Ask Darwin Q&A #10 (Answers!)

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Tags: Appalachian Trail,AT,Thru-Hike,AT Thru-Hike,Backpacking,Hiking,Camping,Adventure,CDT,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru-Hike,Hiker Trash,Long Distance Hiking,AZT,Arizona Trail,Bikepacking,Surly ECR,Surly Bikes,Stoveless,Off Grid Living,Minimalist

Video Transcription

hey guys it's Darwin here with my weekly Q&A to answer some more of your questions

you have 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 the next week I'll answer as many as I possibly can all right so let's go ahead and get into today's first question if I were to hike the PCT would you recommend sleeping in a hammock or a tent so good question and I touched on a couple times and some of my other Q&A s but I think for the first 700 miles of the PCT using a hammock is pretty much non-existent the first 700 miles of the PCT is pretty much completely in the desert all the way to Kennedy Meadows so there's not really a place where you can put a hammock up a lot of people will either carry a tarp or a tent through that section and if they are going to hammock they typically pick it up at Kennedy Meadows so they have it after that but even then and some of the higher peaks in the Sierras you still don't have a whole lot of trees that you can hang a hammock because you're way above treeline so it's kind of up to you now I know that hammocks are not very popular on the PCT they tend to be more popular on the 80 some of those more woodland canopy type of trails where you always have a tree to be able to hang your hammock but on the PCT not so much so I would suggest using a tent or tarp setup or at least using a tarp set up for the first seven hundred miles then maybe picking up your hammock and using that for the rest of the trail you should definitely plan on doing a hike of the PCT though I'll be out there next year so hopefully I'll see you I'm just starting to hike any suggestions on getting your trail eggs this is kicking my butt right now so really the only suggestion man is just hike that's the only way to get trail legs so even when I'm not hiking a trail when I'm not doing a section and say the CDT like I just got that from or out on a thru-hike I'm constantly hiking I go about two to three times a week in the morning before work put a fully loaded pack on and just go hike some of local trails here in Albuquerque just to keep my trail legs you know hiking up and down mountains every day with a fully loaded pack on your back definitely uses a different muscle set so because I do hike so much I like to keep those muscles in check and keep my legs typically though even if you do that if you set out to do a long distance trail like the 80 the PCT or the CDT still it usually takes about two weeks to get your trail legs a totally different thing than just going hiking for the weekend whenever you're hiking every single day back-to-back 15 to 20 miles a day it really takes a certain type of trail it aside from that man just get out and hike and you'll eventually get them why don't you use an alcohol stove um I've used an alcohol stove paid for and actually I thought about maybe grabbing an alcohol stove for the PCT next year but typically I either use a canister stove like the Snow Peak light max stove which is what I carried on the 80 and on the AZT whenever I did my section of the CDT I actually went stove list and it's something that I've been considering for a while going completely full-time stove lows I still carry my mug my titanium cook mug so if I really want a hot meal I can always make a small fire and boil some water over that but next year when I hike the PCT at first seven hundred miles at least I'll be going stove us now if I do decide to pick up a stove in Kennedy Meadows it will probably be an alcohol stove just because from what I hear canisters aren't as prevalent on the PCT so it'll be a little bit easier to get denatured alcohol or heat to be able to use my stove but again really right now I've really been into stove us within the next couple of weeks I'm going to do a video of stove vs. stove lists so keep an eye out for that how's the camper project coming along I would love to see an update take care of man and happy hiking so we haven't done a camper project update lately because some things have changed I'm not really going to release a whole lot of information right now all I can say is stay tuned

within the next couple of weeks I'm going to be releasing some new information for any of you that don't know and haven't been following along my wife snuggles and I at the beginning of the year about a 1972 lark travel trailer if you want to check out the video on that I'll put the link up here and our plan was to restore that and then we're going to be moving into that full time in August but like I said a handful of plans have changed so keep an eye out for that but I'm not going to spoil the surprise yet so you'll have to wait I'm starting a new career

but eventually I want to do a thru-hike does your work allow for snuggles in you to take a leave of absence for through hikes or do you have to quit and start over so it's actually both situations um in 2015 before snuggles and I went and hiked the 80 we both had careers in Indiana and we quit those jobs we 100% quit took our money that we had saved up we took off to do the through hike and then our plan was after we got off of the trail we would be finding new jobs and we were okay with pretty much finding whatever because we simplified our lives and became a little bit more minimalistic so we didn't need as much money to support our new lifestyle we used to have a house in Indiana and a bunch of stuff two cars but whenever we combined everything down to our van that we lived at up for six months we didn't really need a whole lot of money to survive so just working a minimum-wage job was enough to support that lifestyle now whenever I took off and then the Arizona Trail or whenever I just went down the section of the CDT the place that I work for which is a local outfitter here in Albuquerque and a bike shop they just allow me to leave obviously I don't get paid for the time that I'm off but they're always willing to take me back so it's nice to have a job where you work with like-minded people that know that taking multiple months off to go do a hike is something that's worth it so if you're planning on getting into long distance hiking I suggest maybe looking and finding a career in the outdoors maybe testing gear working for an REI working on a bike shop because those people are much more like minded and your typical nine-to-five job that when you tell them that you're going to take five to six months off

I do hike they don't look at you like you're crazy so we've done both and I guess it kind of all depends on if your lifestyle supports that decision I talk about that a lot in my videos and seems like I've been answering that a lot in my comments section lately people asking how do I make money how does I support my lifestyle I must be feeding off the government something like that no we just live really simple lifestyles we work we quit our job we go do the adventures that we want to do and when we get done we just look for a new job sometimes we're lucky and we're able to return to the job that we came from but most the time we just look for new jobs so it all depends on what you want out a lot good luck on planning for your thru-hike there you're going to have an awesome time on whatever trail you decide to do we're in town do you charge your batteries and how long do you charge them so typically whenever I'm doing a hike like I just got back from that section of the Continental Divide Trail I carry an external battery obviously I also have a cell phone and a camera that I shoot all my videos with but I typically like keep my phone on airplane mode and I'm really conservative about how I use my battery I plan out my days and then I make sure that I'm going to run out of battery right before I get into some sort of a town now when I do get into a town I typically go into like a restaurant or something like all hikers do and get town food as soon as you get into town I typically try to find the first plug-in I can ask if I can do it and then just plug in my stuff while I'm sitting there having a burger having a beer replenishing those calories from the trail and then typically throughout the day if I'm going in to some place I try to find an outlet and charge my stuff we were on the 80 in 2015 and 2016 whenever we went into a town to resupply we would actually go into like a grocery store or a convenience store and I would ask the people working there if I could plug my stuff in and most people are pretty cool with that I've never had someone tell me that I couldn't do it but I would usually just plug it up shop get all of my resupplying done make some calls maybe pick up a package then come back and pick up my stuff and then obviously I would also charge my stuff if we were staying at a hostel or a hotel for the night

and get a full charge on my stuff before I went back out on the drill hi Darwin I used to pack in the mid 70 equipment prior wise pack Ziva stove and the Eureka two-man tent 40 years ago and I still use it awesome I want to get back into it again where do you think I should start on getting new equipment so good question Jill so there's a lot of videos here on YouTube here on my channel where I talk about new gear for backpacking of gear reviews and pack lists and gear lists to help people find new gear and shed weight out of their pack so that is number one where I would suggest starting just put it in the search bar and I'm sure you'll find a lot of awesome gear I am going to be doing a new video within the next two weeks called my top 5 favorite pieces of cheap UL backpacking gear so you should definitely check that out and if you ever want to I always put my gear list in the description box below or you can go to my website and I have a full gear list of all of my different trips and showing you what I use and links to the gear some of the big ones though that I would suggest starting out with to shed the weight and get new gear would be your tent your pack and your sleep system your big three are really what's going to define your pack weights and help you become a better UL backpacker so like I said I'll put some links in the description box below if you want to check those up I'll put a link up here in the corner of one of my gear list videos so check that out if you have any questions on any of that always hit me up and I always love talking gear with people good luck on getting that new pack set up one of my favorite parts of backpacking is the gear I'm a total gear geek and maybe you'll become the same way alright guys last question of the day are you going to try any more bike trips I built an ECR the same time you did and I love my salsa cow chipper bars Plus down to nine gears we'd like to hear more about the bike in your life so yeah man I'm actually going to be doing a handful of more bike packing trips before snuggles and I leave New Mexico there's a handful of trips that I want to do down south and actually planning on going back down to the Gila wilderness to do a bike packing trip the same section of trail that I just got back from hiking on the Continental Divide Trail I really want to take my bike down there now actually since the last time I did some bike packing videos I've done a ton of upgrades to my bike just went with a new 1 by 11 setup on there really tempt out the bike so I'll be doing some new bike packing videos here soon so keep an eye out for that but no one's seen any of my videos on bike packing I'll put a playlist up here you can go check all of those videos out if you're interested in getting into bike packing it's a really awesome alternative to backpacking especially if you're a cyclist and love to ride you can carry all your gear on your back go longer miles throughout the day and do some really awesome trails on a bike so yeah man keep an eye out for some of my new trips that I'll be doing within the next two months before snows and I finally take off from New Mexico there's some stuff I really need to explore here alright guys so if you want to ask any questions for next week's Q&A you can either leave them in the comment box below or send me a video question a video of you asking me a question over to Darwin on the trail at yahoo.com and then next week I'll answer as many as I possibly can I haven't got any video questions in a long time and I really really like those like featuring you guys in my video so send me some video questions don't be shy just whip out your camera without your phone shoot the question in person send it to me and I promise I'll feature it in my video next week you haven't got a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a lot of new pictures lately of some of the things that snuggles will not have going on throughout the week some hikes some of my pictures from my section of the CDT my bike a bunch of other stuff so go check out those photos over there go ahead and like or dislike this video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching

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