of the shelter number one you're going to make a lot of other people happy and number two it's just trail etiquette so follow that trail etiquette set your stuff up in the designated areas and leave the shelters for people that don't want to pitch it in fellow Hoosier here I'm planning on hiking the 80 next year and I was wondering if you knew of any worthwhile hikes and Indiana um there's a handful in Indiana one of the main reasons that we moved out of Indiana is because we really like being in the mountains and being on longer trails there's not really anything in Indiana there is Hoosier National Forest in southern Indiana I think it goes right outside of Bloomington all the way down to southern Indiana and there's a handful of throws on there thus far is worthwhile when we were in Indiana are two main spots that we love to go hiking in where you would either go west to Southern Illinois to Garden of the Gods are Shawnee National Forest which is a super beautiful place it actually kind of reminds me of some places out here west and then the one that we did a lot of training for our eighty thru-hike actually Red River Gorge right outside of Lexington Kentucky so we are originally from Evansville Indiana which is southern Indiana and we were about a two-hour drive from Louisville and about a three-hour drive from Red River Gorge so usually on a long weekend we would just drive we would take off drive all the way the Red River it is really beautiful it's right at the base of the Appalachian mountain chain so you still get a lot of those same features nice big climbs not really mountains more like plateaus but still super beautiful nice running water so I would definitely suggest checking that out but as far as places that are actually in Indiana I never really found anything super stimulating to me however anywhere that you have to get out and hike just get out and hike get in the woods find a trail get your training done and make a good look on your 80 through hike planning you're going to have an awesome time till the trail I settle up with all of the tick issues in the northern portion of the 80 how come beards are so popular do people ever find ticks and their beards I would think the long hair of the beard would attract ticks and people would want to be clean shaven head and face so good question man um I honestly don't have a honest answer for Hugh yeah everyone grows a beard on the 80 I had a beard before I got on the 80 and obviously I've continued to have a beard after the 80 in 2015 I actually contracted elite iosys which is a form of Lyme disease and it wasn't from my hair or from my beard that tick was actually on my leg and most of the ticks that I found while I was out on the 80 actually all of the tips that I found when I was out on the 80 where on my legs are my arms I never found a tick in my hair in my beard so I don't think it's really a common problem usually when you pick up a tick on the 80 it's because you're going through some sort of brush or tall grass or something

and that's why they're typically on your legs however I did check my hair and my beard a lot at night when I was at camp but I never found one of my beard so that's a really good question and I'd actually like to see some other people's answers on that anybody out there has ever had a tick in their beard leave that in the comment box well I'd really like to know about that I find that super interesting and I've never really thought about it actually I know your general advice is hike to train for a hike but what would you advise people who aren't able to hike in the conditions you'll encounter on the trail I'm from the Netherlands and it being a flat country I don't know how to train for the mountains snuggles and I are originally from Indiana which is flat as a pancake

there's nothing but cornfields and big flat areas in Indiana there's a couple different things that we did to train for hiking up mountains number one in our hometown we actually went to a high school football field that was built inside of what's called a bowl it had really steep hills and a lot of times we would just hike up and down those other times you just find really tall those in town say a road or just a grass hill and hike up as much stuff as we possibly can another thing that we did everyone's always put on a fool pack and just go up and down staircases in parking garages pretty much any type of steep elevation that you can train on just trying on that you don't have any big staircases or anything take your pack go to the gym and get on a stair climber I've never personally done that but I know a lot of people that have done that both on a stair climber and on a treadmill getting on a treadmill with your full pack and setting it all the way to the base incline and just walking and walking for as long as you possibly can so there's tons of great ways to train for elevation and climbing and steep grade just kind of use your imagination even if you're not just hiking up and down mountains still put a pack on and get out there and hike get your body used to having that pack home because that is the most important thing you can do good if you guys haven't checked out that video that I did put a link up here in the corner and that's on how to train for a long-distance hike and a little bit of advice on how I think the best way you can go about training for through heck is what's your opinion on silver chargers and how do you feel about filming on a hike does it ruin it if you do it too much do you take breaks and hike tech-free every once in a while so I've actually done a video on both of those topics and I'll put the links up here in the corner but as far as solar chargers I'm not a big fan of them even out on the CDT when I was in the desert I usually just carry a small battery charger and I charge it in town from town to town most of the times on a lot of trails like the Appalachian Trail you're constantly covered by what they call the green tunnel so a lot of foliage so having a solar charger is kind of a silly thing and you're never going to get proper sunlight to get a full charge so I'm not a big fan of them I know there's some people that use them out on the PCT first 700 miles stretch from the beginning to Kennedy Meadows but it's just not something I'm into the time today you're kind of bulky I rather just carry a big battery pack that has a nice charge on it and charge it every time I come into a town and that usually does make it as far as doing my hike I love to film my hike number one I love to fill my hike so I can go back and relive those moments but number two I love to film my hike so I can share it with you guys actually this Thursday I'll be posting a new video from my section hike of the CET so keep an eye out for that and again I did make a video on should I document my new hike I'll put that up here in the corner and you can check that out on some of my advice on the pros and the cons of filming czar hike but I loved it so my hike I do take breaks every once a while you know for a tech free break to enjoy the hike but I also love filming all right guys last question of the week I feel like I've been getting this question a lot in the comment sections on my videos I respond to it a lot but I figured I would take this opportunity to answer it in a video to just kind of throw it out there give you my thoughts give you my feelings so here we go how do you make money Liz I make money just like everyone else I go to work five days a week I work nine-hour shifts and I make money I don't live off the government I don't have a trust fund I don't do any of that I just go to work the secret to doing trips and hikes and the things that me and snuggles like to do is we work we save our money as much as we possibly can we own everything that we have we have no debt and we live a super simple life by doing those things we can save tons of money take off when we want do our adventures do our trips and then when the money is out we come back and we work again now I do make a little bit of extra money here and there on the internet doing gear reviews from time to time but that's not really enough to support anything but how I make money is how everyone else makes money as far as how I'm able to afford to do the things I do again I just would simply and I choose the way I live my life in the way I choose to live my life is to spend as much effort and money as I possibly can on the thing that I like to do like hiking and I don't worry about the things that I don't need so hopefully that helped clear it up for not just you but a couple other people again I get questions all the time about I must have some sort of trust fund or I must enliven off the government or something but no so when I both work a full-time job and then work on the side on the internet to save up as much money as I possibly can it's all about how you live your life it's all about living simple and minimalistic and anybody can do it it's all about priorities and it's all about how you set the test in your life all right so again if you have any questions for next week's Q&A you can either leave them in the comment box below or send me a video question over to Darwin on the trail at yeah calm and then next week I'll answer as many of your questions as I possibly can and hopefully we'll be outside and not trapped in the apartment if you haven't got a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I'm posting a lot of new photos lately especially photos from my section hype of the DDT that I just got that from last week so if you haven't got to change it go check those out go ahead and like or dislike this video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

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