Backpacking equipment conversations | Gear to pack for backcountry travel | Camp stoves and water filters
How to source inexpensive jackets and layers.
Billy Newman Robert Biscarret
Hello, and thank you for listening to this episode of The get out there podcast. My name is Billy Newman. I’m here with Robert biskra. How you doing, Robert? Hey, Billy. I’m doing well. How about you? I’m doing good, man. Thanks for calling in doing Episode Five. We got we got the feed started. We got a couple episodes up. It’s kind of fun. Thanks for doing the podcast. Yeah, we’re moving right along. We’re getting a couple in for the little bit of time that we’ve been doing it, but so we finished up a conversation. In Episode Four, we talked about some of our experiences backpacking, like I was talking about the wallflowers you’re talking about that King range chip you had. And I know at the end of it, we spoke, we just kind of come up to that idea where we wanted to talk a little bit about some of the equipment that we brought with us, or like some of the breakdown that we had and the gear that we’d bring when we were backpacking. Or when we’re doing other stuff. I wanted to break that that idea down with you a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it’s it’s pretty important it can make or break a trip kind of depending on what you have or don’t have. Yeah, I’ve definitely miss packed before. Oh, yeah. So Oh, God, Robert. Oh, I was just gonna I was just gonna say you tend to overpack or under pack. Let’s see, I think well, so I guess I’ve gone for backpacking. Originally, I was overpack. Now, it’s probably still overpack, but I’ve gotten it. I’ve gotten a pretty tight when I’m in shape for it. I do an okay job. But what I noticed there was when you like you accidentally or you just mishap and don’t bring something that you really needed, like the way it’s always been for me is like a sleeping pad, or something like that. Like it’s like that thing where it goes from like, it’s like 30% less of a comfortable trip just because of that one thing that you don’t have. Yeah, weighs so little. Yeah, you have you have everything else in association with it. But you don’t have that one piece that I think that’s happened a couple times before, like, I don’t know, it’s probably happening with like my stove, or food or something like that. Like we talked about Tabasco on our last chip. Yeah, that that just one ingredient. This would be rad. See, I’m
I’m the opposite. I always tend to overpack I, like I, I go overkill. I just start getting into that mindset of like, Well, okay, what if I had to make a splint? Well, okay, well, I need rope. Okay. What if I had to do that? And I just get into all these, you know, hypotheticals and then reacting for every situation I could think of, I’ve backed through way too many hypotheticals. Yeah. But you know, what’s funny is, you do all that planning. And then the one thing that would happen would be the only thing you didn’t compensate for.
It’s really true. Sometimes that’s, that’s a real part of the compensation about the outdoors, you get, like, you can plan for a lot of hypotheticals. And I want to break this down with you to later probably, but like the idea of like, equipment that you bring, versus risk, like, How likely is that risk to happen, that you need the equipment? There’s probably some different experiences we’ve had around that. But it’s just kind of like a weird idea of how much how much effort goes into preventing certain types of things. When maybe like, a lot of that stuff can be handled with like a Leatherman, I guess, if you think or like, yeah, some some Swiss Army knife. Yeah, exactly. orbit, like some level of good bass gear, it seems like that’s the thing that I’ve gotten the most comfortable about in the last, I don’t know, a couple times a backpacking or like the longer times that we’ve done backpacking, when you get like, a little bit more focused in on just the few things that you need to do for that five day period, that you’re going to be there. Because that’s a really, that’s the big thing. And the, it’s weird how you noticed this, the longer that you go out, the less you you finally realize, the less you need to bring at all. Like, if you go for 80 days, you almost need to bring nothing but if you’re going for three days, you seem like in your mind, you need to bring everything.
Yeah, that’s that’s funny, you bring that up, because that’s exactly how that works. Isn’t that like, I don’t, I don’t know if it’s like the the complex of like, you just can’t, you just can’t really foresee 80 days in the future. So you just you kind of give up, you’re like, well, I can’t even plan for this, you know, yeah, I’ll just bring my minimalist stuff. Or where I’m three days, you’re kind of thinking like, well, this might happen. This might happen. day three, okay, this, I’ll need this.
Yeah, you’re trying to navigate every corner in every maneuver of this future map of circumstances that you might run into. And then you can
Yeah, you do the thing where like, you know, you’re going for three days also and you’re like, well, wow, I have so much room. You know, I only have three days worth of stuff, which is pretty minimalist. And then you end up going, oh, well I got this and this and then snacks before you before you know it. Yeah, you just pack.
Six Pack in the top. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s happened a couple of times. I was trying to think about how that worked out for me. I remember early on when I did when I did like a couple early backpacking trips. We talked about this in that first episode, I think doing some stuff on the lower road. Maybe the second one. We’re, yeah, that first chip, I did the 40 whatever, miles down the lower road. And it was just way rushed. And it was way too heavy and all the stuff you like, we brought a bunch of cans, we didn’t have a can opener and like, like, What was this? What was the system that was going behind this, like, you get things that work in a kitchen, but there’s no system and that that helps you? You know, do that in the backcountry, I guess. Or to keep things good or, like purify enough water to have a that’s always that was always one having so otter with you. So that’s something I want to ask you what kind of what kind of water purification? I have always been under, under attack about this. Like I really wanted more equipment for water purification, it’s probably well, you know, I’ve been fortunate a lot of the time. But yeah, it’s it’s been risky, maybe one or two times, but I’ve only ever had this squeeze bottle charcoal filter, like you fill it up with maybe 12 ounces of water and you squeeze it out of this filter. What we would do Marina and I when we go backpacking, we were up in the well, ours we were up in the Trinity Alps, we were up in the Tetons, it was a lot of spots where it was like really clean snowmelt. So worked out on our favor a lot of times on the other hand, there was times where we were on the lower rogue in the canyon, and there’s really no good you know, as mosquito puddles or whatever it is,
that’s, that’s where I caught Giardia. Oh, yeah, mosquito puddle. But that’s Yeah, that was that was nasty. And that was my filter broke. And that was the biggest thing I learned was a, I don’t know, you always hear an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yeah, like it’s man, just maintaining your equipment, cleaning it after every trip doing, just doing the basic maintenance that your equipment requires.
That’s something I’ve not understood for a long time. And yeah, that the system that we had for water was super, basically we just we’d fill up the 12 ounces, we put the top on and we’d like squeeze, you have to like kind of crush it through the charcoal filter to get it to those those moves slow to way slow. So you fresh it out. So we’d have like our Nalgene bottle, like between our knees and our hand just kind of like crushing down on this creek water that we were trying to push. We’re trying to put an analogy, we had like three or four of them that we had to sit at the creek at to pump out you know, I don’t know two or three liters of water to take back the camp with us or to go hiking with for the next rest of the day. So I used that I use just that one filter for like three years. I’m like, wait, you wait too many gallons of water, I think for that until the chocolate is finally broke off. Or you know, like the whole filter unit just finally broke off. I figured it’s probably it’s probably does it have that break off on a trip? It did? Yeah. That’s when they always do. Yeah, well, I think it was. I know we were on a trip and we realized we really couldn’t get water. So that was tough. But I think I think that was up in the Trinity app. So that was Yeah, that was in like Northern California. And we were fortunate enough that we just didn’t get sick, but it was like it was snowing. I mean it was super, super cold. super crisp water like right up above the treeline.
So yeah, when you’re the treeline, you’re usually pretty safe. I mean, your your chances of having an animal defecate or die in the creek or something is pretty minimal. Yeah, but But yeah, I know. We’re in Kings Canyon. There were a ton of places where I mean after the Giardia incident was kind of like you know I’m not taking any chances but sure the same time you know if if it was if I were ever in the situation where I needed to take the risk I couldn’t really picture a better place to take it.
Oh yeah, it was like that. What do you do? Okay, like iodine tablets with you for water purification ever? No, I haven’t. I’ve heard they’ve kind of got a funky taste. I don’t know. I’ve heard that they do too. But I guess I’ve heard like well I think maybe this this situation like we’re talking about is you said that maybe around for your your backup water supply? No, no would you not do it? I just GRT all the way man what’s your what was the water filter that you picked or pick now?
Cuz I need to buy with this specific name of it, but it’s a attitude or and I love it man. It’s like It’s like to two liters a minute. So it’s actually pretty Yeah, it’s super-efficient. And but it’s got like a filter band on a hose. And then it’s basically got like a hand lever like he would see the old the well pumps back at like the turn of the century how people would gather the groundwater. Sure, that makes the same same basic setup, and then it runs through a filter. as like a sediment trap that’ll catch any large sediment coming in. And then it goes up through like a carbon disk. And then it comes down through a charcoal filtration system. And then back through an actual, like, I don’t know, some kind of cloth filter. So it has three, three variants of filtration before it actually gets through to your
to your G Nalgene bottle or whatever your Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Has it worked out pretty well for you? Like, did you use that down river a lot? Or did you guys have other systems on the boat when you’re doing?
You know, we carry all of our own water on the boat? Like, before we leave? We’ll we’ll load up, you know, five or six, five gallon cans of water. Yeah. Okay, that’s bigger that makes, so we just bring all that? Yeah, I mean, when you’re running commercial, stuff like that. It’s just, I mean, any type of risk you can mitigate?
Yeah, I figured you wouldn’t use it for commercial stuff. But I was wondering for you, or like, if you had, like, if you’d put it through a lot of repetitions of its pace, you know? Or what I guess what I was wondering is like, how long does it last? What’s the kind of maintenance that you ran into with the issues you had with your Okay, so,
so what I didn’t do, they have new gaskets that come with it, okay. They have new carbon discs, they have new charcoal that you put in there. You need to keep the gaskets lubricated. So that way, when you let it sit for a year and a half before your next trip, you don’t pull it out. And those gaskets are cracked. Oh really. And that I just kind of had, you know, the hailstorm of all three of those things, where it was just like my sixth trip that I’d used it over the period of like three and a half years. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I just didn’t maintain it, and ultimately ended up kind of paying for that.
Man, that’s so sad. That stuff. Well, you know, lesson learned, though. Oh, yeah, sure. Hit that. Yeah. I remember there was a there was one ship that we did. She This is the nutty thing is that, like when in origin, it’s great, because you have this luxury of just being able to carry a water filter with you and have this assurance that you’re going to run into consistent water supply, for your whole backpacking trip through the wilderness. We have a lot of creeks and stuff, a lot of the places maybe you and I’ll probably go are in like mountain areas where like we’re talking about like going up into an Alpine lake or something like that. There’s no way that Creek feeding off of that, or some kind of snowmelt system through that draw. And you’re going to be able to pull water from that for the for the time that you’re there. But what was tricky is, is when we were out further east, I think we were out in Utah, we went to Capitol Reef, and we did a backpacking trip there. And yeah, it’s tricky because out there, when you get into Utah, or probably anywhere in the southwest region there, you have to bring all the water with you on a backpacking trip. So it’s just part of the way you pack. It’s pretty nuts. And it’s I think it’s like a ratio of about two gallons per person per day, which seems, you know, relative reasonable, really, but if you’re doing just a couple days, that means like each person is carrying another eight pounds or, you know, eight gallons of water, which is a ton. Yeah, which is 64 pounds of water. It was I remember we did we did Capitol Reef. We had, I think, four gallons. So I think Marina and I both had two gallons, maybe I think I might add more gallons. But she probably cared a lot of gallons of water. And we get all this water up there, and it was a lot. It was ridiculous. But uh yeah, it was probably another 30 pounds each. Yeah, no, I believe it I mean water is super heavy and it takes up a lot of space. It takes up so much space. Yeah, there’s a picture of me just kind of strapped and gallon jugs. We didn’t even have like a system of like, we don’t like even a camel pack. That’s like you know two liters that’s ounces. Yeah, you’re gonna get an hour Yeah, so So yeah, you have that full that’s on your chest and you have like three just gallon bottles of water kind of strapped around your back
Did you did you have like a like a pole strapped across your shoulders with
the big bucket side? I put over the top of my head is a high ground. Yeah, there that’s like the environment that it seems like you’d need it but it was strange because they were I think they were a couple water sources around but they had dried up by that time in the year, you know, they’re seasonal. I think they’re like, in that area the desert and it’s it’s really remote out there when you get out the Capitol Reef because there’s no big town near there. Really? Oh, you know what I mean? I mean even I guess Death Valley is kind of the same way but but Las Vegas is sort of close to it. But out in Capitol Reef, man, there was nothing out there. And it was just super dry and super. It was super caustic to your your being what you were out there. What kind of what time of year were you? We were there in October. And it was okay. And it was still pretty high. It was that it was still like oh man like in the day. This is kind of hard. To do, but we did, I think like a handful of miles in to this arch that was back there that we were at a camp by and we had a couple days out there. It was cool. It was really remote. It was interesting to see some of that landscape out there. But man, there was no water to be found. It was just high desert. Like, there was like a mud pit. There was maybe four or five miles further. You know that that was like the saving grace back in the 1800s. When you’re a frontiersman in that area. Imagine that with no gear no water filter. No, yeah, you’re out of water for a while, but there’s a chance that there’s this muddy pit. That’s like a natural spring a few miles up this way. And you might be able to get enough water to survive to your next drop off. days, man, it’ll days, that would have been terrible. Yeah, yeah. You think about what the frontiersman would have had to have George just get through to get through dealing with waterfalls, or, I mean, obviously, they’re not filtering their water, but just dealing with the water sources that they have to encounter.
Yeah, I don’t even want to think about that. They’d argue that we’re probably live in the good old days. That’s probably
But yeah, I don’t think I’ve had like a big problem with the water filter before we’ve done what we because we’d always like have it so that we just have like a big store of water on it’s where we were when we were moving. And then well, I was gonna ask you about like, if we were moving on from, from what we were talking about, I wanted to talk to you about like the stoves that you that you would bring. Have you brought like a stove with you much backpacking or or do you try like, not well, yeah, cuz you do. Just the jet bow food all the time. Right.
Yeah. So that’s, that’s my primary is my jet boil. I mean, you can really do just about anything in there. Yeah, it’s great. I mean, they’re there. And there’s so many different ways to use it. Like, one thing you can do is just, I mean, if you have time, I mean, YouTube is such a vast Information Center. You can go in there and just look stuff up and just like ways to be creative with the Jetboil. I mean, they have they have instructions on how to how to bake in your Jetboil Oh, you can bake a mountain cake while you’re up there.
I didn’t know that I burned I lost. Like is it just like it just goes to like, hot right away? There’s I don’t know, I don’t know how you bake in it. But that’s really cool.
Yeah, it honestly it seemed like more hassle than it was worth, but yeah, so I have a slice. But I mean, but it is possible. That’s cool. So other than that, I’ve just got this like this cheap little. What is that? It’s like the isobutane. Is that what we run those?
I yes. I remember what it is. I don’t remember that little stove. That’s a cool one. That’s a good backup stove.
Yeah, it’s just like, you know, I think I paid like 30 bucks for it, man, the things tiny. Like, it’s just a little backpack and stuff. It’s awesome.
Sure. I think those are really useful. You know, we did. We did like our 50 day trip. We did that with just the Jetboil. And we did as much as we could with that, that second trip that we did for like 100 and 110 days or whatever it was. Yeah, we did that with the Jetboil. We had to buy like a propane stove. Like just a single kind of the same idea as a jet boil or a backpacker stove where it’s just the burner that fits on top of the top of the tank. We had a buy one of those halfway through the chip. And it was nuts because like we just worn out the jet boil. It was nuts because like so I guess when you use one for 110 days straight. They have a hard time. Yeah, if you unscrew and screw back together, but we still cobbled it together to work because we like we needed to boil water. I remember it was out on the Oregon coast. I think it was a spot that we had taken you to after that. Was it like sisters rock area? Oh, you remember when we were there. That was really cool. That was a cool spot it was fun to so we were there the year before I took you guys there. And we had camped there for the better half of a week or so. And we were using the Jetboil to make coffee and do everything with it. But the the stove part, the threading that goes down where we connect to the gas candidate canister had started to wear out. So it would pop it would blow the stove off of the tank. Like the threading would just it would just pull apart and so it was like it was leaking and you couldn’t get it to seal tight enough so that you could you could get a connection from the stove to the tank to draw to burn.
So that brings me to something I want to bring upon this. Yeah, is a big thing that I factor in when I’m packing is materials to fix stuff. Oh yeah. Like that’s huge. I mean, like one thing that was good to have in your pack is that it’s it’s like the plumbers tape. It’s like a thin nylon that you wrap around threading to to make a gasket essentially. They make it for for gas. So like propane. stuff. It costs like a buck 29 at, you know, your local plumbing store, Home Depot or something. And, and that’s great to have in your pack for exactly that situation because those threads are like a thin aluminum, you know? Yeah. I mean, they’re not meant to be taken apart and put back together 1000s of times. Yeah, I have a lot in a situation like that. I mean, that gives you, you know, it’s going to create a seal. And you could probably, you know, milk it for another month or two. doing that.
Yeah, so that’s, that’s exactly what we did in the moment, when we were out there is we took, we took the electrical tape that was in the glove box, and we kind of like a slip of that, just like, we had to do this, like, all the time we, we’ve set it up on a new canister, and then we would not break it down. We wouldn’t touch it until that canister was finished. But we use it for almost the rest of it. Like the part on his sister’s rock on the coast. That was like day 15 of 100. So he’s using the rest of the time. We had a we had to kind of supplement it with some other thing. Yeah, but But yeah, we just we had to put a little bit of electrical tape around the threading, and then try and like gently work it together. So that would hold enough so we can boil our water and cook our food. But we did that a lot of times, man, we ran through like another half dozen canisters of fuel before we finally probably retired that thing.
Yeah, well, that’s great, man. I mean, that’s that’s what it’s about. That’s what’s cool is like, being on those long trips, or you know, even just a trip or you’re away from things, like it forces you to be resourceful and kind of, oh, man, I love that you’re on what you can do with what you have.
Yeah, I can’t broke our tent pole broke. At one point it was in the wind, a tent was set up, it was weighted down, the wind came in while we were hiking it, it crushed that time and it like it just torque that thing over. it snapped one of the poles. it snapped the one that was kinda under the the heavier tension load. There’s a few that were, it was an interesting tent design. But there’s there’s, like, you know, one that was like, it didn’t matter. There’s the other one that was torqued around 180 degrees; it was almost like both points were almost touching each other. That thing just like crashed as the tent rolled over on its side. We were like, well shoot. And it was kind of a weird town, we couldn’t really get a replacement pole in that length and that size. And so we had to like figure out a way I think what happened is if you would imagine now that the there’s the aluminum piece, and then there’s the peg of the next aluminum pole as it comes together with your template selection color. Yeah, that color. What had happened is that is that the it just broke out of that, like whatever piece inserted into the piece next to it, it just snapped out it kind of like broke out that that first top inch of a piece of aluminum. And so we went over to this can that we wasn’t like a coke Can I think was just like some Tin Can that we that Chilean, something like that, or some canned tomato. And so we like clipped that down and had a roll that with a pencil to get like a little tube. And we’d like to roll that around the broken part to be a splint for our tent pole. So we could keep together on a camping trip. But we still I mean, the tents still like that we use that tent for like another lightning like we’re saying, and they’re like six or seven months. Way too. Yeah, that’s awesome, man. What was that, like? On the 115 days, man, it was so cool. Well, that that goes back around to what we were talking about a little bit at the beginning, when we were saying It’s nuts when you think about what you need to bring for three days, versus what you need to bring for. In this case, like 100 days, my thinking about it was not very clear, I was only thinking about like the first week it was really just bring everything, bring everything, have it in your car, be loaded down. I even did this the year before in the car. And I thought I like knew better. But I didn’t know that I cut down a lot of stuff, it was a lot easier the second time around. But you really notice that almost everything you can leave home in a big way. As long as you’re yourself and in some level of resources around you. You can probably get through or, you know, like survive most days and get to the next one in in a significant amount of comfort. You know if you don’t put yourself through hell, I suppose. But it worked out really well. It’s time like for it was strange because I guess what I would say is after maybe the first two weeks, first three weeks, I’d say after 15 days, your body acclimates. To do what it’s doing in a kind of weird way. I don’t know if you had the firefighting or, or if you’ve had it in like some other situation. But it seems like after maybe some number of days, it seems like you just get a little less dirty every day. Or you’re you slam a little better at night. When you Yeah, there was no way you can sleep that well.
Exactly. But that’s what happens, man. It’s like your body just acclimating. Actually, I was talking about that with my dad yesterday. We were talking about how You know, where we live, it’s pretty quiet. So like, we go and stay somewhere like in the, in the center of like a city or something and you can hear people talking and you’ve got street lamps on total and you’ll, you’ll lay wide awake for the first few nights, but then by night three, you know, it’s like you just get used to the background noise and stuff and you just tune it out, you’re just falling asleep. But it’s the same thing with being on the road or being up in the hills. It’s like, Alright, you know, you get past that initial Oh, I’m dirty feeling and then that’s just the way you are. Yeah, it’s really just, you adapt to what you do. And there’s, there’s physical
things to that happen. Like, I swear that I mean, maybe like a suntan is a good example of it. When you’re on you have no exposure, and then you’re put underexposure, a lot more than you’re used to you get burned is sort of what happens so like, if you bet if you build up a tolerance to if you build up a tan, then you don’t get burned. You don’t get that caustic effect from the exposure, the sun, sort of the same way of camping or being out in the wilderness for a handful of days. It seems like he got a little bit a little bit better at it. Like I remember, I mean probably similar to a sunburn, but man, my lips would chap like crazy as soon as I got over into a different type of climate, or I guess, just a drier atmosphere or something like that. But yeah, as soon as you go east of the Cascades, man, my lips would chap immediately or if you went up in elevation, like up into like an Alpine area. Oh, yeah. But then after I know what, one week, two weeks or something like that, it just wouldn’t happen again. And then just thing Yeah, where you get, or like I The thing that I remember the most, this is maybe more of just an awareness piece. I don’t know if this happened to you. But I remember I would get cut a lot when I first went camping. Or Yeah, like now like at the beginning of the season, if I went out I’d probably like get, I don’t know, some kind of weird, some number of Nicks. From circumstances I was putting myself in with a pocket knife or with wood or with something I had to do. But I my hands would get cut up more. And then, after a pretty short amount of time, I didn’t run into any more injuries like that. Just the circumstantial injuries, the small like, Look, yeah, so you get into it just well stop. Yeah. And
that’s, that’s funny. It’s the same thing like, so I work in carpentry, and I can I can count probably 27 cuts between the two of my hands, that, like they’re just little one. I mean, a couple of them, you know, are there, you know, oh, yeah, you keep hitting them or hurt when you got them. But it’s just like, they’re everywhere. And you come home at night, you look at your hands and go What? Like, you’re like, Oh, that’s a pretty open wound. I didn’t know about that, you know, that’s just your body just stops interpreting that is like a distress signal. And it’s like, this is the norm, this is just what happens. Yeah. And it’s kind of like the scent, you know how, like a new smell will be really overpowering. But like, obviously, you go to the landfill, right? And then you spend an hour there and you can’t smell it. Yeah, so what that that is, I’m sure you know, but it’s a it’s your body’s defense, you know, it detects new sense and makes them strong, so you’re aware of them. But once your body figures out that it’s not a threat to you, and your livelihood, then it dissipates and just becomes, you know, a subconscious scent that you’re not actively selling.
Yeah, I totally get that. I’ve heard that before about like different scents and stuff that come through. It’s weird. Yeah, it’s probably it’s probably an effect. It’s really similar to that with the stuff about cutting but but man, I remember it was so weird, because we were just in the Camry at the time this old 92 Camry. And like we would notice that we really just wanted to get rid of most of the weight of the things that were in the car, we only needed a backpack or two backpacks, you know, is just nuts. When you figure out like, oh, man, none of this stuff is really like what we need to get at. We really only do these two or three or four things. And we do this pretty repetitively. You don’t need the rest of this stuff.
Yeah, no, you don’t. And that’s, that’s what I always enjoy that. Like when by the time you get done with a backpacking trip, or a road trip or something, it really makes you realize how little you need to actually function in your day to day life. Yeah, absolutely. Just just how much excess stuff you just carry around for no reason. You know, you come off a trip like that. And you’re thinking to yourself, you know, I live with nothing but a toothbrush and just like, you know, a lot of talking to you. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then you come home and you’re like, Well, what do I have all this stuff for? No. Yeah.
It’s definitely happened. I wanted to ask you about like the downriver stuff that you did on the road. When you were like, Well, I know three or four day trips. Like what that was like and are like so how much gear Do you guys carry down? I mean, there’s there’s for the guests and stuff, but kind of cutting that out a bit like for yourself, how much gear would you think that is per person? Maybe
so much. Okay, so, so us as guides, pack, I don’t want to say minimally, but we pack them, the necessities while staying comfortable. As you know, it’s like, you don’t want to, to under pack because we live down there, you know, 90 to 100 days out of the year. So it’s like you start, you know, really trying to figure out what you enjoy, like good sleeping equipment. Nobody. Nobody goes light on that everybody brings great sleeping equipment. What’s the best equipment to bring for the letter of dammit, man, I’ve got what’s called a roller caught. It’s like a nylon material that is it’s like a rubberized head-on even that explain it. But it’s like a measurement.
I saw yours. And I really want that look cool.
It’s great. They’re super durable. I mean, they’re really strong. They’re waterproof. You know, I couldn’t ask for anything better. And they roll up to the the, you know, the length of your arm and everything’s lightweight and aluminum. It’s just a good caught. But anyway, that’s called a roller caught. But yeah, we take that I take a sleeping pad to kind of create a barrier between the air beneath mean, and shaking bag. Yeah. Yeah, and bring yourself a nice pile of a sleeping bag. And you’re good to go,
man that it looks like a really good setup. I like that that cart system that you had, and it says happened, like almost no time at all. Yeah, you
can have it put together in a matter of, you know, less than a minute.
And it seems super durable to like it’s not really going to be affected by being weathered over a couple seasons.
Well, yeah, you get like fabric carts and stuff like that. No, you know, just between the Sun and the water and whatever else. What other elements are getting to them, they’ll just kind of rip and tear eventually. Yeah. But now when we go on those trips. We the guides for the company pack a pretty happy setup, should we bring in? We bring a full kitchen. So we’ve got four, you know, stand ups those. We’ve got tables and pots and pans and jugs of water and coolers and you know, I mean, it’s really it’s really a big operation that we do. Yeah. And then you know, the guests bring whatever they think they need to be comfortable with. Over the course of three or four days. And like we were talking about when we can potentially overpack on a backpacking trip. People can really overpack when they’re not carrying their own bag around. Oh, yeah. You know, they’re like, and you get a lot of people do that are from, you know, really urban settings and getting down there and the candy and it’s kind of really outside their comfort zone. Totally. I understand just got so much stuff. Yeah. But that’s why they hire a gear boater, right.
Yeah, yes. Yeah. That’s cool. So um, so like, probably a good amount of equipment. What if you and I just went on a trip, and we had to haul out to a different river, it was a little further away. So you’re kind of trying to cut down a little bit? Like what kind of equipment would you bring a sort of a lightweight, single boat trip
with a lot of that would depend on what the fishability of the river was. If it was potentially eating fish. I would cut down on food a good deal. It depends on just how comfortable you want to be. I mean, if you’re if you’re interested in just having kind of a you know, a back to the basics really kind of fend for yourself experience. You can go really light. I mean, you could go backpacking and light with just a little isobutane stove. Oh, that’d be cool. I don’t really want to do something like that. We should. Yeah. Well, I’ve thought about that a lot. I really want to do one of those. And I want to do like a high desert trip like that, too.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, high desert rafting ship. Now, a high desert camping chip that was like backpacking, like that kind of
Alpine. cottontails and in streams, man. Oh, man.
Yeah, like hunt, hunt, and fish for all the food that you have. Or have a couple backpack meals or something? Yeah, yeah, obviously bring it back up. But yeah, that would be the idea. That’s a cool idea. Yeah, well, I like the idea of doing it on the on the river that I thought that’d be kind of fun. I have it set up kind of like a like a backpacking ship with a raft. I was wondering how self sustaining Could you be from a raft on a raft ship like, like, how many days do you think you can do?
a raffle? Well, I just had some friends that went on the Colorado and they just did
33 days, 33 days, but they run into stores, right, or do they have anything like that? Like, it’s it’s probably planned that day.
I, I, from what I understand they packed everything because I Oh, wow, if you’re not familiar with river guide culture, everyone’s pretty poor. So it’s not like, got a ton of money to spend on places. So, I mean, really, it’s like you kind of go on the cheap. But I mean, you bring the biggest hang-up is what you need to keep cold. Like if you need to put stuff on ice and things like that. Yeah. If you can cut that stuff back, you can really be very self sustaining. Yeah,
yeah, I figured that was what we noticed car traveling to is man, like having a having a cooler was a constant liability, where we just have to keep doing it. I always lose. Yeah, and we’re always losing energy. Like, it’s always it’s always going out. We’re spending a hand like probably a good bit just on ice traveling around. And we finally figured out like one of the things we were talking about earlier, what you think about beginning versus what you think of the end, man cutting down on a cooler or cutting down on ice and things you have to keep cold constantly. That was the biggest improvement of the the maintenance that we had to do for like our trip travel. Yep. stuff. It was it was so frustrating to try and like always keep that and like you’re always throwing away stuff that’s gone rotten in some way.
Exactly. And then also, when you’re in a car, you know, the heat inside the car generally is amplified when you’re in? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. But the big thing on like, if you’re packing a cold cooler, whether it’s rafting or camping, or whatever it is, keep it shut as much as possible. You know, every time you open it, you’re gonna lose. It’s gonna heat up in there. So I mean, just keep it shut. A lot of times, you can duct tape the seal. So you don’t lose any, any cold air from there. And do that. And you can really keep food cold for a long time. Or just go to the store. If you know, you’re going to be gone for 10 days, get a couple blocks of dry ice and put those into a cooler that just a cooler for your eyes. And then you keep that in there. You keep that wrapped with duct tape. And you only open it when you need to swap it into the cold. Cool. That’s a smile. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You know, you’ve got an icebox and then a cooler essentially.
Okay. I like that. I like that thinking that’s kind of that’s kind of interesting. You know, we finally invested in a Yeti cooler, like one of those thicker, lined coolers with like the rubber straps that come down. So like clamps itself down the lid. Yeah. How do you? How do you feel about that? They don’t they don’t sponsor us so I can talk. I can speak my mind. I think that they are I think that they are too expensive. I think that they do keep ice. Well, and it is. It’s like one of the better, better ways I’ve seen of a cooler. What do you what’s your experience with them?
Well, I have little experience with them. But I don’t know. I mean, it just seems like I mean, yeah, they hold eyes really well. And if I was buying it, for the only reason is to keep ice cold. Sure, then then I could validate that but it just seems like your pain. You know, like 75 bucks on a cooler that it’s interior area would hold a six-pack of beer, maybe? Oh, yeah. Yes.
That laid out. 20 court one that we have is small. Yeah. I think that the concept guide right. Nuts use device. Is that you okay? So first you have your cooler Of course, just in the back of your truck. You get a bag of ice. You put the bag ice in the cooler. You shake it around, you leave it there for a half-hour just to chill the cooler. Just because it’s too hot inside. Right? Then you dump that bag ice completely. That’s gone. Then you put then you put three bags of like, cold ice in there. I think there’s like coal ore. What is it? Like? There’s wet ice? Have you heard of that? Like, it’s like around like, what? 32 or seven? It’s like kind of Yeah, running in a liquid. It’s what you get at every convenience store. Because they turn up their their freezers to like, as high as it Yeah. But then yeah, so you throw in another three bags of ice, like almost it’s like three quarters full at that point. And then you can put in what you’re talking about maybe a six-pack of beer in there to keep it in its system, you know, to keep as much ice in the ratios what it thinks you’re supposed to. But at that point, it says at least you can keep that for like five days. If you keep the lid shut like you’re talking about it’s it’s Yeah, really well so you can keep that for a long time. It’s not often something I’ve run into as needing but okay.
Oh, that No, I was just saying I I find they work fantastic. I mean, we use them on the river. And I mean they’re they’re great for keeping eyes but I mean using them as a cooler but you need to get in and out of and that’s where you lose that so much of your cold air and stuff is those leads all the time. Yeah. So it kind of doesn’t really matter whether or not you’ve got a Yeti or Coleman or whatever it is. It’s when you’re in and out of them. You lose the axe. Yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, I see. And that’s just kind of what it boils down to. So in that case, I’d prefer to have something with a little bit more area to actually keep food and stuff.
Yeah, no, the the Yeti one that you see like maybe at all right? Yeah, that was a pretty tiny one. Have you seen the big ones like are? Well, probably stuff that you guys would have figured it’d be the same. Yeah, same size coolers. We have the really large Eddie’s Yeah. And I’ve seen the stuff that goes on, like the commercial fishing boats. Like the batches like is huge. Why? Like, I mean, like, see seafaring boats, like these giant, like, bench size Yeti coolers that they build into the side of the thing that they’re supposed to throw in fresh catfish. But that’s got to be expensive. Oh, yeah. It’s got to be an insane custom order, like $5,000. I mean, I guess at that point, it’s just like, Well, yeah, we’ll make whatever cooler you want. You know, it’s just like plastic and styrofoam at some point. So Exactly. There’s another company. There’s like this other company called Arctic. Like, I think it’s our T IC. And they do knockoff Yeti coolers. They they I don’t know, drop shipping from China or something like that. But they’re like, they’re like maybe 100 $150 cheaper than the Yeti cooler price. So it kind of brings, it brings him back in that range of like a Coleman cooler, or like something else that’s, you know, more real. Yeah.
And that’s, that’s the thing, and you start price and coolers, and it doesn’t really matter what level of cooler you want to get. Honestly, I mean, for anything decent. You’re looking around the 100 bucks. Yeah, yeah. It’s really charming. Yeah. And I mean, that’s, that’s just kind of like, you know, your average. Yeah. I mean, with the
Yeah, snaps on the side that you take to the to the tailgate,
you can get those guys for like 39 bucks, or something, you know, but it’s like, but if you get into like a steel-belted cooler, or anything that actually supposed to function correctly, right when you’re out on a trip. Yeah. I mean, you’re kind of looking at a minimum of 100 bucks.
I figure that’s, that’s definitely true. Yeah, man. Yeah, that’s what that’s that’s another thing too, is like how much money you can invest in your equipment like that? Well, we were talking about that boat, you know, getting a custom Yeti cooler. It’s five grand. Yeah, I know. But yeah, man. I don’t know. Do you have any other stuff to bring upon this? I’m sure we’re going to talk way more in the future about like hiking equipment.
Well, I did I did want to touch on you. Aside from like, your basics, like a water filter, your freeze-dried foods, things like that. What are some things that you bring in your pack? Not on a car trip, but on a backpacking trip? That you know, just just the important things aside from the the obvious?
Oh, yeah, that’s a good question. So I mean, I know. I try and keep my pack under 40 pounds. is what I’ve done it Yeah, each of the tabs. Well, yeah, I really try to keep it pretty light, which I guess is a little bit what we’re talking about. I don’t know what to bring at a point. I got my tent. Which is a it’s just a couple pounds. I got like the stove. You know, the I got, let’s say like, three of those or you know, like a handful of backpacker meals and some Clif Bars. I’ve got a way to start a fire. I’ve got Yeah, I’ve got like my iPod, or you know, like my phone or something like that charged up. Yeah. And so I’m trying to think of the other stuff. I mean, it’s probably close that I bring, that’s always been the spot where I bring more weight than I need to because it’s always like, some kind of like, it’s it’s like cotton t-shirts, or another pair of jeans or something like yeah, oh man. And the worst one is like another pair of shoes. That’s been the, I mean, cuz you want that. Like, like, at least like a pair of boots. And then like a pair of like river sandals. Like there’s always been a situation where I want that. I know that’s been for you. Like when honestly that’s
that’s been huge for me. I did that on a king strip, you know, bring sandals. I mean, if even if you’re not getting into the water, it’s just nice to let your feet breathe and, and just give your feet some type of different support than the hiking boot that you just put 20 miles on.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I noticed a turn that Yeah, I really needed to switch back and forth between the two, but I was always frustrated cuz you got to like store the pair of shoes somewhere. Yeah, which isn’t that much way it’s fine, but they’re always kind of an awkward sort of bulky size. I was trying to think other stuff see, like when I go out or I think I was looking at a picture from the flowers. And I was thinking back to that ship of like special things that I brought or like different things. And what I would do, I think like we talked about last time, I always bring the camera bag with me so is the there’s the backpack of whatever it is. But then like around the front, there’s like the camera bag with a couple lenses. And that’s just not glass. So there’s really no economy of weight going on there. Yeah. And, and yeah, there’s like a tripod, which is like metal, legs and stuff you don’t need To be carrying, but it’s just like a lot of weight that you have to like heave up to the top of the mountain. The other thing that I was gonna say that I brought was like a keyboard. This is and that thing probably in your mind. Yeah, yeah, you’re losing me here. Go ahead and explain. Yeah, I brought a keyboard that I connected to my phone, and like to my iPad, so that I could do some of the like editing stuff that I was trying to do. Yeah, which is silly. And I probably wouldn’t do it again, if
you guys did want a lot of editing and stuff. And a lot of journaling. When you guys were out there
was what we were trying to do. Yeah, so it was a lot of like, there’s a lot of stuff, it was a weird job where you go like out in the woods, and you take a bunch of photos and you try and like file and write about the photos while you’re there. And I’m like this kind of thing. You see it on Instagram, every once in a while, like these, these cool tent offices, you know, somewhere on the back entry and someone you know, hanging out in the in the tent with the window up and out to wherever and they just got their, their like iPad, or their, their MacBook or something like that in the tent on top of the sleeping bags as they’re working through and editing, whatever, but you kind of think about like how light some of these things are. And you can haul them up there and work with them pretty easily now, but the problem is power. So is the thing about like a MacBook or a laptop. I couldn’t support that. I couldn’t power it up there. But what I did do, and I think your dad turned me on to this for the first time it was that gold zero. Solar Panel kit. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I bought one of those. It was just like that. And I use that thing a time on those backpacking ships if you workout for you. Yeah, I, it was the first time I’ve been using solar power. And really the only thing that it does, it’s like two panels, maybe about about the size of your, you know, your two open palms or so, you know, it’s like the size of like a good book. So it’s really not very big at all for like solar energy. And all that it produces is enough to run out to a USB charger. So you can charge your phone. And that was really what I was going for. So it was cool that you could just be out for a week or indefinitely if you wanted. And you could keep your phone or your iPod on. And you know, when you turn it into airplane mode, the battery lasts for really quite a long time. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we use that we had a couple apps on it that we’re using the donor to connect anything, but it’s you can use that to file stuff or to write stuff or to record a video or to do whatever else. And and so we could do that as much as we wanted to. And then just recharge it the next day. Yeah, the sunlight on the solar panel. It was cool.
That’s great. Yeah, we when we did Joshua Tree, I was taking like a photo journal or sorry, a video journal of the whole the whole trip. And that was eating up a lot of battery and I was I always use airplane mode for that. Just to save that battery, but we took with us a little charging station, which is actually kind of cool on those road trips. It has enough amperage to actually jumpstart your vehicle. Yeah, I’ve got one of those. And then yeah, you’ve got you know, you got USB ports and stuff like that in there. And I think those are greatly useful. Yeah, yeah, super great. I mean, because honestly, sometimes you get out there and it’s just like, man, if you woke up with a dead battery and you’re just 15 miles from anywhere Oh, yeah, see another person? It’s been a huge concern a number of times Yeah. And with the way vehicles are going anymore, everything’s in automatic. So it’s not like you’re gonna compression start your rig. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it was it was scary. I remember there was a couple of texts I was driving around that Oh, camera you man. You remember that? Like that was not that was not always reliable car. Especially. It was it was the best guy but I remember there was a him like had this problem you know, if you left it in an accessory or with with over that your lights could be on mode was it would kill the battery in like a half-hour or less. Like if you if you left if you just left it on accidentally or you know, the the stereo was on while you were away or the door was open or something like that. It would it would kill the battery. It was like you walk into the gas station. Yeah, I mean, you probably could do that. It did that. In fact, a number of times, man, little things you had to do. But so how many how many 1000s of miles did you put on that car when I sold it? When I bought it? It was 250,000 miles, which is a lot to buy across just the spring chicken at that point. Just a smooth quarter million. And then when I sold it, I sold it for the same price. I bought it and that was with 367,000 miles on it.
Yeah, you’re the only person I’ve known that made money on a vehicle. You just put 100,000 miles on it and made money off that car man you to drive it that Camry That was great. No. It’s
a cool car. It was a blast in free as basic of a little sedan as it was. It really did a lot of stuff. And yeah, it was it was really fun. But it was scary though. Yeah, sometimes I remember being at this campsite. Where like the battery, I think died. Unfortunately, I think there was someone around that helped us like jump it right then. But yeah, there was always like something about that in my mind. And I think the next trip that we went in, I did have one of those jumper kits in the car. And it works pretty well. Most of the time, I would recommend, I think what you were talking about earlier of, of, would you say like keeping up with and maintaining your equipment, man, maintain that charger, because it’s got to keep that thing charged, kind of in the wheelhouse of the same season that you might use it in, because it does kind of lose it after a little while like I had one. Like you know what, I don’t know that next winter after it went from 100 degrees out to freezing out that battery is toast. And it’s not really going to give you the amps. You need to jump your car. I think I ran into that one time. Yeah. Or I don’t know. I did what I drained it on the charger my cell phone,
something like that. Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. That’s a one thing I can say in especially is like, I don’t know, for me anyway, as I get into better equipment. I’m more motivated to take care of it. Oh, yeah. Then really maintain it. You know, when you’re starting in your, in your teens, and whatever, you kind of just Oh, yeah. 30 $30 sleeping bag, not a big deal or whatever. And then, you know, you just ruin things I burn through unintentionally. But yeah,
I mean, those things that they don’t hold up the same way. And so it’s like, that’s, I think a good bit of why they’ve been replaced over time is that burned through a couple $30 sleeping bags? And you know, season two in the zippers are twisted and split. And you know, what, what’s going on? Right? stuff with the 10 stuff stoves, stuff with filters. So
yeah, and, and honestly, when it comes to outdoor recreational equipment, you really do you just get what you pay for. Oh, yeah. Man, I, I, I just got to that point where I was, like, do I want to buy the $30 sleeping bag three times? Or do I want to buy $120 the bag once? Yeah. And you know, and that’s just what it came down to. And so I started getting a little more picky when it came to choosing my equipment
I’ve been trying to buy. Yeah, and there’s a there’s a range of equipment, there’s some equipment, like you’re talking about, I want to be specific. I want to get the good stuff. I want it to work. And then there’s another class of it. I don’t it’s kinda I don’t know if I’ve really honed it down well, but I almost want it to be as cheap as possible because it’s so likely to break or likely to get lost. Yeah, I don’t know what that is. So yep. I know. There’s like a handful of things that I’ve gone out. And for unfortunately, for me, it’s sometimes like, well, it’s not always pocketknives but it’s like some sunglasses. sunglasses are perfect when travel sunglasses for me. Exactly. River sunglasses. I go for the cheapest ones. If they blow off my head, and you know, you know in water, whatever. There’s nothing gone I don’t care. It’s funny. I don’t want the best gear.
And unfortunately, the only way to come to that conclusion is to live through that situation multiple times.
Man I’ve lost Yeah, I’ve lost some stuff that wasn’t super valuable. But it was just like Ah, it’s just at the bottom of the river now. Like even if it wasn’t really expensive, you’re still like, Oh, I was 20 bucks. Yeah, I don’t have it anymore. Yeah, it’s a bummer, so there’s that there’s a handful of those things that have that oh, this is probably just gonna get damaged and get brought blown out whatever that is. I’m trying to like cut down on a few of those things but but yeah, I think that I remember the time I learned that was sleeping mats. You’re talking about your sleeping bag I’ve learned so many times from a sleeping mat of not investing enough in that every night like two or three the hour and a half after I finally fallen asleep after blowing up my my bad excuse for a little camping that bed at two hours after that I always wake up in the sleeping bag kind of on the rocks under the tent you know what I’m talking about? Yeah. It’s that like thing where you’re still asleep and coming into awaking when you know you just have a rock in your kidney anything and now only spent 15 more dollars on this mat.
You know what I disagree with you there? Like I’ve spent good money. Oh, several times on ads. And better. No, you know what I got to the point like so well, first off, when I’m when I’m backpacking. I just got to the point where like, I’m probably going to be comfortable no matter what. Yeah, I yeah, I’ve been there. But man, I was just like, I’m going to use the cot and use as little of the sleeping bag. had his I can’t because I have had nothing but bad experiences with sleeping pads. But they always seem to they last a trip or two and then they’ve got a hole in them. You got to patch them, or they just don’t seem to hold air. I don’t know, man. I mean, I guess you could you can get into some I’ve seen them, you know, there are $200 sleeping pads. One I got,
I got it, I got a Thermarest like, like an M, or one that didn’t have a lining on it. Some of them like the Rei, when you get it’s got this nylon lining that makes it a little tougher. This one was just sort of the rubbery inside lining of that. But I had one of those it was I think, less than $50. That’s the one that I still have packs down to almost nothing. It’s kind of cool. I don’t, I’ve never turned it down, like on the rocks, as it were, or you know, something like that. So it’s always had like a tarp or some kind of lining under it and the ground. But I’ve slept. I mean, I don’t know. Not to say that it’s been inflated all these nights, but I’ve probably put about 250 300 nights on that on that mat over the last handful of years. And it’s been working out pretty well for No, it’s like it was it was deflated, maybe maybe three or four weeks after I got it. But anyway, you gotta you gotta like, it’s just sort of you come to this point where you’re like, Oh, no, I just wake up at 215 and a 410. And it’s 635. And I just reflate the mat, and then I go back to bed. It just becomes part of your nightly routine. Yeah, it’s just just what you do. Yeah, just like getting up to take up the old air mattress. Yeah, it’s a Yeah, it’s on the same schedule. It’s like, it’s like auto timing. When when I needed to get up and but yeah, it was it’s it’s been silly. I got that’s on the list for this year for 2017. I’m gonna try and get a new mat. Yeah.
So she got to do man figure out what’s important. It’s like, yeah, every year you try to buy like two things that will make your camping experience much better.
Yeah. Yes. Have you seen around with those, those like, it’s not foil, but it’s just like a dense foam mat that sort of collapses down into a little block. I’ve seen that like strapped to some backpackers. Kids before, but it’s just sort of like this light foam mat that they crunch down into a little, little deck. I don’t know, it was weird. I’ve not I’ve never really used anything like that. But I bet it probably works really well for him. Yeah, I’ve
kind of been curious about those. And the other one I’ve heard good reviews on this is from some people that I backpack with that had one. But it’s like, it’s it kind of contraries your body in a way that it kind of holds you inside the mat. It’s inflatable. But it’s got this kind of like it’s almost the same shape as your mummy bag, but the sides kind of like protrude upward to keep you in it. Because I don’t know. I mean, I’m sure you know, man, you get the lightweight sleeping pads and stuff. And you find out really quickly that you just roll off of them in the middle of the night. Yeah. Or whatever. You know, it’s just like, they’re hard to stay on. I mean, yeah, like, I’m not a large individual by any stretch of the imagination. And like, they’re narrow, though. They’re like, yeah, they’re super narrow and thin. And yeah, I guess this guy Jimmy that I was backpacking with was telling me that he loved it. And I forget the name of the producer. But anyway, yeah, I guess it was really great. That’s sweet.
Um, I’m away I’m probably way under-educated to really get in deep about like, a lot of different gear, the different manufacturers of outdoor gear, you know, and yeah, like that. That catalog of equipment is sort of swimming around in my mind. But I can’t really pin down like a ton of different things. I’d be like, oh, what about this? Robert, what about this? What have you talked about the feather day? I don’t, I don’t have anything really? I don’t know. I think we’ve probably talked about a lot of it. Man. I’m a basics kind of person. I don’t really care if it’s like North Face, or Patagonia or Acer tech, or Marmot or something like that. You know, it’s not really like super important. And I know you’re kind of most my gear, most of my layers are from goodwill. That’s Yeah, they’re old to men. And actually, that’s one of the best pieces of advice I might I might give to anyone who’s bothered to listen to this point deep in our podcast, which Thank you, by the way. But it’s not so like, it’s, it’s one of the best values that you can get for outdoor equipment was cruising through and having a really specific clear agenda of the of the types of things you want to get out of goodwill. depends on your area. And you got to go like I did in Corvallis. Man Corvallis was a goldmine for Hey, don’t be giving away. All the hardships Corvallis, goodwill, I pulled out I bought like a great North Face fleece out that fit me. Yeah, it was pretty It was $8 boom, there. Go Marina got me this, this Marmot shell, this blue Marmot shell for like less than 12 bucks. It was awesome. That’s like a $200 jacket. I replaced it with a new one. And it was it was like 200 bucks at Rei.
It was so expensive even like, yeah, I mean, yeah, you’re getting quality. But man, there’s got to be some point where it’s just like, Ah, it’s too much money. Yeah, I like I go in there and I’ll shop the like the clearance rack with my gift card that I get for like a birthday or something. You know? But you’re still like, wow, this is a $60 flannel or something.
I don’t see the value in some of it. Like we were talking about, there’s like good things and bad things. Man, I went big on a rain jacket. I’m a work outside all the time you like you You have big on like the boots that you have for for fire season. And like, there’s like sometimes it’s like, oh, that’s I need that. I need that thing. A lot of the time. Maybe you don’t need a new one of those. Yeah, or whatever, whatever it might be. But I go big on rain gear. Yeah, that’s what I’m your big. I put my money in having a having a good thermal layer. And I got a pretty expensive but like a nicer rain jacket, like a GoreTex rain jacket to go over. And man that thing is saved me like being out here in Oregon. I don’t need really any other layers Other than that, and I’ve noticed that you can go from like snow, to warm weather to like really intense rain. And you can pretty much keep that same, like set of layers go in that whole time. And it worked well. Like Yeah, but it’s rad when you finally like get something and say, oh, this is like this is what I need. This is good enough to answer for all these different situations will be in.
And that’s what yeah, I won’t go light on on anything that keeps you warm and dry. I’m sure yeah. First off, I don’t even know if this is a really good way around. Going. You know going getting around the expensive stuff on that. Oh, yeah, it all seems to be pretty steep no matter where you go. But yeah, like I mean when it’s hot, you can always shed layers like you can always remove clothing sure cooler but when it comes to being cold and wet, man that that’s the difference between a good trip and a bad trip or a good trip and a serious change
right my experience a ton I mean just just kind of working outside of gigabit through the day. Like data coming through with like some snow on the on the hills like a little bit higher up in the elevation right on the valley floor. It’s nothing, but it’s it’s pretty lousy. Winter weather. It seems like right now. But it’s like it’s just waves of rain. Like every 45 minutes or so. It’s like 45 minutes on 45 maybe 10 2030 minutes off. Then back on to just kind of this drizzle this light rain drizzle. It’s coming down all the time. And if it weren’t for the like, whole head cover hood and an GoreTex like outfit I’ve caught on. I’d be soaked all the time. Oh, man. Yeah. shoes. Shoes are a huge one. Like, we should talk about hiking shoes sometime. Like cuz you gotta like Well, what’s it What’s it the boot that you go for a lot. Mine are the marrow. Yeah, the marrows. Yeah. Yeah, I like those man. I I’ve never had Merrill’s. But they seem pretty.
They’re a great boot. They’ve got you know what, honestly, when you price shoes, shoes are expensive. They’re expensive when you’re looking for, honestly, so I’m not even gonna say these are expensive. The $150 range.
Yeah, but same as a pair of Jordans. Yeah, exact same as a pair of weigh less. weigh less than Yeezys. Uh, yeah, no, they’re great boots, man. I love them the mid top. But we’ll save that for another podcast. Oh, yeah. Hey, um, so, you know, we always talk a lot about electronics in the field and things like that in different ways that you take your stuff out there. And that’s because you are a photographer Billy extravert you take great photos. So for anybody listening if you want to check out Billy’s photography, I believe what it’s Billy Newman photo comm.com you
got it right man I appreciate all right. Yeah, check out check it out photos, check out this podcast there. It’s it’s hosted on that site if you want to check it out. And yeah, the get out there podcast, the feed is up and going. We’ve got information about that Billy Newman photo comm you can check it out on iTunes. That’s what I recommend. If you’re hearing this, you probably already figured out how to get into the podcast app and look for this but if you are, give us a review, or rate it or subscribe to the podcast that helps us out a lot in the first eight weeks. We read that those numbers are going to be three and then two of them are you and I Probably it’s probably you and me and our girlfriends respectively. But it’s but but we have passed. And this is great news, and it’s under a week, and we’re under five episodes. In total. We’ve had 100 downloads. Whoa. Which is big time. It’s again, mostly me and you I think. I think it’s like, yeah, we’ve got around 11 listeners a show. Maybe some I know, but it’s all it’s all. It’s all ephemeral at this stage. You can’t really tell for a long time. But but overall though, man, it’s really fun I did doing a podcast with even if it’s zero people that that are listening to it. It’s still been a blast. Yeah, but you say, Hey, you know about the outdoor stuff, man, you get to talk to you about this stuff.
No, it’s great. I love I love picking your brain to you because you’ve spent, I mean, just as much time as anybody I know. doing various types of camping. Yeah, so it’s good. I like I like speaking with like minded people about these topics. It’s cool, man. It’s great. Hey, um, sounds like we might have a trip planned for this weekend. We don’t know. Oh, yeah. Harley what it is. Yeah, but we got some things in the works. Maybe we’ll do a do a little podcast from wherever we are.
We got to do on Yeah. If we if we meet up in person, we’ll definitely do a live podcast. It’d be cool.
Absolutely. So hey, for those 11 listeners out there, you guys. Stay tuned. We got a little something for you.
That’s gonna be a special treat. Episode Six. Yeah, it’s just like, Hey, we hung out today. There you go. No, but we’ll, we’ll put it together. It’ll be fun. That’d be cool. But yeah, Robert, thank you very much for doing this podcast in it. Yeah. Thank you, Billy. It’s been good. I appreciate it, man. So on behalf of Robert bisca rap, my name is Billy Newman. And thank you guys very much for listening to this episode. of the good out there podcast.