Ask Darwin Q&A #16 (Answers!)

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QALO Rings - http://amzn.to/2sxLZzN

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AWOL AT Guide - http://amzn.to/2soVotP

Garmin eTrex 20X - http://amzn.to/2thVPTm

GutHook App - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/at-hiker-guthooks-guide/id605447532?mt=8

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

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Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,Thru-Hike,AT Thru-Hike,Backpacking,Hiking,Camping,Adventure,CDT,AZT,Arizona Trail,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Hiker Trash,QALO,OR Helium Jacket,AWOL AT Guide,LNT,Leave No Trace

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 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 the snuggles where her wedding ring on the trail so good question Kristin snuggles does not wear her wedding ring on the trail in 2015 and 2016 we were both on the Appalachian Trail

neither of us wore our wedding ring we actually kept them at home in Indiana just because you know we didn't want to lose them we didn't want them to get banged up or sweating more nasty so we did take them off however we always did want one of those silicone wedding rings and then recently we actually got a couple of those so now we have completely switched to wearing the silicone wedding ring all the time and have stopped wearing our regular wedding rings after 10 years of wearing our regular wedding rings every single day we just decided we live a more active outdoor lifestyle so having one of these quello silicone rings is definitely a better option for us what exactly is a hiker box and is it common to just take gear that has been left behind so a hiker box is a box that you'll typically find at a hostel or hotel maybe an outfitter sometimes even a restaurant on the trail that hikers just kind of leave stuff behind so if a hiker is resupplying and say they buy a box of oatmeal cream pies and for some reason they only take six of them and there's eight of them they leave those two other milk cream pies in the hiker box so the next hiker can come by and grab that up hikers will also dump-off gear that they're trying to unload from their pack so anything that is in a hiker box is fair game to other hikers when they come upon it mainly what you'll find is some extra food but man sometimes you can find some really good stuff my gravity feed system that I used in 2015 and 2016 on the

tea was actually made up of things that I found in micro boxes so the bladder that I used the tube that I used and the little connector that screwed into the back of my SOI filter were all things that were found in a hike robots typically the best hiker boxes to head up are either right in Georgia are right in Maine right towards the beginning and the end of the trail that's where a lot of hikers dumped off gear that they're not going to use a lot of hikers will just bring unnecessary gear that they don't need and that's kind of where it ends up so if there's something that you're looking for always check a hiker box because the trail always provides and chances are you'll probably find it in your previous gear reviews I didn't see any compass map or GPS device except for your phone have you ever gotten lost on the trail and how did you get back on the right path so I do not carry any type of compass a GPS anything like that snuggles and I do carry an 80 trail guide when we were on the 80 and 15 and 16 which was the a wall guide and that's really all you need on a trail like the Appalachian Trail is a very well marked path the only reason you really need something like the AWOL guide is to know your mileage and know your resupply points aside from that it is really really hard to get lost on that trail now as far as the Arizona Trail and the continent divide trail I used an app called get hook now gut hook is a guide that you can put on your phone that also acts as a GPS so if you do get off trail which I have a couple times you can use it to guide yourself back to the trail when you do have a GPS signal the great thing is if you have no cell service at all the app still works and get hook has been working really hard the last couple years to pretty much get an app for every major trail so definitely check that out now when I was backpacking the Arizona Trail I did use a garmin etrex 20 gps and I mainly use that just to keep my miles logged to know what distance I was riding and how far I had to go for the day beside from that device that I use whenever I do backpacking I

get hooked nap and that does mean really really well

man the bugs out here bad researching on a good rain jacket I recall you have an Outdoor Research Healing which one is better

the helium two are the helium HD and any good colors for the rain jacket so the jacket that I typically hike in and carry with me everywhere is the Outdoor Research helium HD jacket go see it a lot of my videos and my photos I've taken on the 80 the AZT the CDT it goes everywhere with me awesome jacket has totally stood the test of time and I pretty much wouldn't trade that jacket for any other jacket in the world as far as the helium 2 jacket not the HD version pretty much it's the exact same jacket it just doesn't have all the bells and whistles that the HD does so the reason I like the HDS it has the pit vents so I can vent out my jacket whenever it's kind of warm outside but also raining because all of those jackets are kind of like big trash bags it has velcro cuffs so you can actually adjust the way the cuff is on the regular one it's like an elastic cuff which I actually tend to like that a little bit better and kind of wish that mine had that the velcro cuffs are nice but they come undone a lot especially when they're wet so sometimes I kind of wish I had an elastic cuff and then the other main difference is the helium 2 does not have the patented halo brim hood so if you're a climber or a cyclist that hood on the HD is really nice because it was made specifically to wear a helmet with it where you can still get a brim if it's hardcore raining or to keep the Sun out of your eyes either way you go both jackets are absolutely awesome

the helium 2 is a little bit lighter I think coming in at 6 ounces and the HD is about 9 ounces so about a 3-ounce difference so if you are a weight weaning you might look at the two but if you like those extra features like the pit vents and stuff I would definitely check out the HD and I think both come in a ton of really cool colors I'm personally an orange guys you can see in all my photos I really like that guy I'd like to stand out on the trail I'll put a link in the description box below to both jackets if you want to go check those out good luck in your search for an awesome jacket definitely give either the helium HD or the helium 2 a chance because they are amazing jackets you've mentioned stealth camping many times but what exactly does that mean

so stealth camping is whenever you're out on a trail like the 80 the PCT is at CDT

and you don't want to camp at a designated campsite or a shelter like on the 80 so you stealth camp it's pretty much making your own camp where ever you see fit now obviously you should always follow the Leave No Trace principles whenever you are building a camp make sure you're not killing any vegetation or anything but stealth camping is simply just making your own camp so typically on the 80 when snuggles and I would come up to a shelter and see a ton of hikers there we would usually hike like half a mile or a mile past that shelter and make a stealth camp just because we want a little bit of peace and quiet maybe there was kind of like a party crowd at the shelter and we didn't want to be around that for the night so we would make a stealth camp now out on trails like the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail it's nothing but stealth camping there's not really any designated campsites anywhere maybe a handful but really not like the 80 where you have shelters that are built and campsites that are built specifically for hikers so on the PCT and the CDT it's kind of free-range and you're stealth camping every night which is pretty cool because you can kind of make your own campsite wherever you want to but again if you are setting up a stealth campsite make sure you always follow the Leave No Trace principles make sure you're not killing vegetation don't be building a fire ring where it shouldn't be if you are doing a stuff camp make sure you clean up that area before you leave and put it back to its natural state because we definitely have to protect our trails trail days looks interesting do you know if something similar on the west side of the country it would be great to meet with all the vendors in one spot so trail days is absolutely awesome especially if you are a gear geek so trail days in Damascus Virginia is pretty much this huge hiker fest it's kind of like hiker Woodstock so tons of hikers show up from either the current year of hiking or from past years that have music that have food and obviously they have the vendors so all of the gear companies from the major brands like Osprey and granite gear to the smaller cottage companies like Z packs and hyper light mountain gear are all out there showing off their gear given away gear making repairs is a really really cool place if you're a gear geek like me so definitely check that out as far as a trail days that's on the west side of the country yeah there's actually two there's PCT trail days which is August 18th through the 20th like right outside of Portland Oregon in a place called Cascade Locks and it's pretty much the same thing all the vendors come out I know Z packs will be there this year I would really really love to get out there but I'm not going to be able to this year which is kind of a bummer then you have CDT trail days which is April 28th through the 30th in Silver City New Mexico now whenever I was doing my section hike of the Continental Divide Trail I actually came through Silver City about a week before Trail day so I missed out on that one too that one is just getting started so much smaller but it's growing in popularity as the CDT grows and hikers every year but yeah if you get a chance definitely check out one of those trail days get some free swag meet some of those companies be around like-minded hikers get some stuff repaired and have an awesome time trail days rules so the advice that I would have for any hydro that's making about going to trail days that is maybe doing it to hike is wait until you get off the trail so in 2015 snuggles and I went back to trail days during our through hike and we were already past Damascus Virginia so it was kind of a pain in the ass we had to get off the trail get a ride back to trail days we were off the trail for about eight days so there was a whole week or we must hike in some of the people we were hiking with went ahead and went forward so we weren't able to catch up with them and the whole time we were at trail days we all we were thinking about was hiking and how we were missing out on miles and missing out on things so it kind of skewed that whole trail days experience so my advice to you is if you're thinking about going don't go during it through hike make sure you go either a year before or the year after especially the year after it's really nice to go back and reconnect with a lot of hikers that maybe you hiked with the year that you hiked in 2019 snuggles and I will be heading back out to Virginia to go to trail days in Damascus and hopefully we'll meet up with some of the hikers and have a reunion with the people that we hiked with in 15 and and 16 so again definitely check out a trail days

it is a really good time all right guys last question of the week here's my pressing of all pressing questions how often do you thru-hikers actually take a dump in the woods or do they wait until they get to a shelter to use the head there plus for those that actually take a dump in the woods how many actually dig a cat hole first and how often have you seen tour paper floating around on or near the trail so just me that is an awesome question here's why last week I did a video called things that you should leave at home during a thru-hike and in that video I mentioned leaving a trail home now it got a lot of dislikes and controversy people throwing their arms up saying that I was trying to tell hikers to not dig a cattle and that's not true I simply think you should leave a trail at home because I personally use my trekking pole or a tent stake or sometimes if the ground is loose enough even one of my shoes to dig a hole but I always dig a six-inch hole if you're a new hiker and you don't think that you can dig a six-inch hole without a trial definitely take a trail you should always be practicing Leave No Trace policies so always make sure you dig that hole before you take that dump as far as through hikers taking a dump in the woods yeah there's tons of hikers that take a dump in the woods I'm kind of a one dump a day guy so either I do my business whenever I first wake up in the morning at a shelter so I'll use a privy or sometimes it might even be an hour into my hike and then yeah I definitely get off the trail leave my pack on the trail walk about 200 feet off the trail dig my cat hole however I have to do it whether it's a stick a trekking pole a stake or even if I want to carry a trowel and take my dump cover it up and make sure there is no trace that I was there because the last thing that somebody wants to do is walk up on your big massive pile of crap so you should always bury that as far as other hikers doing that I hope other hikers are doing that there are a handful of times where I've seen little wads of toilet paper off in the distance but even in that case sometimes it could be because somebody took a pee and just kind of left a little bit of toilet paper behind or blew your nose so I've never actually seen like a big pile of crap that's what you're asking but yes I hope that all hikers are digging that six inch hole because it's super important to bury that stuff number one Leave No Trace you know we we don't need to litter the trail toilet paper and crap and - you have things like norovirus that are pretty much started because of hikers taking a poop not washing their hands or someone being near someone else's feces so it's pretty gross but as an answer to the age-old question does a hiker shit in the woods yeah alright guys so if you want to leave 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 if you ever 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 and I have going on throughout our week plus some pictures of some past hikes so go check those out if you haven't already 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

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