Ask Darwin Q&A #46 (Answers)

Description

** Stuff/Gear I Mention in this Video **

Embrace The Suck T-Shirt - https://www.bonfire.com/embrace-the-suck-2/

Goose Feet Gear Down Socks - https://goosefeetgear.com

Seal Skins Socks - http://amzn.to/2FdHXjC

Sea to Summit Aeros UL Pillow - http://amzn.to/2CS1E38

Trekology UL Pillow - http://amzn.to/2qCPc1l

Zero Day Resupply - https://zerodayresupply.com

Q&A #27 - https://youtu.be/SnKD5gfO7SM

First-Aid Kit Video - https://youtu.be/TQUxWwwwN8Q

AZT Section Gear List - https://darwinonthetrail.com/2017/09/22/darwins-2017-azt-section-hike/

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

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

- Camera -

Canon EOS 77D - http://amzn.to/2zf5OQ9

- Lense -

Canon EF 24mm IS USM - http://amzn.to/2zeJuWU

- Sound -

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

- TriPod -

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

------Intro & Animation By: BlackStrap Media------

https://blackstrapmedia.com

------- Music By: Mike Boren --------

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,PCT,Pacific Crest Trail,PCT Thru Hike,Backpacking,UL Hiking,UL Backpacking,UL Gear,Hiking,Hiker Trash,Camping,Adventure,Arizona Trail,AZT,CDT,Long Distance Hiking

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 QA 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 how do you handle your trash on the trail the empty ramen wrappers the empty Idahoan potato pouches etc do you rinse out your pouches before storing the whole trash thing has me flummoxed so how I store my trash on the trail is I typically carry a gallon ziplock bag I'll put that in my food bag at the start of the trail or when I resupply and I just put all my wrappers in that now I don't usually run some out I just kind of shove them in there and then when I do get to a town or some sort of a trashcan like on the side of a trail maybe in a park at a gas station or something I'll just dump my trash out and keep reusing the bag now over time the ziplock bag will start to get kind of funky obviously because there's food and stuff in it so mold can grow or just overall moisture and bunk so I will trade it out and usually get a new ziplock bag every couple weeks when I can find one in a town or at some sort of a resupply point like I said as far as run Seng packages nope I just throw them in there and then dump them when I get the chance is there one specific piece of gear that you're constantly wishing you had with you or that you're thinking about adding to your pack thanks and keep the videos coming so yeah home actually the one piece of gear that I always wish that I have once I'm out on the trail is a pair of gloves it's actually really cold out here right now

and again I don't have gloves on for some reason I just never think of carrying them and then it'll get to that morning on the trail where the temperature is dropped and it's really chilly and windy and I'll have to put my socks on my hands because I didn't grab a pair of gloves recently I really thought about it and on that rim to rim to rim hike of the Grand Canyon I actually brought two pairs of gloves and they suited me pretty well probably need to like always have a really ultralight set of gloves like maybe at least a glove liner in my pack set up whenever I go out on the trail whether it's fall or spring or whenever because you never know when that temperatures gonna drop and your hands are just gonna get cold what are your recommendations / what have you seen done for hikers with poor circulation in cold weather brine gloves like I just said get some gloves and get good gloves but I actually have pretty poor circulation myself in my feet and in my hands for some reason whether it's spring fall if it's 60 degrees outside or if it's 20 degrees outside my feet and my hands are constantly cold I don't know why I can literally be wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and every other part of my body will be completely fine but my feet and my hands will be freezing so one thing that I always make sure that I have in my packs up and then I actually do bring and don't forget is a pair of down socks now they don't really help you during the day while you're hiking or anything but there's something that I always wear when I sleep at night just because I get such poor circulation in my feet the ones that I use are the goose feet gear down sucks and if you want to check those out I'll leave a link in the description box below but I love those things they go with me everywhere I go and they are a total GameChanger because I cannot stand having cold feet while I'm trying to sleep at night it drives me nuts hi Darwin I am just wondering have you used trail runners in snow because I can't imagine that they'd hold up very well against snow but then again I don't own a pair of trail runners so yeah I have used my trail runners in snow I usually won't use them if it's like past ankle deep snow but out on the trail typically yeah I always wear a trail runner and I just deal with the cold I always make sure that I have an extra pair of socks in my pack so at night when I get to camp I can put on an extra pair of socks put my down socks on and get my feet warm and then in the past I've also used a waterproof sock called a sealskin and that's done pretty well when I'm in the snow now if I'm doing something like a snowshoeing trip that I did last year when I climbed Mount wheeler I did wear a pair of mid boots that were waterproof and had kind of like the rubber toe bumper on there and it definitely helps and it obviously gives you a little bit more ankle support when you're doing something like dredging in six foot of snow I'd say about 90% of the time when I'm on the trail and there is some sort of snow trail runners work just fine for me what will you use as a pillow on the PCT what do you think of inflatable pillows I'll be doing the JMT in June and hope to bump into you into the Sierras so maybe you don't know but I've tried to be a pretty big advocate for it yeah I love inflatable pillows on the trail the one that I typically carry is the sea2summit Eros ultralight pillow and I picked that up to just kind of try it about a couple years ago I always thought that the inflatable pillows were totally goofy and I picked one up just to give it a try kind of put my money where my mouth was and I was super surprised at how much better asleep that I got on the trail at night and ever since then there is always an inflatable pillow in my pack set up now the one that I'm actually thinking about carrying on the PCT this year is the trek ecology ultralight it just a little bit heavier than the arrows pillow but it is much bigger and I have a big ol head so it's just a little bit more comfortable for me and I think it's worth that little bit of weight penalty it's just like a couple couple grams it's not a lot but it is a little bit heavier I'll put a link to both of those pillows down in the description box if you want to check those out but as I've said multiple times I think that if you're looking for better sleep on the trail getting one of those inflatable pillows is a definite game-changer do you feel as though you need any bushcraft skills when you're out in the wilderness for the length of time like a thru-hike also do you ever make campfires when you hike um bushcrafting is definitely a different thing than doing something like long distance hiking you know whenever you bushcraft it's more about going out and kind of staying in one spot and building some sort of a shelter and just kind of surviving we're long-distance hiking is really more of like an endurance sport right it's it's like trying to get from point A to point B and you have this goal to get to so do I think that you need bushcraft skills for something like a thru-hike no absolutely not you know you're not needing to kill your own food you're not needing to make your own shelter but if you have bushcraft skills yeah I'm sure it doesn't hurt but not something that you need to have now as far as fires yeah I absolutely love making fires at camp when I hike we made a lot of fires out on the Appalachian Trail whenever we could especially on those chilly nights but the problem is in the last couple years I've been doing a lot of hiking in the southwest in the desert Arizona California New Mexico and in a lot of those places because they are so dry there are burn bans so making something like a campfire is sometimes illegal but a lot of times it's just it's a bad idea because it is such a dry area even though I like making the fire and maybe there's not a burn ban I still try to be as smart as I possibly can think about the area that I'm in and if making fire is a good idea or not because it's just one ember that can blow off that fire blow into some brush and ignite everything on that trail in flames and over the last two years we have had way too many wildfires on the major trails especially the PCT so I love fires but I try to keep them to a minimum okay Darwin on the trail you and snuggles know anybody that will offer resupplies where you can just say hey I want to be in this town a couple days they can hook you up with some shower whatever you need some kind of company anything maybe is something know you and snuggle should consider doing thanks Casey yak Montana so the best resupply service that you can have out on the trail is just contacting your friends or family and having them send you a box or doing it yourself preparing some mail drop boxes keeping at home with a trusted family member or a trusted and whenever you need one or you think that you might need one in a you know couple days

call it the family member and have them send it to a post-office that's what snuggles and I do a lot is we just rely on a family member or whenever I'm out on the trail I rely on snuggles to send me something when I need it

as far as services go the only two services I can think of are one is Amazon there's a lot of hikers myself included that while you're out on the trail you just might want something in particular you can get right on Amazon on your phone when you have signal order up whatever you want and then have it sent to a post office as general delivery or to a hostel or really wherever you want to and pick it up that way I would say that's probably the easiest and you know Amazon has everything so there's nothing that you won't be able to get and then there's an actual resupply service called zero day resupply now I have personally never used the service I know a few hikers that have and absolutely love it you just get on their website and you pick out everything that you want for how many days that you want put an address in and zero day resupply will send it to you that address which is a really cool service I'll try to put a link to their website in the description box below if you want to check that out but like I said the best way to get a mail drop and get something sent to you is just have that trusted friend have that trusted family member maybe a wife that can just send you something at your call I was wondering how often do you take zero or niro days when you are on a thru-hike and do you plan to take them in advance or just get into a town and see how you feel um it's it's kind of just off the cuff when snuggles and I started through hiking in 15 we kind of had a few times planned that we wanted to take a zero day we were gonna take a zero day every 10 days but just like everything on the trail it never goes as planned you just kind of go with the flow and whenever we decide to take zero days it's just whenever we felt wore out whenever we felt like we needed to take a zero day and that kind of goes for everything for me now on the trail I try not to really plan anything

because I've learned that it's better to just go with the flow while you're out there if you constantly have this plan set like well in seven days I'm gonna have a zero day I feel like the last three days getting into that zero day are just super hard because all you can think about is getting off the trail and like getting a pizza and staying in a nice big comfy warm bed so I just try to go with the flow get into a town to resupply and while I'm resupplying just there's a certain hostel that looks good and the right people are there that I want to hang out with and I just decided the last minute I want to take a zero I have actually showed my first aid kit a couple times in the past I did it at the end of one of my QAS and I'll put a link down below to that video it's right at the end I go over my first aid kit really basically just kind of show a few things that are in there and then about a year and a half I did an old video called first aid and toiletries on the trail I'll also put a link to that video my first aid kit pretty much never changes so even from a year and a half ago it's pretty much the same as it is today

alright guys last question of the week could you please say how you came from having a house and thinking about the future to being present in the moment being present on today that's a good question

as most of you might know from either one of my other videos or just me talking about it me my wife snuggles used to have a house here in Indiana which were in Indiana right now if you can't tell it's not the desert anymore we were married for seven years at the time we had a house we had a career and yeah we were very planning for the future and you know we planned to buy that house and plan for our careers and that we were gonna retire in 30 years and then one day something just happened and we decided that's not really what we wanted to do anymore we decided to sell all of that get rid of our house and we want to hike the Appalachian Trail and the Appalachian Trail doing that first thru-hike is really what kind of changed the way that we thought about planning instead of planning for the future more living in the press because I think that as I said earlier when you're out on the trail nothing goes as planned and you just kind of have to go with the flow you know you might have one day where it's just awful out on the trail and you can't hike so you just have to stay or you might have a day where you run into somebody that's super interesting to you and you make a really good connection with them and you want to go to a town with them and have a zero-day and maybe get a couple beers so the trail and doing something like a long distance hike really teaches you to live in the moment and that the moment the current place and time is really what is the most important because it's that memory and that situation that you're gonna remember for the rest of your life and it doesn't matter what happens tomorrow

it matters what you're doing right then so I think coming off of the trail we were just so set in that in that thinking that that's kind of how we've continued to live our life we don't really plan for you know two years down the road I might plan a month ahead or a couple months ahead obviously I'm planning to hike the PCT but after that I have no clue what I'm doing I have no clue what I want to do I just have to see kind of how the cards fall into place and go with the flow so to me life is more about the present moment and figuring out what is going to make you happy here and now and then figure out the rest later because you never know what could happen all right guys so again snuggles and I are still on the road we drove from Joshua Tree California to New Mexico New Mexico to our hometown of Evansville Indiana which is where we are now it is crazy cold here and it's totally winter a total change from being out in the desert we're gonna be here for a couple more days and then we're planning on heading down east so the next time you'll see me we should be in Virginia I have some pretty exciting news to kind of break with you guys in the next week about what I have going on in February and I'll give you a hint it's a hike so I'll make a video announcing what exactly we're doing but until then if you guys want to keep up with our travels and kind of what we're seeing what we're doing go over and follow me on instagram we've been posting a lot of new photos lately from the road I post pictures from past hikes go check that out

in other news if you remember from about two months ago snuggles and I partnered with a company called bonfire that actually makes limited edition shirts and we did a hike on t-shirt that was only available for 14 days you had to get it in those 14 days and then after that it was not going to be made again I've had a lot of requests to do another limited edition shirt so it's time we are releasing the embrace the suck shirt so right now starting today you have 14 days if you want to grab one of those go over to bonfires website I'll put a link in the description box below you can order one up after those 14 days are over it will not be available anymore and then in the future we'll do another design proceeds from that shirt sale go to helping grow the channel and for our travels again if you guys want to leave a question for next week's Q&A you can 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 found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and as always guys thanks for watching [Music]

you