Ask Darwin Q&A #19 (Answers)

Description

** Stuff I Mention in this Video **

Permethrin - http://amzn.to/2tMC76u

EZ Towel - http://amzn.to/2tF4Edw

Rain Kilt - http://www.zpacks.com/accessories/cloudkilt.shtml

Dr. Bronner's Soap - http://amzn.to/2tMANQX

ATC Website - http://www.appalachiantrail.org

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

*** WAYS TO SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL ***

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darwinonthetrail

(Help Support my 2018 PCT Thru with a pledge as low as a $1/month)

Visit our Etsy Shop! - https://www.etsy.com/shop/TravelandTrail

Get some Sweet Darwin Onthetrail Swag at : https://shop.spreadshirt.com/Darwinonthetrail

*** Gear Used to Shoot this Video! ***

- Camera -

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

- Lense -

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

- Sound -

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

- TriPod -

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

------- Music By: Thunder/Dreamer --------

DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the channel and allows us to continue to make videos like this. Thank you for the support!

Contact information:

Website: www.darwinonthetrail.com

Instagram: Darwin_Onthetrail

facebook: www.facebook.com/darwinonthetrail

Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,AT Thru-Hike,Thru-Hike,Hiker Trash,Backpacking,Hiking,Camping,Adventure,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Arizona Trail,AZT,CDT,Long Distance Hiking,Hiking with a dog,Ticks

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin here with my weekly Q&A to answer more of your questions if you want to ask a question for next week's Q&A you're going to 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 hey Darwin what do you think about rain pants on your 2016 80 gear list I haven't found one just comfort or something essential so good question Stevie I am NOT a huge rain pants person there are a lot of people that really dig rain pants along with the jacket having a full rain suit my whole concept and my whole thought is whenever you're out on a trail like the 80 you're just going to constantly be getting wet regardless so I just really wear shorts to hike in and at the end of the day I just dry out so I'm willing to get wet to not have to carry rain pants to me rain pants are just kind of a hindrance there they're super baggy and kind of annoying they swish I get super hot it's like wearing trash bags on your legs but you know it's all personal preference for me personally I'm just not a rain pants person like I said I wear a rain jacket to keep my top dry but as far as my legs go I'm usually just willing to get wet and then at the end of the day drying out now there are some other items out there that I've kind of been interested in checking out like a rain kilt but for now no ma'am I'm not a rain pants person I just get wet hey Darwin I'm Yankee the Yankees outdoor adventures I noticed in your video you mentioned you're going to be doing some solo hiking so I'm kind of curious if you've done a lot of solo hiking in the past and if you have was it a difficult adjustment doing a solo part of it or did you accustomed to it really really easy hey Yankee so yeah as most of you know me and my wife snuggles are usually hiking partners we hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2015 and in 2016 but last year I actually set out on my first solo adventure and that was bike packing Arizona Trail now I only got about 250 miles in but being out there by myself I did have to learn kind of a completely different trail experience because I didn't have snuggles with me I really love my wife but I also sometimes you know we were together every single day sometimes I miss those times where I can be out in the woods by myself and enjoying nature with my own thoughts so that was one thing I really loved about so hiking and then this year about two months ago I hiked a section of the Continental Divide Trail and I did that 120 mile section completely solo and really dug that as well and I've mainly been doing those types of tricks just because next year when I do might through hike of the PCT I'm going to be doing that entire trail solo and yeah I think I've been able to adjust to it pretty well there's always those first handful of nights when you're out on the trail where I kind of feel lonely and wish I had snuggles there to talk to to relate to you to cook food with but after those first couple of nights of adjusting I absolutely loved being out there by myself the other thing that I really enjoy about being out on a trail by myself is it allows me to do a lot of thinking be creative and come up with ideas for trips making YouTube videos something I don't do typically when I'm with other people on the trail because I'm a very interactive person I love having conversations with people on the trail about gear or food or mileage so when I'm out there by myself I can really thank come up with ideas and be creative how do you wash your clothes on the trail

how often what technique and what so or do you just stink slash sweat it up until you get into a town or a hostel or public restroom so it all depends Daniel most of the time yeah we're just getting sweaty and we're just getting stinky out on the trail it's just something you kind of learn to live with and it's one of those things that coins that phrase hiker trash it's really hard to stay clean when you're out on the trails so sometimes you just kind of learn to embrace that stink but if it's been a really hot sweaty sticky kinda day when I get to camp I'll usually take like my buff go to a creek or some sort of water stream get it wet and just kind of give myself a wipe down bath and I really don't do laundry until yeah we get into some sort of a town or staying at a hostel or hotel a lot of times we'll just use a regular washing machine to do our laundry but on more occasions than not we actually usually just wash our clothes and like a bath tub or a sink in the hostel or the hotel we always carry a little bitty bottle of dr. Bronner's peppermint soap so typically we'll just like fill up a sink or fill up a bathtub hot water will put a little bit of that in there put our clothes in there and just kind of squeeze out all the nasty dirt and crap and then hang it up in the bathroom or somewhere in the hotel room and then by the morning it's usually pretty good and dry and ready to go but again it all depends on the situation on the trail sometimes we'll stop on a town that doesn't have a laundromat or in a hostel or a hotel that doesn't have laundry facilities so in that case we just wing it and do it hiker trash style hi Darwin I'm be from Nashville Tennessee I was just wondering if you have any pets and also what is your personal opinion on people bringing their dogs with them on extended hikes so great video question um yeah we do have a dog we have a dog named Bowie who is a black lab we've had her for about eight years and she travels a lot with us on the road going from Nashville Park to National Park but she doesn't really do a lot of hiking with us we were on the 1815 and in 16 she actually stayed in our hometown with snuggles mom she's a big lazy dog when she was young she loved to hike but now taking her out on trail would just be a little bit more of a hindrance she would probably hike like a pretty good solid day then after that passed out on the ground and not go anywhere again so we decided not to take her with his when we hike now as far as my thoughts on other people bringing a dog to do a hike it's all up to you now one thing that I've kind of answered it a couple times and some emails and and some other QAS but we have known a handful of people to have dogs out on say the 80 and it is much more of a hindrance to have a dog with you than than not number one the first thing you have to realize is when you have a dog with you that is no longer your hike it's the dogs hike making sure your dog is comfortable making sure your dogs not carrying too much weight and then there are a lot of places on like the 80 that you can't have a dog at Baxter State Park the Smokies the Shannon do is there's all these different sections and pretty big sections that you can't have a dog in so you have to be able to make arrangements to have your dog picked up hike that section and then grab your dog again so a lot of times it can be a huge hindrance there's also places on the trail that are insanely hard for dogs a good example that is like the White Mountains and New Hampshire it's just a lot of rock scrambling if you have kind of a small dog or something that's not this massive rock climbing dog it can actually be really hard and kind of abusive on your dog so again it's all a personal preference and you have to accept you have to take a lot more responsibility for your dog but yeah I personally would never bring a dog on the trail just because of all those reasons that I just mentioned it's just it tends to be harder on the dog and harder on you so in my opinion it's best to leave your canine friend at home hey Darwyn I'm planning to do the PCT next year with my girlfriend what's your experience how difficult is it to hike five months together and not end up hating each other so that's a great question Lucca and I've been getting that a lot lately so snuggles and I are actually going to be releasing a hiking as a couple video so keep an eye out for that but until that video comes out I'll give you a little bit of my experience hiking with another person whether it's your girlfriend your wife or just a random friend hiking partner can be very challenging for a lot of different reasons everybody has their own hike hence the term hike your own hike so it's really hard to take two people and do the same hike number one people hike at different paces so there's always someone that is having to hike another person's pace making certain trail decisions like some days I want to hike more miles than what snuggles might want to hike so I have to compensate and hike less than what my body can handle and sometimes she has to overcompensate and hike more because I want to do it so there are a lot of those types of technical problems with hiking with another person but one great thing that I can tell you from hiking with snuggles in 2015 and 16 on the trail is that made our relationship much stronger I would never say that hiking with somebody would would kind of put you on the edge of hating them it definitely frustrates you you're out on the trail and and you're stressed all day long you're physically stressed you're mentally stressed you're cold you're hot you're hungry so that other person that's with you sometimes can kind of be like your punching bag they're the only person that you can really relate to and a ch2 so you know in your typical everyday life you have co-workers and friends and families that you can let out your feelings and you can talk to things with when you're out on the trail and you have one hiking partner that's the person that you share everything with so sometimes it can be kind of stressful and aggravating to the other person because you're just you're kind of going off of each other all the time but even though it can be aggravating and be hard it's also a great experience so good luck in planning for that just remember keep your cool be fair out on the trail and try not to kill each other hey Darwin case outside of Richmond Virginia have you ever used or ever reviewed the compressed towels these happen to be by dr. wipe just add water biodegradable 100 percent cellulose a little drop of water you pull them out and it's like a very strong paper towel weight-wise I'm not sure if this would really compete with TP or anything like that on the trail but just curious to know even for the novelty use have you ever used these or had a chance to review these thanks so much for taking the question love your channel yeah man I just got a huge bag of those things so crazy that you just asked that question because literally just a week ago I got a massive bag of them from the outfitter that I work at they had had a bunch of them for years and finally I asked about them and I said that I could have as many as I wanted so I put together this massive bag now I've never used them out on the trail during like a thru-hike or something for you know as a replacement for toilet paper but I hear a lot of people are switching to those now time will tell whether it's it's worth it versus weight of a you know just a tube of toilet paper but they are super interesting and that's why I got that big bag is to start putting those to the test but it is something that I'm interested in using and testing to see if they are more efficient in your regular roll of shit tickets the other reason that I got that big massive bag is because when snuggles and I move into our mini camper we pretty much wanted something to replace like paper towels with so I saw an opportunity to score all these towels and I grab them because I'll probably do a big review on them and let you know if I think they're more efficient than

I'm from El Paso how does hurricane season affect the 80 so Tom the hurricane season absolutely does affect the 80 both in 15 and 16 we hiked big sections of the Appalachian Trail that were rerouted or blown down because of damage from hurricane winds and rains and stuff so it all depends on what season and in what section of the 80 that it does affect it so typically every year before the through - season starts the ATC will post all those closures and reroutes over on their website but yes the hurricane season definitely affects the 80 especially up in New York New Jersey Pennsylvania those places that are much closer to the coast but the ATC and the local trail Globes do a phenomenal job of cleaning that stuff up and rerouting the trail alright guys so last question of the week is another video question Rohit hey Darwin I've got a question on those blood-sucking critters tags given your personal experience with them can you tell us one how to prevent interactions or from getting the tick bite and two what to do if you have a tick bite or how to diagnose one and three what are the implications of getting a tick bite and what treatment options do we need to pursue looking forward to gaining your perspective yeah man ticks can be pretty gnarly out on the 80 especially up in the northern sections of the trail now I'm sure most of you might know in 2015 I got bit by a pretty gnarly tick and contracted Aliki osis which is kind of a form of Lyme disease and that's one of the contributing factors that took me off the trail so I've definitely had my experience with ticks

now ticks are something that I've always grown up with coming from the Midwest and southern Indiana but you know growing up if you did get a tick on you you just removed it make sure you get the head out and then wash the spot to make sure it wasn't getting infected however out on the 80 especially up in the northern section those ticks carry Lyme disease and it's really really common up there so you definitely have to watch out for ticks on the 80 some of the things you can do to protect yourself against ticks is using something like permethrin which is a spray that you can spray down all your clothes in gear it will help foretell ticks using things like DEET and bug sprays

longer clothes so there are a lot of things to help prevent from getting ticks but in my experience ticks are just going to happen out there there's not a whole lot you can do to like be completely immune to ticks you just have to really watch it and really be vigilant because if you start getting something like the bullseye rash you might have Lyme disease or if you're starting to show any weird signs of like weird fevers or muscle aches you need to get off the trail and get to a hospital and get to a doctor and get that checked out because I have seen that stuff really put some hikers down so funny thing about you asking this question is this Thursday I'm actually putting out a video called bugs on the trail and how to deal with them or I'll give you some more information on how to stay vigilant against those little blood sucking bastards alright guys so if you want to ask a question for next week's Q&A 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 yeah gotta change it go over and check me out on Instagram posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

you

[Music]