Hey Everyone! Hope you've had a great week. This week I'm going to be talking about cooking on the trail while backpacking.  I am very simple cook on the trail and mainly just rehydrate food to eat.  But some people can get very elaborate with their cooking on the trail.  Being more fancy on the trail with your food can mean more weight but for some people its their luxury that they bring. Today Ill cover the kind of cooking I do while on trail and the tools I use to do it with.

Meals on the trail.  While your hiking on the trail especially if your doing lots of miles.  To me lots of miles is anything over 10. You're going to burn lots of calories.  So high calorie food is what you want.  You need to feed the machine.  You're also going to need high calorie snacks.  For my main meal at night I usually have some sort of freeze dried prepackaged meal.  They usually come in two serving sizes but your usually so hungry that you'll eat the whole thing.  Mountain House meals is probably the most used and you can get them at your local Walmart.  There are many more from Backpackers Pantry and many other companies that you can find on Amazon or your local REI.  You can get all sorts of meals from Lasagna to chicken teriyaki and most of them are very tasty.  They can be a little on the expensive side.  But you could substitute Ramen Camp Coffee Noodles and some sort of meat like tuna or chicken in packets for protein.  For lunch I usually have some sort of simple wrap.  I bring some tortilla wrappers and fill with tuna or chicken in the packs if you bring in some cheese and packets of condiments that you have leftover in a drawer in your kitchen come in handy.  Some people also make peanut butter wraps. For breakfast I keep it pretty simple with oatmeal or a breakfast bar.  Something to give me some energy but won't weigh me down. Of course substitutions can be made for all of these meals.  And I always carry an extra pack of Ramen Noodles for emergencies. For snacks I usually have some sort of trail mix or protein bar. One good thing about backpacking is if you're putting in the miles you can eat about what you want. _MSP1815

Preparing food on the trail.  Most if not all of my cooking on the trail consist of rehydrating something . So I really only have to boil water to do that.  I use a 750ml titanium pot to boil my water in and a small propane canister stove to heat up the water. It is all very light weight and small.  Everything fits into the small pot which is really just a good sized cup with a lid.  The small canister of fuel, the stove , lighter and camp towel all fit into the pot . I made a little bag that the pot with all the contents go into for easy storage in my pack.  The water that I use is either brought with me or filtered water from a stream.  I use a Sawer Squeeze water filtering system and haven't had any problems with bacteria.  So when cooking one of the freeze dried meals I follow the instructions. Usually 2 cups of boiling water is added to the package that the meal comes in. Wait 10 min or so and you have a meal. I usually take the meals out of their packages at home and repackage them into freezer bags (they pack better).  I have made a Reflectix Pouch where  I place the zip lock bags with the freeze dried food.  I add the water to the zip lock bag and cook inside the Reflectix Pouch
. And I eat right out of the bag with a long handled spoon. when I'm done I just close the ziplock bag and put in my trash bag to be hauled out. Easy peasy for quick clean up.  If I make coffee or coco I use the pot to boil the water and either used instant coffee or I bring ground and I have a little strainer that I put the coffee in and pour the boiling water over ( I have to bring an extra cup to do this coffee method).  All the food that I bring on trail with me is kept in a Dyneema Food Bag and when at camp it is hung in a tree a few hundred feet away from the campsite.  Bears, Racons and mice want your food also and if your in an established campsite they know that humans bring food so they can be sniffing around. Some Backcountry places you have to use a Food Canister to put your food in. It is a plastic cylinder with a lockable lid it's bear proof and will keep the critters out of it.  I don't have one yet but plan on getting one this year because I will be in areas where bear activity is high.

Experimenting with different types of food to bring is an ongoing adventure for me. I'm still just a boil water rehydrate cooker in the backcountry but there are all kinds of meals to try.  You could even dehydrate your own meals. Lots of people do.  I tried and it worked but I wasn't very good at it.  For example you could dehydrate spaghetti sauce and cook the noodles at the campsite and rehydrate the sauce. Or dehydrate chili and rehydrate at your camp. My advice is to at first keep it simple after a long days hike all you want to do is eat and sleep and having to prepare a fancy meal on the trail will be hard to do.  So keep it simple boil water like me.  So until next week keep exploring and get outside!

Hey everyone! Hope you are doing well today. This week I want to talk about my backpacking camera kit. Now if you have followed me for a while, you know that I commute a lot for my real job, and the camera I take with me is a Canon G7XMII point and shoot. This is the same camera that I use for backpacking.  It's a good camera that can shoot in manual mode and in RAW mode. It is a small and very versatile camera. I have actually used it and won some monthly photo contests with my camera club with this camera. Things that I look for in a backpacking camera are, first, size. How heavy is it?  If I have to carry lenses, how heavy and bulky are those? Back when I used to shoot a full-frame camera, the total weight could be 7 lbs. That was with just one lens. That's about equal to lugging around a gallon of milk on your back. So that's one of the reasons I started using a mirrorless camera years ago because I cut my weight to 3.5 lbs with multiple lenses. And now I have cut it even lower, to about 1 lb. So I have cut the weight down to almost nothing. The only time I will consider taking my larger camera is if I am going to a big photo spot, like If I go to a waterfall or special place or if I'm going to do astrophotography. But my go-to camera is the G7XMII.

Versatility is the next component that you want to look at. You want a camera that can shoot in all kinds of conditions. You can shoot wide-angle, telephoto, manual mode, and RAW.  It's almost impossible to get a camera that can do it all. Being able to be weatherproof is also something to look at. It is very hard to find one that is weather resistant. Other things that are nice are maybe wifi to transfer photos to your phone to share or edit. The G7XMII has a focal length of  24-100mm F1.8-2.8.  This gives you lots of flexibility when hiking or backpacking, especially in the woods. You can get those wide-angle shots, and 100mm is plenty when you're out and about. The aperture is open enough to isolate a subject and get a blurry background. It also has a macro mode for close-up shots. Shooting in manual can be handy, especially when shooting long exposures, like when shooting waterfalls. Wifi and the apps on my phone that connect to my camera come in handy. I can remotely trigger the shutter, which comes in handy when taking long exposures, and I can transfer photos to my phone or iPad and edit the photos there.  The only category that the camera falls short in is that it's not weatherproof. So I have to be careful when in the rain. I keep the bag in a weatherproof bag that I use as a fanny pack around my waist, and it protects it when it's wet outside. I also keep it in a neoprene wrap that protects it against shocks somewhat. This camera has a 1-inch 20 megapixel sensor that makes it much better than most point-and-shoots.

Accessories that I take with me for my camera kit are small but effective.  I use a small tripod that I also use with a GoPro I sometimes bring with me.  It's a tabletop tripod that is very small but can be used with this small camera.  I have some filters that I use with this camera too. I have an adapter that can be attached to the lens of the camera and can use 52mm filter size filters. I have a circular polarizer that I can use and a 2-stop neutral density filter I can use for long exposures. And of course, I have cleaning cloths to keep everything as dust-free as possible.  I use my phone and a Canon app to remotely trigger the shutter during long exposures.

So that's pretty much my camera kit for backpacking. I try to keep it simple and lightweight. You can check out my gear by following this link Lighter Pack. You can see my gear loadout and how much it weighs between tent and hammock and summer and winter by clicking on the list on the left. So until next week, stay safe and get outside and shoot!
 

Hey everyone!  Hope you are having a great day! Today we're going to discuss the final item of the big three for backpacking, packs. Now that you have chosen your shelter and your sleep system, you can correctly choose your pack.  The pack you choose should be able to hold your sleep system and your shelter with a little space to spare. Everything else you will need is small and should be able to fit into all the nooks and crannies of the pack. If you have a super big pack, you will want to put everything including the kitchen sink in it, and it will be super heavy. Remember, weight matters. You will want an internal frame pack. Packs used to come with big aluminum racks on the outside of the pack, but now most packs with an internal frame are either made of aluminum rods or some sort of composite rods to keep the weight down. The frames help support the pack and make it more comfortable when hauling loads.  Packs are sized in liters. Common sizes are 35, 40, 50, 55, 60 and 70 liters. They even come in larger sizes, but those are for expeditions where you need the kitchen sink. In backpacking, you don't need those.  Your longest stretch out in the wilderness will only be a week or so and then you can re-supply. My suggestion is 55-liter or lower. My first pack was an old army pack that I had acquired and it was big. I put so much stuff in it that, after a mile with it on my back, I thought I would die. I made a lot of mistakes. First, I had a pack too large and thought I just had to fill it with stuff. Second, I didn't have it fitted to me, so it was uncomfortable. Besides the size of the pack, the pack fitting your body is probably the most important. The pack should fit you. There are measurements that you take. One is of your torso length from a bone just below your hair line to your lower back. You can go online to YouTube or REI, and they will show you how to get properly fitted.  You will also need your waist size. With a properly fitted pack, you can hike miles with weight and not feel it on your shoulders because all the weight goes to your hips, and your legs do all of the work, not your shoulders. I went to REI for my first properly fitted pack. The people there are trained on fitting a pack for you. I got an Osprey 70-liter pack (still too many liters) that was fitted to me. They even put some weight in it, and I walked around the store to make sure it fit well. I used this pack for a while until it was just too big for the things I was carrying. This Osprey pack came with a little weight also at 7 lbs empty. My suggestion is to get one as light as you can. The one I have now is just a little over 2 lbs. Base weight is a term that backpackers talk a lot about, especially on YouTube gear channels. Base weight is everything you're going to carry on your trip except for expendables, things like water, food, and fuel. In our last two blogs, we talked about trying to get your tent to 2 lbs and your sleep system to 2 lbs. So now,  if you get your pack at 2 lbs, you're already at 6 lbs and things add up quickly. Let's think about a basic overnight backpacking trip and what you'll bring.  Let's say you did well but didn't quite get your big three to 2 lbs. Let's say you're at 3 lbs for each, which would make 9 lbs altogether. This is just a guess at what your total will be.

Big three -  9 lb: Water, 2 liters - 4.4 lb (2.2 lb per liter); Food for one night - 1.5 lb (1.5 per day); Cooking Kit - 1 lb (includes fuel and pot stove); First-Aid Kit and accessories - 1lb (includes headlamp). So this is what I would call the essentials, and it comes to 16.9 lbs. But what have we forgotten? Clothes. It's always good to have a rain jacket or puffy jacket and extra socks. And what about a good book to read, your phone and an extra battery to charge it, camera, toiletries, matches, lighter, water filter, knife, maybe even a camp chair?  As you can see, the weight adds up quickly. My goal is to keep it to around 25 lbs total weight or less, or around 20 lbs for base weight. In the winter, it will be heavier than in the summer because you carry more layers. You can easily get up to 40 lbs if you're not careful, and there is a big difference between 20 lbs and 40 lbs!

  Many packs can be customizable so you can add a pouch on your shoulder strap to hold a phone or a bottle of water for easy access.  Most of them will accommodate a water bladder with a hose so you can drink on the fly and not have to stop. The hip belt usually has pockets so you can carry snacks or whatever in them. They usually have a big mesh pocket on the outside so when you get something wet you can put it in there and it won't get all your stuff wet inside of the pack. Pack material will vary also from heavy-duty nylon to Dyneema. Some will be water repellent, and others you will have to have a pack cover when it rains to protect your stuff.  And of course, they come in all kinds of colors. Choosing the right pack is a big choice, so do a lot of research and try on as many as you can to make sure you're sized correctly for the most comfortable hike.  As I said earlier, I started with an Osprey 70-liter bag that I got from REI. I next went to a 40-liter bag that I got off of Amazon. And now I use a Zpacks Arch Haul 50-liter bag. The one I use now is water-resistant and can be adjusted in many different ways. You can check out my gear by following this link Lighter Pack. You can see my gear loadout and how much it weighs between tent and hammock and summer and winter by clicking on the list on the left. So choose wisely, and until next week safe travels and get outside.