Ask Darwin Q&A #56 - The End?

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

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Wigwam CoolMax Sock Liners - https://amzn.to/2I5B8l0

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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,Pinhoti Trail,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 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 so next week will be my final Q&A I'm sure as some of you know by now I start my thru-hike of the PCT on April 3rd so I'm gonna be on the trail from four to five months and I won't be available to do weekly Q&A s so the Q&A series will be ending for now and then when I get back off the PCT the plan is to start them back up I'm not sure if I'm gonna be doing a weekly Q&A I might be doing a bi-weekly QA or maybe a monthly Q&A so if you have a question get it in cuz after that no more Q&A s for quite some time alright so let's go ahead and get into this week's first question will you be doing updates well on the PCT yes Tim I will be doing updates so if you want to follow me kind of day-to-day I'm gonna be trying to post an image on Instagram almost every day as long as I have service now there's a lot of times on the trail or you just don't have any service so it's kind of hard to to upload a picture to Instagram but I'm gonna try my best to put up a picture a day from the trail for four to five months which is a pretty big commitment aside from Instagram I'm also going to be doing a weekly vlog from the trail so I will be filming my entire hike and then uploading a video once a week for you guys to follow along now there will be about a two-week buffer before that first video comes up I'll already be on the trail for two weeks but hold tight I will bring you guys along on that hike I hope you guys follow me all the way to the end and I'm super jacked to get out there in a couple of earlier vids you mentioned sock liners but I don't see them singled out in your gear list do you still use them any particular brand do you just use a darn tough suck as your liner yes so I used sock liners for years and the reason I used sock liners is what I used to use was a traditional hiking shoe I hiked in the Mero moap ventilators it's what I hiked the entire 80 with and then a lot of different section hikes on other trails when I switched over to the Lone Peak by ultra I found that it didn't really need sock liners so now typically what I wear is just a low darn tough sock sometimes I wear the crew darn tough sock but I just don't get blisters like I used to now it could be the shoe it could just be because my feet have really toughened up over the years with all the different miles that I hike but I don't really use liners anymore every once in a while I'll throw them in my pack but for the most part no now the sock liners that I used to use were the Wigwam cool max sock liners I absolutely loved those things and that was my go-to so I would highly suggest if you're gonna try sock liners to check out the wigwams do you want to I'll put a link to those in the description box below you can check those out find out for yourself if your sock liner person or not it's Matt and Sawyer and Wes here and we am a question for you happy that you're out in Joshua Tree that was our favorite part have a great day bye hey guys so the reason I use a buff or the reason a lot of people use a buff over a traditional bandana is a buff just seems to have more uses so you can use a buff as a face mask as a neck gaiter

as a bandana you can use it like how I use it which to pick up your pot a lot of people will take a buff and actually put it over their pillow or their a clothes bag and use it as a pillowcase so there are a ton of different uses for above and that's why I personally rather have one than a regular bandana now I still like bandanas and everyone smile I'll throw an extra bandana in my pack but the buff is always my go-to piece of gear just because it's so multifunctional

what are the three things you're most looking forward to on the PCT one in each state so I've kind of given that a little bit of a thought here and there it's it's kind of something that I always think of before I go out and hit a trail kind of what are the things that that I'm most looking forward to when I get out there and and what are the big rewards for me number one for me is gonna be the Sierras I have never done any hiking in the Sierras and from obviously all the pictures that you see and following other people on their PCT hikes it's just such a beautiful part of the country now I have spent quite a bit of time in Sequoia National Park in Kings Canyon so I know a lot of that area right the entry right in to the Sierras but really getting in there and seeing the beautiful lakes and the snow top Peaks and the big ridge lines I am really looking forward to that next up on the list would probably be for me at least getting to Cascade Locks in Oregon right there where the bridge of the Gods is now I visited Cascade Locks last August I went out there for PCT days and I loved that section of the trail right there at the state line is such a beautiful part of the country so I'm really looking forward to getting into there getting into the Cascade Locks Ale House cuz I've made some really good friends in that town so I can't wait to see them again and then the final thing that I'm really looking forward to on the PCT and it's probably the number one thing is the people I love the hiking community I love the hiking culture you know obviously I've experienced it out on the 80 a little bit on the CDT a little bit on the Arizona Trail but I cannot wait to get out on the PCT meet all of the other hikers the community that surrounds the trails trail angels and everything that makes up that trail I cannot wait to get out there I'm super jacked everything is going to be great everything is gonna be a huge payoff for me and yeah how well is the pen holy trail blazed along the road walking in Georgia so the pin holy trail is actually very well blazed the entire trail is not just the road sections but the entire 330 miles of it or really well blaze and it kind of shocked me a little bit I thought because it was gonna be a smaller trail and a little bit lesser-known and lesser traveled trail that it wasn't gonna be marked well and I was gonna really have to pay attention and figure out navigation there was only one time that I got lost it was the second-to-last day on the trail it's supposed to be my last day I got turned around it was a little section of trail that wasn't very well marked and I took a wrong turn and I ended up somewhere that I wasn't supposed to be and had to finish the trail one day later but as far as the road walking in Georgia it's it's great there are signs all over the place it's kind of crazy how many Pinho Tetreault markers are on the road the committee that takes care of the trail is doing a really good job just hopefully they can get some of that trail off of the road and back into the woods and on trail where it belongs hey Darwin Rob from Kalamazoo Michigan I just got done walking my local park and picking up all the trash and stuff I could find on the side and I was wondering if you ever pack out any trash that you might come across while doing a short section hike or like a weekend backpacking trip or anything I realized that through hikes you have a really try to manage your weight to get it down to the lowest but I know that you're a big advocate for the Leave No Trace and I was just wondering if you ever do that Thanks so yeah man actually I do I usually have a rule of thumb that when I'm on the trail I tried to pick up at least three pieces of litter a day now whether that is a gum wrapper or a cigarette but I always try to pick up at least three pieces of trash one thing that I will always pick up no matter how many pieces of trash I've picked up are balloons I have seen so many balloons out on the trail and I always pick them up it's one thing that kind of irritates me it's one of my pet peeves it kind of ticks me off when I see a random helium balloon half inflated laying on the forest floor

because someone led them off because of a birthday party or something I know that's kind of a cool old tradition that people have been doing for years letting balloons off in the air but it's just hardcore littering it's really irresponsible so again that's kind of a big pet peeve but yes I always try to pick up at least three pieces of trash on the trail if not more on the 80 in 2016 there was what was called the packet out crew and that team of hikers pretty much through their entire thru-hike just collected trash as much trash as they could cans and wrappers and stuff at shelters and I think it's really awesome and I think it's up to us as hikers to make sure that the trail is clean and well-kept because there's just people out there that have no regard for the trail and they're just gonna throw their trash so I always try to do my part do a little bit of trail maintenance and pick up at least three pieces if not more what is your biggest concern related to the longevity of your body due to the abuse of long hikes and relatively poor diet how long do you expect you can maintain this lifestyle that's a good question Adam it's one that I actually think about every time I go out and do a hike for me I'm a very active person I raced triathlon for eight years before I ever got into long-distance hiking so I'm kind of used to putting my body through a lot of stress I think the main important thing to do is when you're not putting your body through that stress is to take care of it as much as possible now even though I do eat a lot of crap out on the trail just to maintain calories and because it's cheap and light I eat very well when I'm not on trail so I'm a hardcore picky eater I eat very whole foods I don't eat a lot of meat usually just poultry I'm not a big beef or pork fan I do a lot of juicing I take a lot of vitamins I really try to make sure I take care of my body when I'm not on the trail because of the abuse that I put my body through when I am on the trail now as far as how long I'm gonna be able to do it before everything just goes south I don't know I'm not really worried about that I love hiking I love being out on the trail and I love getting those experiences and that's really all that I'm worried right now I'm a very live-in-the-moment type of person and I just deal with the consequences later that's just kind of my style now whether that's a good style or not it's just how I do things so as for right now I'm gonna get out I'm gonna enjoy the trail I'm gonna put my body through that abuse and then later I guess I'll figure it out all right guys last question of the week I recently began watching a ton of hiker videos in preparation for a long section hike of the 80 and 2019 I have noticed that few hiker youtubers disclose if the gear they are discussing has been provided by a company for review or if the hiker is being financially reimbursed to make a video discussing the gear these disclosures seem to be a given in many other genres of you to do hiking youtubers really buy all the high-dollar gear they are testing themselves or does the hiking community on YouTube just not consider it important to disclose when items have been provided for review or sponsorship that's a great question and it's one that I get all the time so I can't speak for others but I can tell you firsthand that I buy about 90 to 95% of my gear so in my pack setup right now what I'm carrying for the PCT 90 percent of that gear I bought with my own money and it's because that's my hobby right that's the thing that I do so that's the investment that I make so yes I do buy my high-dollar pieces of gear now as far as doing a review and disclosing things I always make sure that I put a disclosure in the description box below the video if a company has given me a product and then I always try to mention in some way that a company has provided me with said product now I personally do not take any sponsorships and any reimbursement from any company to do a review how I work is I get a lot of emails from companies that say hey Darwyn we want you to check out this piece of gear and my response to them is always the same you're more than happy to send me a piece of gear but that does not guarantee that I will review the piece of gear use it or feature it in any media that I make so I always disclose that to a company I've never been paid for a review I've never been reimbursed for buying gear there might be youtubers out there that do that but that's just not how I work I get a lot of flack for that and I think a lot of other people do sometimes because a company might give me a piece of gear let's say Z packs Z packs might give me a jacket and then instantly everyone thinks that I am sponsored by Z packs I'm not sponsored by Z packs Z packs doesn't pay me for anything they don't ask me to do a review it's not a trade I always tell the company that you can send me whatever product that you want but it doesn't guarantee that I'm gonna do anything with it so that's how I work again I can't really speak for others so if you ever have any doubts about any reviews that I'm doing or gear that I'm talking about you can always go down in the description box and if I have a received a piece of gear from a company I always put a disclosure in there to let you know that I've gotten it for free but I'm under no contractual agreement to review the piece of gear awesome question thanks so much for asking and hopefully that can put an end to all the questions and doubt of how I deal with companies and how I do my reviews alright guys so like I said next week will be the final ask Darwin Q&A for at least four to five months and then after I get off the PCT I don't know where it's gonna go from there so if 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 then next week I will answer as many as I possibly can if you haven't had a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I've been posting a lot of new photos lately plus some pictures from some past tags plus I'll be trying to do a picture a day from the PCT as long as I have signal so go over follow me and check it 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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