Ask Darwin Q&A #6 (Answers!)

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Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,AT Thru-Hike,Thru-Hike,Backpacking,Hiking,Camping,Adventure,AZT,Arizona Trail,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,CDT,Six Moon Designs,Big Agnes,Maxxis Tires,Bikepacking,#suspensionmakesyousoft,Section Hike,Hiker Trash,Long Distance Hiking

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hey guys it's Darwin here with my weekly Q&A series to answer some more of your questions if you'd like to ask me some questions for my next week's Q&A you can either leave them in the comment box below or you can 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 so let's get into the first question I'm a boy scout and going on a hundred mile backpacking trip and was wondering what a good lightweight tent would be so I'm actually have a couple of different options for you number one a really popular lightweight tent that I've seen a lot on the 80 I think a lot of people carry it's something like the Big Agnes Fly Creek either the UL one or the UL two depending on how tall you are and how much gear you have that is a really really great option usually available just about anywhere you can find them at REI probably your local outfitter but another good option is a tent that I picked up last year for my bike packing trip on the Arizona Trail and the tent that I'll be taking out on my section hike of the CDT and a couple weeks which is the six moons design skyscape trekker I'll put a link up here in the corner of the review that I did on that tent and I'm going to be doing a post review when I get back from the CDT since I've had a little bit more time with it this was kind of a pre review and I first got the tent but I'm going to be doing a longer review of what I think about it in the long term so keep an eye out for that but I think those would be two really solid tents that are lightweight pretty affordable and you can find them in most places six moons design you will have to order from six moons design so far I'm digging the tent but I haven't had my final thoughts on it yet so I'll give you those thin hoping to do my first backpacking trip on the 80 this year just wondering which area would be a good start for just a short three to four day trip in May or June either solo or with a buddy figured I'd start with baby steps thanks man so obviously it depends on where you're at in the States but if I had to pick one section right now to kind of go hike a really beautiful sex a section that's close to some resupply would actually be the Smoky Mountains before me and snuggles hike to the 80 we went and hiked a big section in the Smokies so you know you could start at something like Fontana Dam that's in North Carolina and hike pretty much all the way through the Smokies with the time that you have and then maybe even get off at new sound gap or something the other great thing is there's a lot of shuttles around the Smokies so it'd be really easy to kind of park somewhere have a shuttle to drop you off at the trail and then pick you up whenever you get done but that would be my recommendations obviously it also just kind of depends on where you're at if you're more up north maybe try something in New Hampshire or something in Maine those are hard sections but absolutely beautiful and it'll definitely get you hooked on the 80 and make you want to do it through hike another great section would probably be down in Georgia really anywhere in those first couple hundred miles of the 80 are absolutely beautiful a good place for you to get your feet wet not too hard of terrain and again there's a lot of hostels and shuttles and different services that you can get from the 80 around that area so it would be a really good place to start just interested to know did you have any withdrawal symptoms after completing your through hike if so how did you deal with them yeah a lot of withdrawal symptoms so one thing about doing something like a through hike or maybe it's a you know like a long bike tour or something

is kind of once you remove yourself from that hustle and bustle that fast-paced society that you deal with every day and work and paying bills and you know driving in traffic and stuff like that it becomes super addicting you realize how simple and how enjoyable life can be from doing something like it through hike and then it's really really hard to go back to society I joke a lot and say things like I feel like the Appalachian Trail has Brewin my life and through in my life for the good so I constantly want to be back out in the woods I constantly want to be hiking and doing some sort of adventure whenever you kind of go back to that regular everyday grind it becomes very very hard to kind of keep focus on that just because you're constantly thinking about the other things that you can be doing the other thing that a lot of hikers have and I had and we all have is what's called post trailer depression so where you get off the trail and you know you spent four to six months hiking every day and then you just kind of become depressed you become depressed because you're not walking every day you come to press because you're doing the same thing you become depressed because you've been taken out of that environment that you got so connected to and it kind of feels like home and then kinda from there on forward it's really really hard to kind of deal with that regular droning nine to five day of work and driving and paying bills and having an apartment and stuff like that so you know that's one of the reasons that I'm going out to do this section hike of the Continental Divide Trail next month it's the reason I'm hiking the PCT next year it's the reason that snuggles and I are moving into a travel trailer hitting the road so we can be closer to that so we can continue to travel if we want because the symptoms are real home again they kinda ruin your life and I'm going to be doing a video on that soon so keep an eye out for that it'll probably come out within the next couple weeks but I'll be doing a video on postural depression how to deal with that and then you know some other things that doing it through hike kind of transforms you and kind of turned you into this different person so keep an eye out for that Darwin do you typically cook and eat away from where you sleep to limit unwanted visitors from bears or other animals during the night what about cooking / food scent in your hair or clothes that may attract in so that's a great question sometimes I do sometimes I don't there's kind of big discussion about that kind of argument about that while I was on the 80 there was never a time where I felt like that I was going to get attacked or something if I had food close to my tent however just to have those safe backcountry rules I always do cook away from my tent if I'm eating dinner at night and then obviously hang my food and a tree pretty far away from my tent in the morning I typically eat breakfast in my tent not too worried about scent me because wind and stuff can you know pretty much blow that away pretty fast but at night most of the time yeah I do eat away from my tent and try to keep that stuff away making sure that every night I take all of my food wrappers and any leftover snacks throughout the day out of my hip belts or any of my gear and get that away from my tent even stuff like sunscreen soap toothpaste I also put that in my bear bag places on the East Coast you know you don't have things like Grizzlies which are on the west coast you don't have to worry about those hardcore bear attacks even though there are black bears but I still try to keep to that rule when I was on the Arizona Trail in October I'll be honest I actually ate a lot of nights inside of my tent so it kind of depends on where I'm at really but a good rule of thumb is to always do that I mean that that is the smart thing to do just in case you know not even dangerous animals even raccoons or squirrels or something mice it is a good idea to keep food and stuff away from where you're going to be sleeping so you don't get bothered by animals at night they don't try to chew a hole through your tent because I've seen that happen there have been some people out on like the 80 and 2015 I remember that a mice chewed through their tent into their pack just to get like a food wrapper from what they had left over for the day so it is a really good rule of thumb and I try to do that as much as I possibly can Darwin for bike packing what would you recommend for a tire I think I will have a used karate monkey would you use shocks for the front forks so what I use shocks for the front forks the most bike packing that I do know which is why I use the hashtag suspension makes you soft I like a rigid bike that being said I do run a rigid bike that has plus tires so a three inch tire that I run pretty low psi so it's like having a little bit of suspension in the tire if it is an older karate monkey that is a 29 you're not going to have that option so it's kind of up to you it's definitely a personal preference and the same as it goes with tires there's a lot of really good tires out there the tire that I'm currently running is the maxis Chronicle I really really

maxis tires so the ardent would be another really good tire to check out for Max's that would probably work for your application Max's tires are a little bit more expensive but they're really tough they roll really smooth and they're really lightweight so that's kind of why I choose them but again that's kind of a personal preference some other tires you could check out are something like the specialized ground control fast track or purgatory those are other really good tires but again just kind of experiment with kind of what you like and what type of terrain that you're going to be riding on personally I dig Max's tires so check those out too okay so the last question I'm going to answer for this week is kind of a long one and it says I want to do the PCT in 2018 I'm wondering how to charge my external battery due to financial reasons I really don't want to spend much on hotel rooms but that leaves the questions where do I charge it and what do I do with the six or so hours that it will take okay so that's a really good question number one I have to say that I know that you're trying to keep it within a budget and not stay in hotels and hostels but just from experience and if you've never done a thru-hike I can tell you even though you're not budgeting for that and you don't want to budget for it you will want to stay in hotels and hostels it is really hard after you've been hiking in the elements for you know three to four to five days on a stretch you're cold you're wet you're hungry you're hot and coming to a place and not staying for the night it's really hard to pass up a shower a dry riff over your head and some good food so number one I would actually suggest maybe up in your budget if you're going to hike do it right it is really hard to do a thru-hike on a hardcore budget I've seen a lot of people's hikes be cut short because they didn't have enough money or people that were getting really close to getting off the trail because they were running out of money so you know just throwing that out there if you want to try to stay in the woods as much as possible great definitely try if it's a budget thing I would try to up your budget because you will want to do that and then obviously you can charge your stuff aside from that another thing that you can do is whenever you do go into a town regardless if you're going to stay or not go into someplace ask if you can plug up your charger and then take your time in town to do all the errands that you need to do because you will need to resupply you'll want to get some food some actual town food maybe make some phone calls so trust me there are a lot of things to do in a town whenever you get in there nobody really just kind of gets in and gets out so just find a place as soon as you get into town plug up your charger and get that taken care of but like I said take the opportunity to stay at things like hostels so take advantage of that stuff because you'll want to and if you don't you'll you'll kind of drive yourself really down you know it's good to take those breaks it's good to stay in a hotel or hostel every once awhile to get out of the elements and take a shower it recharges your brain it recharges your soul so it's really good to do that like I said there's a lot of people that don't think that they're going to but then they end up doing it especially if you start traveling with a group of other hikers kind of a tramway you will stay in places you just will just because it's good to get out of those elements so number one do that number two if you are going to go into a town and not stay first time you do when you get into town is find a place to charge your external battery pack and then go take care of all your errands do as much running as you possibly can get a bite to eat do the things you have to do and then come back unplug it and take off on the trail again so hopefully that helps and good luck with your planning for 2018 hopefully I'll see you out there alright guys so I'm going to keep doing these q A's weekly so if you have any questions for me you can either leave them in the comment box below or you can send me a video question over to Darwin on the trail at yahoo.com and then if you do send me a video question I will 100% feature you in next week's Q&A so send me some of those nobody's been sending me any for a while and I like having those video questions it helps me interact with you and I can feature you in my video 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 of some of the things that snuggles

have going on throughout the week go ahead and like or dislike this video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already as always guys thanks for watching

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