Ask Darwin Q&A #49 (Answers)

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

Tenacious Tape - http://amzn.to/2DMHtjC

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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/

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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,Pinhoti Trail,Long Distance Service

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 alright let's go ahead and get into this week's first question have you had to repair any of your down equipment jackets quilts or sleeping bags what do you do to repair a rip

I just got a small tear less than a dime size in my Mountain Hardwear jacket and I am in a slight panic mode because it's such an expensive jacket so typically I will repair my down stuff and really anything that is SIL nylon with duct tape or most recently I've actually been using Gorilla Tape that stuff just seems to stick better especially when it gets wet but I have also used what's called tenacious tape so actually right there is a patch I don't know if you can see that but that is a piece of tenacious tape that I actually got to rip myself because I got my jacket snagged on a thorn bush when I was out doing a day hike and I just repaired it typically I keep guerrilla tape wrapped around the top of one of my trekking poles just in case I get a rip now personally I always think it's cool to see someone's down jacket with a bunch of little pieces of tape on it snuggles has a Down Jacket that she's had for quite some time now it has different color patches all over it from different colored duct tape and I just think it gives the piece of gear more of a personality and really lets people know that it's been places what was your worst injury on the trail and how did you handle it what is the worst injury you've witnessed on the trail and how was it handled I've never really been hardcore injured on the trail back in 2016 when I tried to bike pack the Arizona Trail I did tear my meniscus in my right knee going down the Grand Canyon so that was a pretty bad injury but it wasn't too serious it did take me off the trail but I think that probably the biggest injury that I've had on the trail would be in 2016 whenever snow and I were back on the 80 I actually broke my right pinky toe I don't ever really talk about that but I was coming down I believe it was Stratton Mountain it was super wet it was super slick and I stepped on a root and I slid and my toe box hit a rock and it broke my pinky toe from there all the way to Katahdin I actually every day had to wrap my pinky toe next to my other toe just to splint it it never did heal on the trail because every day I you know I said just keep putting impact on it and hurting it so it it healed about two weeks after we got finished with the Appalachian Trail but I would say that that is probably the most serious injury that I've ever had as far as a serious injury that anyone else has ever had I can't really think of anything snuggles one time slipped on some mud and smacked her head up against a tree and got this big old goose knot on her head so I guess that was another big injury that I seen someone else get hey Darwyn I'm Lauren from the DC area and I would really appreciate your advice on negotiating that great area between working a lot to really save up for your thru-hike and actually getting to the trail when working a lot isn't allowing you to kind of adventure and travel and hike as much as you want because you're working and saving so when you advise you have regarding that would be really appreciated if not hi from DC that gray area is always something you kinda have to play with personally when snuggles and I were planning on going to hike the Appalachian Trail I worked like two full-time jobs I worked as a machinist a tool and die maker and I also ran a recording studio and I was constantly working constantly trying to save up money but anytime that I had any off time whether it was after work in the morning before going to work on the weekends I was outside on the trail in the woods trying to get as much experience and as much hiking as I possibly could in my life so I think that you can always find time to get outside and explore you know you don't have to travel to the other side of the country to get out on the trail and get out in the woods and explore most people live around something where you can get out you can be on trail you can be in the woods be in Mother Nature get fresh air and get inspired to have a bigger adventure when she saved up enough money and you're ready to go when you are going stove 'less how do you make coffee in the morning so I use the Starbucks via packs so it's a micro ground coffee that typically you boil water you just put that in there and you stir it up but what I do is I'll take my water bottle like a smart water bottle and not necessarily this one and I just take the packet open it up and I dump it in I shake it up and I have cold coffee in the morning for me it's a little bit easier just because I can make my coffee put it in my bottle and go ahead and pack up camp and hit the trail and in that first mile or two miles I can be drinking my coffee and getting my caffeine for the morning now don't get me wrong I love hot coffee but there's just something to me about convenience on the trail that makes a world of difference

hey Darwin Josiah and Jonah here and we were wondering as young men who like to go hiking we noticed that you wear kind of like leggings with shorts and we were wondering what you do about underwear when you go on long hikes I know what do you do

thanks love your videos so yeah the tights that I typically wear are the Nike Pro combat tights now they call them the hyper warm tights I've been rocking these things for quite some time I actually just had to get a new pair of them because they finally started to break down after thousands of miles of trail use but as far as underwear goes I have a pair of ex-officio briefs but I never wear them on the trail typically I hike in running shorts and running shorts have a liner on the inside of them so they kind of have a pair of built-in underwear so that was a really long way to explain it but I guess the short answer would be I don't wear underwear on the trail would you recommend the PCT or the 80 for a new hiker so assuming you are talking about doing a thru-hike now obviously I have not through hiked the PCT yet I have hiked a lot of trails in the West though and completely hiking the entire Appalachian Trail my boat would always be for the 80 and my opinion that might change once I get out on the PCT but the reason I think that the 80 is a perfect first through hike is because of the community that's around the trail you know there's always some sort of a hiker town or a hostel or resupply point or trail angels around the 80 so figuring it out while you're on the trail and having less room for error the 80 is easier to do that whenever you're out in the west and you're doing some of those trails they just don't have as big of a trail community around them so there's a little more error that can happen and get yourself in a little bit more trouble you have to carry water for longer sections you have to have longer resupplies so for that reason I think that the Appalachian Trail is the perfect first through hike hey Darwin I just want to know if you are worried at all about ice and snow on the PCT during the Sierras and what kind of gear you bringing especially for that so like nice axe and crampons or just micro spikes so yeah your thoughts on that Thanks

so no I'm not really concerned about the snow and stuff in the Sierras I'm hoping it doesn't happen right now it's looking like it's gonna be kind of a dry year for the Sierras last year was like a freak snow year in the Sierras and apparently a lot of hikers really suffered from it as far as what gear that I'm gonna be taking with me in the Sierras at Kennedy Meadows snuggles will be meeting me there and if there's still a bunch of snow in the Sierras I'll be picking up an ice axe and a pair of micro spikes so I have the Cthulhu Kahua Cthulhu micro spikes and I have a camp Corsa ice axe and those are pretty much the only two things that I'll be taking with me into the Sierras as far as Avalanche or snow protection but hopefully we'll have a really try year and not get any snow at all and I won't even have to take them with me glad to see you got a chance to make it back to the 80 before you head to the PCT are you going to hike a segment of the Benton MacKaye after the Pinho D since it connects to the 80 just a mile or so from there leads to Springer Mountain

so Metro the plan as of now is just to hike the hope and holy trail as I've said in some past videos the pin ho D ends at the Benton Makai Trail and it's about 70 miles west of Springer Mountain which is the southern terminus of the 80 for some reason if everything goes as planned and we get done with the trail early and we get to the Benton MacKaye trail and we're not just ready to get off the trail yes we have considered hiking that extra 70 miles and going from the pin ho t to the southern terminus of the 80 I think that that would be really cool especially because it would just for me extend my Appalachian Trail hike to a longer trail so I'm not gonna commit to that but it is in the thoughts the wheels are turning and we might be doing that alright guys last question of the week and this is a really long one so bear with me

I'm getting a little disheartened with your information

let me explain we are transitioning adventures moving from scuba and kayaking to hiking so we are continually seeking advice from experienced hikers such as yourself after watching many of your videos we get disappointed to learn that you have decided to switch gear from a previously approved gear review case in point the use of a small flashlight that you thought was amazing and could be used on the Bill of your ball cap then you decided to switch to a small headlamp no biggie but we did buy the Blitz Wolf power bank based on your previous personal experience and recommendation now we learn you are going with an anchor power bank Gurr of course you have every prerogative to change your mind whenever you wish but for novice adventurers trying to gear up for the first time can be frustrating so I have said it in a ton of my previous videos I am constantly playing with new gear

I am a gear junkie so the case of the flashlight to the headlamp I decided to go with the flashlight and I was dead set on that and then about four months went by and I found something else that I wanted to try out after trying it out on the trail I started liking net so just because I like a new piece of gear doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with an old piece of gear because I still use everything I do a lot of different hiking in a lot of different places in the US on a lot of different trails so I use a lot of different gear I set it a ton of times there is no such thing as one right piece of gear there's just not and because of that reason I am constantly playing with new gear and trying to figure out what works best for me at the moment now as far as the let's wolf charger goes I got myself a blitz with charger and really liked it and I had planned on using that for my PCT hike when I was putting my pack setup together for the Arizona Trail I wanted to cut a little bit more weight out of my pack and found out that that anchor battery weighed a little bit less so for that hike I took the anchor battery and to my surprise I ended up liking the anchor battery just a little bit more than the Blitz one but again I do that a lot and that just comes with trying out new things I'm sorry that you're disheartened with the idea that I like to change different gear but like you said that is my prerogative that it's that's just what I do and if you kind of watch the progression of my videos as I make them I do it all the time I use different packs I use different quilts I use different tints I use different cook systems maybe I don't use a cook system I'm constantly trying out new things in the field so I can get more information about hiking and backpacking alright guys so I'm about a week away from starting my pin hodie trail through hike we're still

here in Georgia right next to Springer Mountain out on the 80 getting stuff dialed down but in about six days I'll be headed to Alabama to meet up with toasted toad and we'll be hiking 335 miles from flag mountain and Alabama all the way to the bent Makai trail right here in Georgia 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 haven't had a chance yet and you want to follow toasted toad and I on our thru-hike of the pinhole trail go over and check out my Instagram account I've been posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snows and I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes plus I'll be posting a picture a day from the pinhole trail so go check that out 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

[Applause]

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