Ep 67: Backcountry Fishing Gear, with Shawn Larson

Podcasts
Written By Katie Kusold

Shawn Larson (also appearing in episode 63) is back on the show to discuss his backcountry fly fishing equipment. In this episode, Shawn and I share what’s in our packs for two- to five-day fishing trips, including our sleep systems, food and cooking equipment, accessories, mapping software, and fishing gear. We also discuss some simple but effective skills for staying safe and knowing where you are.

 

  • Katie

    You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. this is episode 67 with Shawn Larson on backcountry fishing gear. All right, well, I don't think we need too much of a background because you were here last time. But today we're going to be doing a little bit more of a gear dump. Since that was kind of on our short list to talk about last time, we didn't end up getting to it. So I kind of liked your idea of just doing a dedicated gear episode. Since for anyone who's into backcountry fishing, this is a big aspect of it. It's like, what do you take and how do you fit it all in your pack and how do you prioritize things?

    Shawn

    It's definitely a deep subject that is worthy of an entire podcast.

    Katie

    probably several entire podcasts if you really want to get into all of it.

    Shawn

    You could dive pretty deep into any one of these topics.

    Katie

    Yeah. So I think we have pretty similar outlines here. Just kind of an overall category system I've got here is sleep system, food, technology, accessories, and fishing. And accessories is basically just a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit clearly in one of the other categories. So I'm sure you have something similar, and I guess we could just go through. I don't know if you have a preference for what order we're going to go in here.

    Shawn

    Nope. It's you lead the discussion. And I like that you added the actual, the backpack that you have to put all this stuff into.

    Katie

    Yeah, that's a big one. That is a big one. I feel like that's a lot of people's kind of main question is how do I carry all this?

    Shawn

    It's an important one. Yeah.

    Katie

    All right. Well, why don't we start with sleep? Because I feel like that's when you think of backpacking, camping, that kind of stuff. The first thing that people think of is what am I going to sleep in? What am I going to sleep on? Yeah. So why don't we start with that? So we can keep this pretty open back and forth. Sure. So I'll kind of let you take it away. What are you bringing for your sleep system? And I guess, should we clarify that this is probably for your typical, I don't know, two to five night backpacking trip that's going to involve fishing as kind of the main activity that you're doing?

    Shawn

    Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, two to five days is kind of my typical trip. Sometimes they're longer than that. But, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of very personal opinions and desires on tents and sleeping bags and pads. And so, you know, it could be a topic in and of itself. But and there's so many different tents on the market now. And the market has gone so much, pretty much for everything, has gone so much towards ultralight. And there's so many different choices to make. So you really have to decide how long are you going? How many people are you going to put in this tent? So do you need a two-person, three-person? Do you need one person? And there, again, it just becomes your personal preference. But for me, I think durability, because you're talking about a tent that you're going to live in that thing for X number of days. And so you want something, you need something that's going to be durable. It's not going to, you know, rattle too much in the wind. You can set up nice and tight. It's going to be water worthy, storm worthy. So that's probably one of the most important thing is to, you know, just make sure you get a quality tent that meets your needs and is storm worthy. Two season, three season versus a four season tent. Most tents these days, just to save on weight, are primarily, you know, netting, which isn't going to be quite as warm. So if you're going to be above timberline, high alpine atmosphere, then it may not be quite as warm as, you know, a nylon walled tent. So and then, of course, you've got single wall tents, floors, no floors, teepees are more and more popular. We've just talked a little bit about teepees. So, you know, it's all your personal preference of what you really need or want. So, you know, for me, like I said, it's, I don't really, I don't spare too much expense on tents because your life kind of depends on that shelter. You don't want it, you know, a storm to come in the middle of the night and the tent to get ripped apart. That's just a recipe for trouble.

    Katie

    Yeah, I think there's places to save money. And the tent, there's a couple things, but the tent's one of those ones that it's like, just spend it. And it's going to last you a long time.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. I mean, there's three things that I can think of that we'll get to each one of them that are key. That while you have a budget, that's one that you want to not get too cheap of a tent, too inexpensive a tent. Quality, I guess, is really what you're after is the highest quality tent that you can afford. So, you know, MSR, Big Agnes has really hit the scene with tents in the last probably 10 years. Local company in Steamboat. So I'm a big fan of supporting a local company. So, you know, Big Agnes tents, I've got a couple of them. I've used them for an ultralight tent. They're good quality tents. And there's another company that, it's actually not really a company, but it's a designer locally up in Louisville that designs tents and has them built. You have to special order them called the Tent Lab. And he has thought of a lot of things that the mainstream manufacturers don't necessarily incorporate into their tents, but he does. And so, and they're very livable, lots of little things about them that just make them unique and usable. And, you know, two vestibules, steep, steep sidewalls. So it feels like you got a lot of room inside and, you know, they're just, they're just great tents. So, you know, if you're going to be spending a lot of time in the tent, which typically you aren't, but if you get, you know, stuck in, if you get socked in with weather, you're hanging out in the tent playing cards or whatever. And so it's, you know, you gotta, you gotta be, you gotta make it livable.

    Katie

    Right. I do think it's important to note to, and I know we kind of got into this last episode of like, you're kind of a gear junkie. So I think you're probably more willing to spend money on good gear. And like we, we did mention if you're going to spend money, a tent is a good place to put it. That said, if you are only fishing from July to the end of August and you're fishing at like 9,000 to 11,000 feet, mostly below treeline, I think it's also important to acknowledge that you don't, there shouldn't be a barrier to entry. It shouldn't be like, I can't go because I can't afford the $700 tent that's ultra light and is great in all seasons. It can put up with the harshest storms. Like you can go to REI and get a $200 tent. And, you know, if you're, if you're going in fairly mild conditions or playing it pretty safe in terms of where you're putting your tent. You can also get away with spending a little bit less if that's really what's holding you up from going. Don't let that limit you. But yeah, like you said, if you've got the money and you're trying to go a little bit more in the shoulder seasons or trying to really push it with altitude and maybe you're camping above treeline and just some rocky outcroppings, that's when you're going to really want that extra cost because that's going to pay for your safety, basically.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. And you know, the price of tents, I think, for a good quality tent, in the last 20 years, the price of tents has really come down. You know, I have a tent literally that I've had for almost 20 years. The thing weighs, it's a two person tent, weighs seven pounds. But it's a beast. I would trust it in any weather, anywhere. I mean, I've been in some windstorms that are, that are ridiculous. And it stood up, I would trust that tent with my life, literally. It's just, it's a bomber. It's an old moss tent, which MSR bought, and they discontinued the tent style. But just the designs have gotten, the material's gotten so much lighter, and the price has come down significantly. So you can get a really nice tent for a lot cheaper than you could, you know, 10, 20 years ago.

    Katie

    Now, what are you doing when you're factoring in number of people? Because for us, like I like to have my gear in the tent for the most part. I'll put some in the vestibule, but I like having it accessible. If I need to wake up in the middle of the night and grab something, I want to be able to reach over and grab it. So we're generally going a person above however many people we actually want to be in there. And if our dog's with us, that's extra space too. Are you of the same mindset? Or are you like we can cram in there, it doesn't matter, and we're going to get the number of people that are actually going to be in this tent?

    Shawn

    I typically keep my pack. I cover it with a pack cover and leave it in the vestibule. And whatever I need comes in the tent with me and goes either at my head or my foot. And so having vestibules on the tent is important. Having two of them is kind of critical.

    Katie

    Yeah, I agree.

    Shawn

    So and, you know, if you only have one door, if someone's got to get up in the middle of the night, it makes it really awkward to, you know, fumble around and you're stepping on somebody to get out the door. And so having two vestibules, two doors, it just makes it easier to separate your gear. Yep. And so, you know, I think 29 to 30 square foot is, that's a large, I would say these days, a large two person. Most of them are typically 28, 29, maybe slightly less. So I always look for a tent. I've always looked for tents. It's about 30. Okay. For a two person. And if you have a dog, obviously, you know, a three person is almost a must.

    Katie

    Yeah, it's, it gets crowded in there. It also depends on who it is too. You know, like, are you going with your buddies? Are you going with your spouse or whatever?

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

    Katie

    In terms of the rest of the sleep system, I guess I would count like 10 sleeping bags, sleeping pad. What are you doing for sleeping bag or quilt and sleeping pad? And I would, I'd like to discuss quilts if you have any experience with them. because I just got one this year and I'm not a convert, but I'm definitely in the summertime, I'm a bit of a convert at this point.

    Shawn

    Yeah. So pads, I used to use, I used for years, a three quarter inch Therm-a-Rest Super Light. The orange one? Yep. Yep. Yep. That, that orange three quarter inch Therm-a-Rest. As I had more miles on my body, you know, my hips would get sore. I'd wait up in the middle of the night, my hips are sore, my shoulders sore. And, with the technology advances in, in pads, I'll mention big Agnes again, because they, you know, they really started making really big, thick, you know, three, four inch pads with insulation in them. And, so that's what I've gone to now. And, you know, I sleep so much better and, you have to be, they're not quite as durable maybe as a Therm-a-Rest, but if you're just careful and you know don't set them out on the ground you got something underneath they're they're fine but you know they don't weigh that much more and you get three or four inches of pure comfort yeah

    Katie

    that therm-a-rest we still have both both of us brought one of those orange therm-a-rest to this relationship like we were like oh we have the same pad and now we use it exclusively when we truck camp like when we're sleeping in the back of the truck on an already carpeted platform and even then it doesn't feel like enough at this point I will say it's durable yeah it's lasted me years and has never gotten a hole but like man once you sleep on something it's a little bit more cushiony a little bit more air you realize how cold and how uncomfortable that pad is

    Shawn

    yep well when I had that that off also doubled as my seat so sitting on bare ground is also not comfortable I have a bad lower back and so need something to sit on so you fold it in half, stuff it in a, you know, a chair and make a chair out of it. I actually set it down and it started losing air and I picked it up and I found that a porcupine quill had poked through the thing.

    Katie

    Oh, what are the odds of that?

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. But I just put some seam seal on it and it's, you know, I use it for another several years before I finally retired it. But yeah, I mean, a pad is another one of those things, just, you know, the comfort. I know some people use z-rests and closed cell foam and I when I first started backpacking many years ago that's what I used because there weren't you know the therm-a-rests were were very new and I also have my old original you know long original therm-a-rests that the kind of maroonish brown tan one whatever it is that's like an inch thick and I still have it still holds there so you whatever, again, it kind of revolves around weight and price. I mean, those big Agnes pads, there's, you know, Exped makes them. Therm-Rest makes different, you know, some of the thicker pads, and they're all about the same price. But so it's all around, you know, what you need for your comfort and what you're willing to spend on them. But being able to sleep in comfort is important to me.

    Katie

    I guess I haven't done a ton of research in different pads just because I haven't. Like we have upgraded to, I forget what it's called. It's a Therm-a-Rest still, but I want to say it's like the Neo Air. And it blows up a much, it's a thinner pad, but it blows up much thicker, much warmer. And we like those ones. And they weren't that expensive. And maybe I'm just not aware of what the other ones cost. But I would say, at least based on our experience upgrading to these new Therm-a-Rests, that I think the pad is almost like the biggest bang you can get for your buck. Like spend enough money on the pad to get something that's comfortable for you because your sleep is everything at the end of the day. And I don't feel like pads are that expensive compared to a lot of the other gear that you're carrying. You could save a couple hundred dollars on a tent by downgrading and suffering a little bit more maybe in terms of durability or something like that. But I feel like a pad, you can get something that's really, really nice and really, really comfortable for under $250.

    Shawn

    Yep.

    Katie

    And that's not the case for a lot of the other gear we're talking about. You know, a lot of these things can easily go $500 plus.

    Shawn

    Yep.

    Katie

    So I'd say that this is a good one to really put your money into it because adding just a little bit of money can really up your experience.

    Shawn

    Yeah, definitely. Yeah, and they're all similar in price. You know, the market has kind of stabilized as far as what you can get. They're very similar. It's all around design, weight. you know, are the insulated, not insulated. And then you can just get as crazy lightweight as, you know, as you want. I have found that, especially for a pad, because you're constantly putting pressure on that pad by sleeping on it, sitting on it, you know, it's on the ground. I've had ultra ultra light pads that just did not hold up. They started to leak pretty quickly, just because of the, you know, the quote unquote abuse through normal use that you're, that you're, you, that you're giving them.

    Katie

    So. Yeah. And you don't really want a pad that, you know, normal wear and tear ruins it after two uses. 

    Shawn

    Exactly. 

    Katie

    Like normal wear and tear should last, you know, at least a year or two before anything happens.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. So, but anyways, that, you know, the pads are, the pads have come a long ways from what they used to be. And, you know, like you said, it's another thing, just, get what you can afford and, and, you know, what you are willing to, to sleep on. If you're, if you're able to sleep on bare ground, then a Z rest might be enough for you.

    Katie

    Right. Go for it.

    Shawn

    Yeah, go for it. So yeah. And then as far as a sleeping bag, you know, there again, there's the debate down or synthetic. And of course, down has come a long ways. It's treated now, so it's not going to get wet. The bags themselves, the material is waterproof or water resistant so that you don't have to worry so much about because down when it gets wet is literally worthless. It's not an insulator any longer. it's a liability. So, but down technology has come so far. The materials that are used on down bags have come a long ways. So I use a down bag and I use a 15 degree bag. So, because I typically camp above tree line and you just never know what you're going to get. I mean, I've gotten snowed on every month of the year, July, August. It doesn't matter. You can get snowed on at 12,000 feet. So Western mountaineering. It's made in the U.S. and a 15 degree bag. And it's got a water repellent fabric on the bag itself. So I've never had an issue with that bag getting wet.

    Katie

    Yeah, I think I'm a down person at this point too. And I think part of that is being Colorado. I think if I live in Alaska, maybe I'd feel a little differently. I think people who live in places where it's like rain is the standard, maybe need to consider something other than down. If you're in Colorado where you get maybe an afternoon rainstorm, it might be hard, but it's not going to last all day and you're not going to be stuck in your tent for three days straight waiting for the rain to stop. Down is probably the way to go, in my opinion, at least. And I have a zero degree bag, but I sleep cold. And my thought is that it's always easy to unzip your bag and cool off. It's very, very hard at 3 a.m. when you can't feel your feet to get warmed up without getting outside and doing some jumping jacks or something. So I always err on the side of get a warmer bag than you think you're going to need. And if you get too hot, it's easy enough to slide out of it a little bit, unzip it.

    Shawn

    Unzip your feet, the foot section, and just hang your foot out.

    Katie

    And that really helps. That'll cool you down. And like I said, I've tried a quilt for the first time this year, and I've been a big fan of it. So I have a 20 degree quilt, but the quilt is easy enough to really control the temperature on in the summer because, you know, you can stick your arms out the sides. It's basically a blanket if you want it to be, or you can wrap it around underneath you. But I'm surprised how warm it does keep me in the summer. During archery season, I was climbing out of it. And that was September, so.

    Shawn

    I've only used a quilt. I don't use it for backpacking. Use it for a trailer. We have a tent trailer and use it in our tent trailer. But I do know John Hill uses a quilt and he swears by it. Really? I didn't know he used it. Yeah, he uses a quilt and I think he's a warm sleeper. And yeah, you can regulate your temperature really well. And it's definitely a new style of sleep system that's come on the scene, but it's becoming more and more popular primarily because it saves a ton of weight.

    Katie

    It does. That was my main reason for getting one was that because, like I said, I use a zero degree bag like a lot of the year because I sleep pretty cold. But having a zero degree bag means that there's an entire layer underneath you that's basically doing nothing, but it's still designed for that zero degree. So it's still full of down. And, you know, it compacts to the size of like two basketballs. Right. And I just don't have time for dealing with that, basically. So my thought was, let me get a quilt that's rated for a little bit warmer. I won't use it in the colder seasons, but in the summer, I don't have to haul around all that extra space, basically. It's not even the weight, it's space for me, because that quilt gets a lot smaller. It's still rated to 20 degrees, and I don't truly think it would be comfortable that low. I mean, most of them aren't really rated for comfort, but if it's getting down to the 40s at night, it's totally fine. That's perfect for that. Those are my two things now, and I feel like they basically cover all my bases at this point.

    Shawn

    Yeah, I haven't tried the quilt system other than the trailer camping that we do, but it is definitely intriguing to be able to save that weight and space too. It's just another option.

    Katie

    Last thing for sleep. I forgot to write it down, but I saw you write pillow down, and I use a pillow too. Boy, was that a game changer. I can't believe I went so long stuffing puppies in my sleeping bag stuff sack and calling that a pillow when I could have paid 20 bucks and gotten an inflatable pillow.

    Shawn

    Yeah. That was an epiphany for me because I spent decades stuffing all my clothes into a zipped up jacket and folded around. It's just not a pillow.

    Katie

    And you think you're being so clever. You're like, oh boy, I'm really hacking this camping.

    Shawn

    It's comfortable when you first lay on it, but it flattens out in the middle of the night and it doesn't stay in place and it doesn't hold its shape. And so it ends up just flattening. It's not comfortable. That's just another thing that as I've backpacked more and more, it's something that just goes in the pack. And I actually carry two, one for my head, and it actually has a memory foam layer, a very thin memory foam layer on one side. so it's you know got a nice texture to put your head on and it's you know you can put air in it to blow up and then the other one I actually use in between my legs and between my knees because my lower back issue if I don't have a pillow between my knees then I have back issues when I wake up in the morning

    Katie

    I might have to give that a try now I don't have back issues but you know when we're camping just being on even with the nicer sleeping pad it's it's just often not possible to really get that comfortable and I feel like that might solve my problem because I am inclined to sleep on my side but it just that sleeping on your side does not work that well on a sleeping pad you've got to kind of choose back or stomach if you want to be

    Shawn

    yeah and it's you know it's a it's an air pillow so I can put as as much or as little air in it to make it you know as as thicker or thin as I want

    Katie

    so yeah the pillow is the pillow is the blow up pillows that have come about are definitely game changers to your point and they're so small yeah like it's like why would they're nothing why would I was always avoiding pillows because I was like I'm going to save the weight in the space and I'm like it's the size of a lemon. do you fill yours up fully?

    Shawn

    no I don't I actually don't put much air in it because you know when they're full your head kind of rolls around a little bit and so the less hair you have in it, the more it sort of, you know, it cradles your head better. So I've found that it's better just not to put too much hair in it.

    Katie

    Yeah, we had the same experience. We're like, this isn't very comfortable. And then we were like half deflating it. We're like, actually, this is perfect.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

    Katie

    So. Cool. I think that about wraps up sleep as far as I've got. Oh, I do have one thing to mention that I don't know if you've used. Do you use a sleeping bag liner?

    Shawn

    I don't. I know people that do. And of course, you know, if you rent a bag, they always ask you to use a liner. I think a liner is useful if you want to get a little, a few extra degrees out of your bag to use a liner. It gives you a little bit extra R value, I guess. I don't personally use one, but it is something that I think is useful if you want to take your 15-degree bag sort of to its limit, add a bag liner, and you get a few extra degrees out of it. It acts as kind of a vapor barrier.

    Katie

    Yeah, I use it for that. If I know it's going to be really cold, I'll use it. Or if I'm going to be out there for 10 days straight, just to keep my bag a little cleaner. That way I can throw the liner in the wash. But that's about it. But yeah, I was just curious if you had used one at all.

    Shawn

    I haven't, but I know that people do use them for various reasons.

    Katie

    Did you have anything else on your sleep, or are you ready to move on to food?

    Shawn

    No, I think that pretty much covers it.

    Katie

    Cool. We can move on to food. I would put food right after sleep in terms of, I mean, technically food is probably the most important thing, but I value sleep a little bit more than food when I'm out for the most part. So I put food second in terms of kind of importance when you're out there. So I've got listed under here water, meals, and then basically everything you're going to use to cook your meals and pots, pans, stoves, et cetera.

    Shawn

    Yeah. I, I love to eat when I'm out in the back country. I love to cook good meals. Um, I've always, you know, I haven't, I use freeze dried meals on occasion, in particular for breakfast, just because breakfast is kind of challenging to get variety.

    Katie

    That's funny you say that because that breakfast is the one meal I never do freeze dried. Oh really? Well, I don't really do it for lunch either. I almost always do it for dinner but yeah breakfast is the one that I always do quote-unquote real food 

    Shawn

    so you know usually you know there's mountain house has a lot of different egg and hash brown you know breakfast skillet scrambled eggs and that sort of thing it just makes it super easy if you don't do that you're you're eating oatmeal or granola typically and so yeah I typically for for lunch you know I don't ever carry a particular meal per se for lunch it's always just you know snacks a lara bar you know stinger chews some jerky you know whatever some fruit dried fruit you know nuts m&ms that sort of thing

    Katie

    same I think you don't have a lot of time for lunch often until like you don't want to sit down and cook something you're generally on the on the go you want to grab something throw it in your mouth and if I'm fishing I'm not stopping to eat.

    Shawn

    Yeah. You're going to go sit down and cook something. Exactly. Uh, I typically don't eat much when I'm fishing. I'm, I'm so focused on the fishing that I don't eat much. So if I've got something in my pocket, I can grab and just, okay, I'm starting to bonk. I need to eat something. Um, and I'm done and I'm back fishing. So, but yeah, dinners, you know, you can spend a lot of money on freeze dried meals and, some of them are good. Some of them are okay. Um, so I know that a lot of, a lot of people are moving towards using jet boils. And so all you're doing is boiling water and throwing it in, you know, a freeze-died package and that's your meal. I prefer to kind of make my own meals. Every once in a while I'll, you know, I usually carry at least one freeze-dried meal just kind of for a, you know, storm meal. So you get back in camp late, it's raining, you don't feel like cooking anything. You just want to boil water, you know, and throw it in the packet and eat dinner and get in your tent. So I'll almost always put at least one freeze-dried meal in my pack just for that scenario. Otherwise, you know, you can make a really, really inexpensive and good hearty meal yourself out of things that you can buy at the grocery store. You know, you don't have to spend $8 or $9 or $12 or whatever on a freeze-dried meal. you know, Lipton or Knorr pasta or rice dishes that literally you can buy for a dollar. And you just add water, boil it, and, you know, you're done. It does take a little more fuel because you're having to simmer it for six minutes, seven minutes, whatever. And then let it set. But, you know, for me, it's worth it to have that extra variety and it doesn't cost you near as much. And I'll also, you know, buy like freeze-dried chicken, for instance, or freeze-dried broccoli in bulk in big number 10 cans. And I'll take some of that out and throw it in a meal just to kind of bolster it up, have a little bit of extra. You know, you buy one of those Northings, it's chicken flavored, doesn't really have any chicken in it. And a few little, you know, sprinkles of broccoli. So I'll add a bunch of that and it adds a lot more bulk to your meal and you get more calories out of it for very little expense. tuna too like tuna packets you can throw that in the little packets the envelopes of tuna you can throw that and make a little tuna helper

    Katie

    I'll give that a try I mean I there's some things I do that with like our friends turn us on to the taste of thai peanut noodles and I throw in some thai chili flavored tuna oh yeah and the whole thing comes out to about a thousand calories it costs about five dollars I think and is just delicious like you said though you do have to cook it. You're not adding hot water. You're boiling it for about five minutes. But those are great. And yeah, it's easy to overlook the fact that there are some of these kind of instant meals that are designed for people, I guess, at home on the go or whatever.

    Shawn

    I always find it somewhat interesting and I'm sure people eat them, which is fine. But, you know, I'm at REI or wherever and I'm looking at the stacks of freeze-dried meals and you see granola.

    Katie

    It's like, well, I'm not paying $12 for granola in a sack.

    Shawn

    Exactly. I can go to Safeway and buy a whole box or a bag of granola for like four bucks or six bucks or whatever it is. And, you know, it may not be in a, in a nice, neat little packet, but I pretty much just put stuff, I repackage everything into Ziplocs so that, you know, when I'm done with that dinner, that becomes my trash bag. And I put all my, I can consolidate all of my trash for five days into maybe one or two little cord Ziploc bags. so it kind of serves a double purpose.

    Katie

    I will say, so it sounds like I do a little bit more freeze-dried meals than you do, but I have moved away from Mountain House specifically. A, because they only had one or two flavors that I liked.

    Shawn

    Right.

    Katie

    I never did the granola or anything. I'm kind of the same belief you are. I'm not paying $12 for granola in a sack. Right. But the dinners I would do, but my complaint was that I'd be spending $10 and I'm getting 400 calories. Right. Because Mountain House doesn't have a lot of fat, and that's why it's good through 2049 or whatever.

    Shawn

    Right, right.

    Katie

    And I've since moved away and moved toward meals that include fat. So they're only good for like two or three years, but it's like just buy the meals that you're going to use for that year and then buy them again the next year. Right. And because they incorporate fat, not only do they taste better, but they have way more calories. You can get 800 to 1,000 calories in one of those. And I'm much more willing to pay $10 to $12 for a meal that's giving me a third of my calories for the day versus 400 calories. Well, I could get more than that just by drinking olive oil if I wanted to bring it back to that. So I have kind of moved over to that. And if people are still like the convenience and everything of the freeze-dried meals, I'd say put your money towards something that's actually going to get you a lot of fuel for the day instead of Mountain House. which I feel like also doesn't sit well with a lot of people, a lot of sodium and not a lot of other stuff.

    Shawn

    I was going to say they tend to be super high in sodium, which is understandable. But yeah, I mean, you know, the freeze-dried meals have come a long ways in the last 10 years as well. And there's a lot more manufacturers or, you know, companies that are producing freeze-dried meals. There's a company out of Alaska that makes, I can't remember what the name of it is now, but makes like single serving meals and, you know, buffalo chili, for instance, or, you know, they're not cheap, but they definitely have a lot more variety than kind of your run-of-the-mill Alpine Air or Mountain House. And that's why I sometimes will buy, I do buy broccoli or chicken or sausage crumbles in bulk, And then I will add that protein in the sausage carnival of great because it adds more fat to like the biscuits and gravy that Mountain House has. I'll add more because it doesn't have much sausage in it. So I'll just take those bulk sausage and throw them in there and add some freeze-dried cheese. And that adds your fat. And the freeze-dried cheese actually is amazingly – it travels really well. It keeps well. And it rehydrates amazingly well. You just throw it in and it becomes, you know, stringy cheese. Yeah.

    Katie

    No, I've never messed with dehydrated cheese.

    Shawn

    Or I guess freeze-dried cheese. Freeze-dried cheese, yeah. I was a little skeptical at first when I first bought it. But, you know, if you throw it in while you're, you know, reheating your meal, it works amazingly well. It's a surprise.

    Katie

    Now, what kind of stove are you using?

    Shawn

    So I typically use, here again, you have this division of, you know, do I use a canister stove or do I use a liquid fuel stove? And a lot of people have, you know, they're either using one camp or the other. I actually use both depending on the length of time that I'm out. So if I'm just going for a weekend quick, I'll just throw a canister in because one of those large canisters will easily last you, you know, three days. That's even more. Or more, depending on how much you're cooking. If you're just boiling water, they're going to last a really long time. Even the small canister will last a long time. But if you're actually having to simmer things like we were talking about.

    Katie

    Simmer's a stretch for what they do.

    Shawn

    Yeah. There are some stoves that actually obviously do simmer better than others. But that was one of the big problems with a lot of the older stoves, that they just didn't simmer.

    Katie

    On or off.

    Shawn

    Yeah, it's either on or off.

    Katie

    And on is like char.

    Shawn

    Full blast. Yeah, exactly. But the key there, actually, there's a little trick that I discovered on a whisper light stove, which never was known for being able to simmer very well, is to put as little pressure in that tank as you possibly can if you're doing a liquid fuel because you pressurize the tank on the liquid fuel. And the less pressure you have, the better it simmers.

    Katie

    Okay.

    Shawn

    Good to know. Seems kind of counterintuitive, I guess, but if you let the pressure off from that tank, you'll be able to simmer with an old Whisperlite stove. But I use, there's a stove that's no longer, they don't manufacture, they discontinued it. It's called the Simmerlite, and it is the same as the WinPro now, which is a canister stove, so it's got the same type of burner. And it's slightly different. I actually like it a little better. I think it's a more efficient burner than the whisper light with those little waffles that the flames come out the edge only. But there's a, the older version was a liquid fuel version, which was a simmer light. So I use both. I have an old whisper light. I've also got a dragonfly, which is, it sounds like the space shuttle taken off when you fire that thing up. And it will literally, it will simmer because you can get it down to literally a candle flame. It's pretty amazing. But, and I don't know if they make that anymore. They may have discontinued it recently, but, and it's kind of big and bulky, so I don't use it all that often. But if you want, you know, a burner stove that'll boil in a really short time, that's a great stove. But, you know, everything now is the pocket rocket or, you know, these other little teeny tiny stoves that you just screw directly onto a canister and they weigh nothing. You can sort of, you can simmer with them a little bit, but the burner is so small that they're not really meant to, you know, cook something in a pot with. It's just, it's primarily just, you know, boiling water in a jet boil or what have you.

    Katie

    Yeah, it depends kind of what you're going for. Most of the time we're just boiling water because we'll do a lot of like oatmeal for breakfast, dehydrated meal for dinner and various items for lunch. So it really is just boiling water. And it's like, okay, at that point, just give me like full blast. Like you said, space shuttle taking off. Just get this water boiling as fast as possible. And they're really good at that. They are. I use a Jetboil. Mike uses a pocket rocket, I think. And I'm of the belief that the jet boil boils a little faster, but it's more protected from the wind. It's kind of got a little frame around it. Yeah. So it weighs a little more. It takes a little bit more space, but I do think it gets water up to boil faster.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    But I mean, I enjoy it. It's just the first stove I've ever bought and it still works. So I haven't bothered to replace it, but I don't know if I'll be loyal to them on my next stove.

    Shawn

    We do backpack with some friends that they literally, the only thing they eat is freeze dried. So all they have is a jet boil. And I will say that first thing in the morning, when you need your coffee, when you crawl out of that tent, the jet boil is amazing at boiling water super fast.

    Katie

    Yeah.

    Shawn

    So when I want my coffee, the jet boil is where I'm going. I personally don't use one, but we have friends that have that. And I'm always, hey, can I use your jet boil to get my coffee going?

    Katie

    Yeah, it's great for that. It's great for when you want water fast.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly.

    Katie

    His is also way louder than mine, I've noticed, which, like you said, it sounds like a spatial taking off. It really does. It's like you can't hear, you can't talk over it. What about like pots and stuff?

    Shawn

    Yeah, I mean, I was going to say that's a good transition because if you're going to commit yourself to cooking an actual meal other than freeze-dried, you can't just have a single pot. You've got to have some larger pots to put the water in, boil it, and simmer it for X period of time. So, you know, the pots that I use are MSR ceramic pots, so they're pretty durable. Most of the manufacturers have kind of gone away from the Teflon because it will flake off and it's not quite as durable. And the ceramic coated ones are really super durable. So that's what I've gone to. And I've been super happy with them.

    Katie

    Now you bring like a selection or do you have like a pot that you bring? Because like he uses a, he has like a kind of a smaller pot. But I definitely describe it as a pot. Whereas with the Jetboil, I've got what I would describe more as, it's not really a pot. It's not really a cup either, but it's kind of in between. It's great for boiling water, but that's about it. But because that's mostly what we're using it for, that's what we bring. But I assume because you're cooking more food in your pot. You want more of a pot pot.

    Shawn

    So the sets typically come in, you get two different size pots. So a one liter and maybe a two liter or a liter and a half or what have you. So depending on what I'm cooking, sometimes I want to save weight. I'll just take the smaller pot, especially when I'm just going solo. I just bring one pot, bring the small one, and that's plenty. If it's, you know, two of us on an extended trip, I might bring them both or I might just bring the big one. So the advantage is that, you know, when you're cooking something in the pot and not just boiling water, well, you've got it dirty. So you either have to clean it if you want to cook something else, dessert, whatever, or you put a second pot on.

    Katie

    That's actually one of the big motivations for me, not cooking things.

    Shawn

    Yeah, clean up.

    Katie

    that pot and it doesn't help that because a lot of these things like for jet boil at least it's it's on or off you're either you're it's great at boiling water but because of that if you put food in that it's getting burned right into your pot for eternity right so when I cook my like Thai peanut noodles it's a if I'm not near if I'm near like a river or something I'm much more inclined to do this because I can go down the river and scrub but I'm not camping like right alongside water and I might need to hike for it I'm suddenly a lot less inclined to use my precious water that I've hiked back to my tent to clean out that pot afterward.

    Shawn

    Right. Yeah. Yeah. You have to, you know, as soon as you start getting into cooking, you know, meals other than the freeze dried, you're, you've just committed yourself to, to the cleanup. Yeah. But for me, it's worth it. For me, it's worth it. Yeah. Because, you know, while I don't mind freeze dried meals, I don't like eating them every single meal. So I like to have a good variety of, you know, of meals and it requires you to pull a bit of water in there, heat it up, put the soap in scrub it and you know disperse it you know away from your camp so that you're you know got a clean camp and all that

    Katie

    so how about utensils do you do like a long I say I would guess that because you're not doing as many freeze-dried meals that you don't prioritize having that like long handle and I don't I don't actually have a long handle one either although I sometimes curse myself for not yeah because I know a lot of people really like getting down in that bag but what are you using, do you have like a titanium something or other? 

    Shawn

    No, I've actually gone to bamboo. 

    Katie

    Really?

    Shawn

    Yeah. And so, you know, it's, it maybe isn't as durable as a titanium spoon, but, you know, it, it just is, it's more comfortable to eat off from. And it's a lot less expensive than a titanium spoon. 

    Katie

    Yeah, they get pricey for what they are.

    Shawn

    Yeah, really pricey. So for me, I just use bamboo and, you know, they make the, I don't know, they're some kind of a plastic. I don't know what the technical term is, but you can get the plastic ones and they're not that expensive. You can buy them at RBI or any outdoor store online. And I use those for years, but, you know, I've just kind of get away from plastic. I've gone towards the bamboo. They're starting to become more prevalent and available.

    Katie

    Now, speaking of things that, when we started talking about sleep, it's like, okay, if you've got money to spend, spend it here. I would put this on the other end of the spectrum. You could grab a plastic fork at Taco Bell on your way up and use that.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly.

    Katie

    I wouldn't put a lot of stress on getting just the perfect utensil. I mean, you can. But like you said, the titanium ones cost quite a bit for being just something that you're going to put food on and eat. I think just get whatever works.

    Shawn

    Yeah, I mean, and I don't carry, I mean, I always carry, I've always got a knife in my pocket. I've always got a fixed blade in my survival kit. So, you know, I don't, I don't carry a knife.

    Katie

    Yeah, there's the ones that like include a knife, like a fork, knife and spoon. I'm like, give me the, like a spork or a fork and I'm probably good.

    Shawn

    So I carry a fork and a spoon and that's it. And sometimes you can get away with just using a spoon, you know, get a big spoon. And because really what you're eating, what do you need a fork for?

    Katie

    Maybe pasta. Like if you're eating pasta, I can see, but even then it's like, you can probably, It's not usually like spaghetti that you're eating.

    Shawn

    Yeah, if you've got a big enough spoon, you can scoop it up in the big spoon and you're fine.

    Katie

    It's mostly mush that you're eating.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. So yeah, utensils, like you said, it's one of those things you don't need to spend a lot of money on a titanium spoon or fork or spork or whatever. And if you carry a pocket knife, I've never really had to use a pocket knife when I'm eating my meal anyway.

    Katie

    No, occasionally cutting stuff. if you happen to be bringing more real food in, like on shorter trips, you might bring in like a little bit of cheese or something and you could cut with your knife.

    Shawn

    Yeah, cut it with your knife. 

    Katie

    it's not like you're using your knife on your biscuits and gravy.

    Shawn

    We have been known to pack in, you know, freeze them solid and put them in the middle of your pack and pack in a couple of tenderloins and have them the very first night as, you know, your first meal. And, you know, then you need that knife to cut your tenderloin.

    Katie

    Yeah. Well, if you're living that large, then I think you can justify the carrying of a knife for that. Yeah, exactly.

    Shawn

    But anyways, yeah, it's not something that I spend a whole lot of time or energy. Now, I have gone down the rabbit hole of my coffee mug. Okay. Because you don't want your coffee to get cold too quick. And you also, those titanium mugs, if it's just titanium single wall, you put hot coffee in there, it's so hot that you can't even drink it. And so, yeah, I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find the perfect coffee mug for my coffee because I love to have coffee in the morning when in the backcountry.

    Katie

    Same. This actually brings up the question, though, what are you bringing for coffee? Are you doing the instant, like a Starbucks via or something along those lines? I'm doing that rabbit hole, too.

    Shawn

    Yeah, I mean, the little packets of Starbucks or there's a lot of different manufacturers now.

    Katie

    There's more of them now.

    Shawn

    That make, yeah. And actually, there's a newer company that Alpine, it's Alpine something. I can't think about it off the top of my head. But you can get the little packets, but you can also buy a bulk container of the instant coffee. And it actually tastes pretty good. And you can measure out as much as you want. You don't have so much waste of each one of those little tiny packets that you got to pack out. So I just put it in a small little snack Ziploc. You know, I measure out how many scoops I need for each morning. And I can take as much as I need and not anymore. I don't have a lot of, I don't have any waste. And I can reuse that little bag for a trash bag or what have you.

    Katie

    I'll still look into that because we're usually using the Starbucks Vias and, you know, they're a little pack each.

    Shawn

    Yeah, and it's a lot cheaper, I think, to buy it in that bulk than little packets. You don't have a bunch of trash. But yeah, I mean, Starbucks was kind of the first really good ones that made it in those little instant packs. But yeah, trying to find good coffee can be a challenge. And there's little teabag coffees, and you can do little pour-overs, and there's a lot of different ways that you can make your coffee. But I just use the instant stuff and add a little bit of dried milk.

    Katie

    As an add to that milk powder, I actually use it even more for my oatmeal.

    Shawn

    It was a game changer.

    Katie

    I just bring a Ziploc bag with oatmeal, put some of that milk powder in. So now when I put my water in, it actually has a little bit of flavor. Because I don't like the flavored oatmeal. I like just playing with a little bit of sweetness. And that powdered milk can serve double duty on coffee and oatmeal.

    Shawn

    And I found, you know, you can buy carnation dried milk or whatever. When I was growing up, you know, we had that stuff and I hated it. And it's like drinking water unless you really put it in, put a lot in. But there is a company, it's called Milkman, that makes dried milk that actually they use cream. And so it tastes far better than the stuff you buy at Safeway.

    Katie

    A little more potent.

    Shawn

    Yeah, it's a lot creamier. It's just, it's a better milk. It's still dried milk, but it's way better than the Carnation brand that you can buy or generic whatever at the grocery store.

    Katie

    I'm not sure which one I got. I got one that was just highly rated on Amazon, I think, and I've enjoyed it. I think I actually did try a little sip of it and thought, if I really wanted a glass of milk, because I like drinking milk.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    If I really wanted a glass of milk, I probably wouldn't choose this. But it wasn't as far off as I expected from real milk. And when it's just going in coffee or something, you can kind of overlook.

    Shawn

    Sure.

    Katie

    I mean, it's not like you're out there in the backcountry, like, got to whip up a glass of milk right now. Yeah.

    Shawn

    And when you're in backcountry, I think it's strange how things taste so much better out in the back. Yeah, you get at home, it's like, man, this doesn't taste so good.

    Katie

    Well, I mean, you would need a mountain house at home, but if you're hungry enough out there, it's like, oh my God, I can't wait for such and such.

    Shawn

    Yeah, it tastes like a $50 meal. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of little things you can do to save money on your meals and just whatever is important to you. If you love to cook and you like your meals versus you just want the fuel and you don't care what it necessarily tastes like or the expense, then that's going to drive what you're going to do.

    Katie

    For sure. I think that about wraps up food. Yeah. That's so much of a personal preference thing too. I mean.

    Shawn

    Water.

    Katie

    Oh, water. Yeah. I guess we forgot about water. Yeah.

    Shawn

    So filtration versus purifying. I know the Steripens are now a lot more popular where you can actually purify the water in 90 seconds or what have you.

    Katie

    So what's your preference?

    Shawn

    I don't carry a Steripen and I've never used the chemical treatments. I've never used the chemical ones either. Just because I don't want that taste. I'm sure they're a lot better now than they were 20, 30 years ago. I use a Ketodyne. The BeFree is sort of the latest gravity filter, and it works really well. It doesn't require back flushing. You do have to, you know, swish it to kind of keep, you know, the filter clean. But, you know, I used a pure pump filter for ages, for 20 years or more. But as I got older, I didn't want to kneel next to the stream and sit there and pump for, you know, 15, 20 minutes. It's so bad. It's horrible. So the advent of the gravity filters was amazing for me because I can just go scoop up a bunch of dirty water, sit it on a tree and go do something else, you know. Yep. And just let it do its thing and then go fill it up again. And I use a dromedary bag. So, you know, I carry that little bit extra weight of a dromedary bag, an MSR, and that's what I filter into. And then I fill up the dirty bag on the filter and just hang it there as a, you know, and I can, you know, six liters of water will last me breakfast, lunch, dinner, you know, my day hike, filling up my water. And, you know, then I'll have to, I'm not making multiple trips back and forth to get water.

    Katie

    When you said that a pillow was like a big game changer for you, which I agree with, I think the gravity filter was probably the biggest game changer where we got one. And granted, it's not great if you're moving a lot. Like if you're waking up, throwing everything on your back, moving all day, setting up camp, it might not be as great, especially if you're not camping near water. But if you are setting up a base camp near a lake or something for a couple of days, I can't stress enough how much better our lives were once we got a gravity filter. Because like you said, we'd be kneeling on the side of a creek and that's always when the hailstorm comes through too. It's like, oh, as soon as you need to pump water, it's like 20 degrees inhaling. and it would get clogged so easily and the hose never goes far enough out it's just like everything that could go wrong would go wrong with those pumps

    Shawn

    I mean there's you know there's drawbacks to every one of them the pumps you know those filters tend to last a lot longer than without a lot of maintenance the gravity filters you did you definitely have to keep them clean because you're not you know you've got the pressure of the water itself that's pushing the water through there so they're sensitive to getting dirty and so the ones that require like the platypus you have to back flush and so every single bag you put through it's good idea to back flush but if you're just you know conscious of that and you do it frequent enough um you can get a life a lot of life out of those out of those filters

    Katie

    yeah we carry a I carry a steripen as well depending on the situation I will if I know I'm going to be near clean water you know like I want to kill things silty water yeah and a lot of Colorado fits that description sure you know the water looks just fine it's just you want to kill anything harmful in it but if we're going to be near water that I know is going to be a little bit silty that's when I really prioritize like I just leave the steripan at home I don't want to drink silty water I want to filter it all out right right but Colorado makes it pretty easy there's a lot of clean clean looking water

    Shawn

    I suppose if you're on a raft trip or something like that where you've you've got a real silty river that you know steripan is probably not the way to go yeah unless you like drinking dirt

    Katie

    yeah exactly you don't want to grit in your in your water so all right so that about wraps up I'd say the next three categories I have which are tech accessories and fishing are what I would describe as the fun categories because everything up until now has been keeping you alive but none of it is really fun but I feel like a lot of these things are you get to play around with it a little bit more I guess I would start with tech because I feel like it's a pretty short list for me at least I'm thinking smartphone apps I bring some extra battery power to recharge my phone and I guess you could include your headlamp or something in there. Sure. But the list is pretty short.

    Shawn

    I think that's under accessories too.

    Katie

    Okay, yeah. That would probably go under either one. But how about tech? Let's do that one because it's a pretty short list.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    What are you bringing in terms of technology?

    Shawn

    So I do use my phone for some map apps like Onx Hunt or Onx Backcountry.

    Katie

    Do you use both of those, by the way?

    Shawn

    I did download backcountry, but because they charge you for both and they don't give you a deal to, you know, subscribe to either one.

    Katie

    That's what I was wondering because we've never tried backcountry because of that.

    Shawn

    But I was just wondering, is it worth it? If you've got Onyx, I mean, you know, the fact that you've got the hunting units on there and whatnot, maybe, you know, unuseful when you're just, when you're not hunting. But I still use it and it's, you know, I think the Backcountry One has some uses for winter use when you're skiing for avalanche terrain and that sort of thing. But right now I'm just using Onyx until they decide to, you know, give me a discount on two instead of one subscription.

    Katie

    That's been our thought. We're like, why can't we pay $10 more to have the upgrade? Or just like include them all because it's just waypoints and layers. Yeah, exactly. We put it all in the same one, but yeah, we just use hunt. But like you said, I mean, both of us are hunters, so it makes sense for us to have Onx Hunt. And it's like, it's also transferable to fishing.

    Shawn

    Sure. It has its limitations, just like everything else. I also use the Colorado app, CoTREX. It's not, you know, I wouldn't use it for navigation, but it gives me, you know, some information that I can't necessarily get on Onyx. There's another one that I use. It's called iHike GPS, and it's specific to Apple. I don't think there's an Android version, but it actually loads. You can load a topographic map on it, and it looks just like if you're holding a paper topographic map. So it's got the same color. So it's not a sort of digital mock version of a topographic.

    Katie

    that sounds like Gaia I don't know if you've used Gaia but so I like Gaia for at home use because they have an ungodly number of layers but it's it's too much for in the field yeah like on x is like a basically one button to switch between satellite hybrid and topo and Gaia it's like you've got to load the layer in turn down the transparency like there's a bunch of yeah too many moving parts but at home I think it sounds similar to this one you're talking about where you can basically load like a it looks like a paper topographic map that's been laid down on and got multiple of those like different versions like this is the forest services topo map this is the whoever's topo map

    Shawn

    and you can load those different maps on this app so you can get usgs you can get a forest service you can load you know multiple different types of map it doesn't have satellite the one thing I do like about that is you know you know I'm kind of a map junkie and so I like to have the real topographic map because it has the detail of topography on it that most other mapping apps just don't have they have topographic but they're not as detailed so if I really need to look at all right how steep is this hill you know that I want to go up where's where's their you know where am I potentially going to get cliffed out. And I really need to see that the real topographic USGS topographic map or Forest Service topographic map, I turn to that. So I always load that. Now I will say, you know, it's convenient to have that on your phone, but you know, the screen's only so big. So it's really hard to get a big picture view of, of your terrain. And so I always carry a paper map and a compass because if I drop my phone or the battery's dead you have nothing to navigate by so I always have a paper map and I always have an actual you know compass in my pack so that if I have to I can you know turn to that and I like to you know use that to track my position as I hike along the trail and see you know and I always study the maps of where I'm going before I go there. I look at the satellite image. I look at topographic max. I know what I'm into. Look for, use the satellite imagery to determine, okay, is this a swamp? Is it trees? You know, is it a, is a meadow? You know, what's the terrain look like? So I can determine, you know, where's a good place to set up a camp. And it's, it's remarkably useful. Yeah. So, and online when I'm doing my research at home, before I go on a trip, I actually use a website called hillmap.com. And they have topographic and satellite side by side.

    Katie

    Oh, so if you like scroll around, it moves both?

    Shawn

    Yes, it moves both. And so you're not constantly have to flip back and forth. I can literally put my position, my cursor on the topo. And it's like, okay, this is a flat area. What does it look like on the topo?

    Katie

    What is that one called? 

    Shawn

    It's called hillmap.

    Katie

    That sounds fantastic.

    Shawn

    M-A-P, yeah, hillmap.com. And it's amazing. I use it all the time so that I can look at them both side by side and I can see exactly what, you know, kind of terrain from a topographic standpoint versus, you know, what the vegetation looks like. It's incredibly useful.

    Katie

    There's two kinds of people. People who use maps strictly for their practical purposes when they're out and the people who just love looking at them. And I'm definitely one of those people that I could stare at maps for hours and hours. I mean, I do sometimes. I mean, my work time is often spent kind of glancing at my other monitor maps. But you're right in that I use Onyx or some similar mapping service 99% of the time I'm in the field. But you are limited in that you can only see what's on your screen. And sometimes you want to see the whole picture. And having that paper map does really help with that. And I also carry a compass. I think it's important to state that you kind of need to know how to use it if you're going to carry a mapping compass. And I'll admit that I'm not, I know the basics. I would like to get more advanced in navigation. But my thought with the compass is that at the very least, and I've said this on previous episodes too, I often am, from looking at things before I came in, I'm very familiar with what direction I'm heading the whole time I'm hiking. And it's, my thought is, my phone does have the compass. And that's what I use most of the time. Like at OnX, you can have it show you what direction you're facing, which makes it really easy. can just turn with your phone until you're facing where you want to go. But my thought with the compass is if I get so lost that I really need to get out and I know that the road I came in on goes east to west and it's north of me. If I just head north, I'm going to hit it. It might not be the most efficient way to get out, but I at least know which way I need to head to get to a road. And if nothing else, even if you can't read that map with the compass and actually navigate around, if you have no idea where you are, as long as you know which way you headed to get in here, roughly, you can get yourself back to at least road, which, you know, from there, you might be able to get help or walk left or right to your car, depending on which way, you know, if you know where that is. And I think that's kind of an overlooked, almost piece of emergency equipment. I have a compass in my emergency kit, in addition to the one that I carry for actual, like, use. That one's got, you know, the mirror and the, it's got a little bit more bells and whistles. I keep just a regular old compass that just tells me north in my emergency kit. So if I just need to know which way north is, I can at least use that to get to the nearest road based on which way I hiked in. I think it's kind of an overlooked piece of like very kind of cheap and easy equipment that could save your life without much skill. Yeah, I think it's very, very overlooked.

    Shawn

    You know, everyone is so reliant on their electronics that you forget about, well, what if that fails? And I'm a big proponent of having redundant systems of, for maybe not everything, but, you know, that's one piece that, you know, I have a pretty good of, I would say I have a really good sense of direction. I know I always am constantly checking my, my location on the map. I always need to know where I'm at, what's ahead of me, you know, you know, what direction am I going? I do, I do a lot of off trail. So I am constantly navigating where there is no trail. And I'm trying to find, I'm looking at the map literally to try and find a route, you know, from point A to point B. And, you know, you don't know what's there, really, you can get a pretty good idea. But that map and that compass, you just, you have to have them in the backcountry, you know, if your electronics fail, and people are, I think, sometimes too reliant on that, that if you're not, you know, if you're not good at direction, you know, what's west what's north what's south whatever you can get yourself in trouble and things can go south pretty quick so to speak

    Katie

    absolutely yeah or if you go south I mean I think this isn't gear obviously but we're kind of touching on it here I think another kind of overlooked skill is just being spatially aware yeah like just when you're walking around just take note of okay like I'm heading in this direction and I'm noticing that over this way there's this peak yeah and then you know you don't have to pull out your map again because you're you're constantly aware of that peaks position compared to your position so you can start to be a little bit more lenient like I know you said you like to look at your map a lot to see where you are and I do too like I'm constantly pulling out my phone and being like okay where am I now but I also at times say don't pull it out like see if you can get around based on what you've seen you know obviously not putting yourself in it like real risk but there's times where like I don't really need to know where I am right now so why don't I try getting around without this. And I can always pull it out if I need to, you know, readjust, but I think it's a good skill to just be more aware of what's around you. Don't be staring at the ground in front of your feet the whole time. Look up, see where peaks are, see where trees are in the distance, walk toward things you can see and keep those in your, in your vision.

    Shawn

    Yeah. I mean, that's a, that's a great, that's a great point. In fact, I, I try to purposely, I mean, you're so focused on where you're going and you're so focused on, you know, that peak in the distance, that's where I need to go and being spatially aware of what's around you literally stop and turn around what I just passed what does it look like what does it look like that way what does it look like behind me because I'm gonna have to turn around go out yeah and I don't know what the heck it looks like things look so different they look totally different like totally different yeah and so recognizing oh there's a downed log right here and this is where I need to turn so if I get off the trail it's like I make note exactly of what's around that spot there's a cliff over here there's a rock band there's a there's a down tree or whatever and turn around and it's like okay when I'm coming in from a different direction there's a peak over there that that's what I'm going to key in on so being spatially aware not necessarily what's in front of you but all around you 360 degrees especially behind you turn around look behind you once in a while

    Katie

    nothing throws off my spatial awareness my sense of direction more than dead trees on the ground yeah that fall because you're like okay I gotta walk that way that's fine but to get there I've got to walk this way for a little bit and I've got to turn and go this way for a little bit because there's only one route you can get through this deadfall yeah I know we've been talking about this recently having been you know up in the steamboat area where it's just madness yeah there is no walking in a straight line yeah you're walking only in a zigzag and over under around yeah it is so hard like I pull out my map more there in that area than anywhere else because it's it's extremely hard to keep a sense way you're facing when you're turning every 10 seconds to climb over something or whatever.

    Shawn

    So yeah, when you do an off trail, it's that then it becomes even more important to really just pay attention to what you know, what's going on around you and pick a point, as you said, in the distance, there's a peak or ridge or whatever. And that's the direction we need to go and, you know, keep your focus on that. Right. But be aware of, you know, what's behind you too.

    Katie

    So. So in terms of the rest of technology, do you bring any sort of battery pack? or how do you get your power for your phone if you're going to be out for a couple days or more

    Shawn

    I try to shave weight where I can it seems like no matter what I do my pack obviously weighs 50 pounds so carrying batteries they just weigh a lot so I have a solar panel that I'm able to deploy and it's very small it doesn't weigh very much 

    Katie

    does it work well?

    Shawn

    it does

    Katie

    I've heard mixed things I've got one and I've never actually tried it because I ended up like a power brick that I use instead.

    Shawn

    But I mean, obviously with everything else, they have limitations. If it's, you know, cloudy and raining, you're not going to get a whole lot of charge, but you know, in Colorado, it doesn't rain all that much. In the morning, I get up in the morning. The first thing I do is I, I point that solar panel towards the sun. I plug my phone in and I charge it while I'm eating breakfast. And it works really well. And, you know, there's a lot more companies now that are coming on the market. There's some, you know, solar panels, the technology is getting much lighter and so you can get a 20 21 watt solar panel that weighs like six ounces and that's ridiculous it's got two port you can charge two phones with it and so for me that's that's a lot easier than than carrying a bunch of batteries yeah because once battery's dead you're still carrying around a bunch of dead weight right so you know if you're going to be in Colorado and it's typically sunny carry that solar because you can put it on your pack and you know charge things while you're while you're walking

    Katie

    I might be interested in hearing what this brand is because like I said I've heard mixed reviews but I'm sure it's on a brand by brand basis and I do the the power brick just because I want that reliability of if it's dark I can do it in my tent at night sure I have noticed it's gotten a lot easier as phones have gotten better my phone used to it hold a charge for like half a day and if it got cold it was just dead right and I think with a lot of the newer phones it's it's easy if airplane mode, which, you know, most of the time in these situations I am on airplane mode, I can often get two days easily. And that's taking pictures, pulling out maps and stuff like that, two days easily on a full charge. So at that point it's, you know, the power break can last me a week without much problem.

    Shawn

    Yeah. Again, it's, you know, kind of personal preference. If you're willing to carry that weight, it's, it charges a lot faster that, but if I'm going out for a week and I don't want to carry that much weight, then a solar panel, you know, works really well. And I've had, I have, I've had good success. I carry it a lot, to charge, you know, my phone. Um, I don't have rechargeable headlamp, but you know, if you've got a rechargeable headlamp, then it becomes important to be able to charge that. Yeah. You know, if you're hiking, especially if you're doing a night hike in or something like that, where you're going to drain your battery out.

    Katie

    Yeah. So, for headlamps, what are you, what are you using for that? Um, Do you have anything special?Is it just like a run-of-the-mill headlamp?

    Shawn

    It's kind of right. It actually is another local company. It's called Mountain Made. I tried to find another one, and they don't have them in stock anymore. But I don't know what it is about the technology in that headlamp, but I've used the same batteries, three AAAs, literally for two seasons in that headlamp.

    Katie

    Really?

    Shawn

    Yeah. It's crazy. I don't know what they've done, but because I've had Petzl, I've had Mountain or Black Diamond, and it seems like, you know, they drain batteries pretty quick. But this one, for whatever reason, it holds battery charge for a really long time. So, you know, the headlamps, you can, there's so many different choices. You know, a lot of them have the red now so that you can use it at night and not, you know, affect your night vision. And they typically have a high beam, low beam, you know, broad versus a focus beam. So there again, you know, you just have to decide, do I want one that I can put alkaline batteries or rechargeable batteries or is it just, you know, rechargeable by itself?

    Katie

    Luckily for a headlight, so mine's not rechargeable either, but compared to something like a phone, you're not needing to charge it a bunch of times. Like you put batteries in and it's going to last you many trips before you need to worry about changing them. And I'll also let you know when it's starting to get a little bit low, it starts to dim a little bit. I've got a Black Diamond, and I think I might be due for an upgrade. I got it years ago, and it just does not hold the battery power that it did. I feel like it starts to dim after, I don't know, three or four trips usually for me. I need to change the batteries.

    Shawn

    I think the technology just in using LED lights versus an incandescent bulb, that's the biggest advantage of the newer headlamps from what they used to be. But yeah, I mean, nothing special. You don't have to spend a lot of money on a headlamp. Yeah, for sure. You know, it's unless you're doing a lot of night hiking or, you know, you need it for whatever. And it's always, you know, good to have some spare batteries just in case something happens and you have to, you know, you have to navigate at night or you have to get out at night.

    Katie

    That's always in my emergency kit. Enough batteries to fill up my headlamp. Because headlamps are one of those things that are probably not going to save your life, but it could really get you out of a sticky situation if you're trapped at night. I mean, it really could save your life if it's storming and it's night and it's cold. But yeah, my thought is I never want to be stuck without a headlamp in the dark.

    Shawn

    Some form of light. I even carry, I'm sure you've probably seen them, you just press on both sides. They're about the size of a quarter.

    Katie

    Yeah, a little...

    Shawn

    It's a little tiny LED light. Yeah, it's a little teardrop. Yeah, I don't know what they're called, but I throw one of those in my survival kit. That's a good idea. If I need some light, that thing is always in there, and it weighs absolutely nothing.

    Katie

    Yeah.

    Shawn

    And it'll last forever.

    Katie

    You throw a ton of those in there, and you wouldn't notice.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's not convenient, but I mean, if I need some light for something, and it's an emergency, I've got it.

    Katie

    What about GPSs or anything like that? I think we may have touched on this in the last episode.

    Shawn

    Yeah. I carry an InReach Mini. Yeah.

    Katie

    I forgot what you said you carry.

    Shawn

    So I have an inReach Mini as well for communication, which I don't, you know, I don't always do a lot of communicating. I typically get in the backcountry to stay away from communicating. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, it's good to have that to communicate, you know, if you need help and it's not an emergency situation. But I also carry an ACR personal locator beacon, which connects directly 406 megahertz to the search and rescue satellite system. And so the search and rescue knows immediately, you know, that, hey, there's somebody that has urgent need for a rescue. And I hope I never have to use it because the only time I'm going to use it if it's life and death. You know, if I broke my femur, I'm in trouble. And, you know, self-rescue is not possible. And so I'm pushing that button.

    Katie

    Broke your wrist though, probably just going to suck it up and get out.

    Shawn

    I'll suck it up. I'll get out. Yeah. I mean, broken wrist, I can walk with a broken wrist, you know? So, so yeah, it's, it's life and limb is the only time I would ever use one of those. It's nice to be able to communicate, especially the inReach is nice. Especially if you have two people, if you're hunting, you're on different, different drainages or what have you, or, you know, you've got someone that's coming in a day later, which I frequently do. when I go with John and Tom. They're oftentimes going in a day earlier than I am. And so it's nice to be able to communicate, you know, on the trail with our location. And so that's where an inReach or an inReach MIDI comes in handy. If you've got two people that actually have that unit, you can communicate with one another if you're separated for whatever reason. Yeah. So, and then, of course, I carry just a Garmin GPS, the old style GPS, which the phone has kind of replaced that to an extent.

    Katie

    Yeah, I feel like phones have kind of made GPSs, I would say obsolete, but it's getting close to obsolete.

    Shawn

    Yeah, yeah, because your phone is kind of serving multiple purposes.

    Katie

    And so much more user-friendly. I feel like GPS is a lot of buttons and needing to know how to navigate menus and things like that, whereas the phone, everyone who has a phone knows how to use it intimately.

    Shawn

    And you've got a bigger screen on your phone.

    Katie

    Yeah, everything about the phone is just a better experience, I think, to use. That's all I had for tech. Is there anything else under tech that you bring?

    Shawn

    No, I don't. No, not really. I think from a technology standpoint, you know, when you're in the backcountry, you don't need a lot of technology. I mean, you literally, you could throw all the technology away that we've just talked about, other than a mapping, you know, paper mapping a compass, and you could survive and be fine without it. So it's nice for pre-planning to use mapping software and that sort of thing. But once you're out in the backcountry, you know, a paper map and a compass is really all you need.

    Katie

    Next, second to last category I've got here is accessories, which could include all kinds of stuff. I mean, this is basically includes everything else that's not fishing related.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    I do have the headlamp in here, which we already talked about. Knife. I don't know if we really need to touch much on the knife. We discussed it a little bit. I mean, take a knife. I think a lot of these things can be quick touches because anything under accessories is probably not very life and death related. These are a lot of things that make your life a little bit easier. But a lot of them are personal preference. I've got like clothing and stuff in here. You can touch on that. And I also have like first aid kit and poop shovel. Which I know you're a big poop shovel guy.

    Shawn

    Yeah. So, yeah. You know, backcountry ethics sometimes I think get pushed to the wayside. And I've seen way too many places where they're just, there's too many people going to one spot. Toilet paper blowing in the wind. Toilet paper blown in the wind and it drives me crazy. You know, this Tent Lab company that I talked about earlier, they also make the shovels. And a shovel weighs 0.6 ounces.

    Katie

    So probably too heavy for most people.

    Shawn

    0.6 ounces is like nothing. You know, it's like a couple of quarters. but yeah dig a hole dig a cat hole bury a poop bury your bury or pack out your your teepee or you know if there's not a fire ban I've even burned it oh I burn it all the time yeah yeah so it reduces it to ash and you just bury it and no one will ever know you're there I mean I take pride and when I leave a campsite nobody will typically know that I'm there I try and clean it up as best I can. Sometimes, oftentimes I'll pick up trash that other people have left or, you know, the fire rings are notorious for a trash receptacle. Yeah. I'm just

    Katie

    gonna throw my, all my metal in here.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. So I'll dig through the, the, the fire, you know, rings that are around and just pick out bits of trash. And, you know, I, I tend to leave the glass cause I don't want sharp shards of glass in my pack. But, so anyway, yeah, Get a poop shovel. They're super light. They don't add any more weight and do it right. And don't ruin someone else's experience by having toilet paper all over the place.

    Katie

    Yeah. Not that I'd actually rather deal with poop than toilet paper, but I feel like it's less aesthetically pleasing to have toilet paper blowing in the wind than just having a pile of poop sitting there. Not that either one's really acceptable, but you show up and you see a bunch of sagebrush and there's just toilet paper attached to it blowing in the wind. At that point, I'd almost rather just see the pile of poop if the toilet paper weren't there because it's just such an eyesore to see that blowing in the wind. Yeah, totally, totally.

    Shawn

    Yeah, first aid survival. I have a first aid, and I think I mentioned in our other podcast, I have a first aid slash survival kit that always goes in the bottom of my pack. I have it with me all the time. If I got stranded somewhere, I could spend a night. It wouldn't be comfortable. but I could spend a night or two with just that survival kit. So it's important to have a, have a first aid kit and survival kit. You got to be self-sufficient. You got to take care of yourself and make sure that, that you know, you're prepared for whatever nature throws at you.

    Katie

    And there doesn't need to be much in there. Like my survival kit has got like a space blanket, an extra lighter with some duct tape wrapped around it, some extra batteries. I've got a little tiny multi-tool in there, my extra compass and some like waterproof matches. Yeah. And my thought is I can keep myself warm with this and maybe get my, myself out of here.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    But it's, it's going to keep me alive an extra couple of days.

    Shawn

    If you got a knife, you know, and a way to make a fire and a way to, to give yourself some, some shelter with a space blanket or what have you. I mean, those are the most important things. Fire, water, shelter. You're going to live. Those are three things that you need to live.

    Katie

    So I think some, it wouldn't be bad to put some like iodine tablets in there just in case your water purification system fails for some reason. I don't have those in mind currently, but probably wouldn't be a bad idea to throw those into.

    Shawn

    That is, that is, you know, for emergency use, I wouldn't use tablets or the chemicals, but, that's a really good thing to throw in your survival kit just in case, you know, that you're, you're stuck somewhere. You just don't have, drink off tasting water than die. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or be horribly sick for 24 hours. Um, yeah, clothing, you know, The only thing I would say about clothing is don't wear cotton.

    Katie

    Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a personal preference. I think merino is a good all-around choice.

    Shawn

    Yeah. I mean, socks, you know, as far as the cotton, even your underwear, you can get, you know, non-cotton underwear these days. And it's, you know, it's much more comfortable. There's nothing worse than having cold, clammy, wet cotton on no matter where. So, yeah, merino wool, socks, you know, carry a hat, you know, because it gets cold at 12,000 feet in the evening. So wear a little stocking hat. I used to wear shorts all the time. I don't wear shorts at all actually anymore. I just, you know, wear hiking pants. Lightweight pants, yeah. Yeah, they've gotten so light and they wick moisture and they dry immediately. I mean, I've gone face down in the creek more than once. And, you know, I've got a merino wool shirt on and super light, you know, wicking, fast drying pants on and I can dry in 10 minutes. Yeah. You know, even from being completely soaked. If you had cotton on, it's not going to happen. You're not going to be dry for several days. Yeah. So, but yeah. And the other thing about clothing, I would say that we talked about tents. Don't spare any expense. Backpacks are important also to make sure that it's comfortable. The other thing as far as clothing is hiking boots. You can ruin a trip by not having comfortable boots that aren't going to give you blisters.

    Katie

    Break them in.

    Shawn

    Break them in. Wear them around the house. I literally don't even look at the price of a hiking boot. I just try it on. If it fits and it's comfortable, that's the boot that I'm going to buy. I don't care what the price is. Most run-of-the-mill boots are going to be $200 or $300 at the most or less. So the most important thing is just try them on, wear them around the store, and make sure that they fit properly. And then when you get home, wear them around the house and break them in.

    Katie

    Yeah, that's a big one that I feel like a lot of this stuff, there are things that are objectively better than others. And hiking boots, I feel like it's such a personal preference. There's people who can get away with $80 hiking boots and they're great. And there's someone else who needs to spend $500 to get a pair that works for them. and it really comes down to who's buying your feet are.

    Shawn

    Yeah, buy whatever's most comfortable for you. Yeah. So that's the most important thing about boots. Yeah, so for accessories, I think, oh, and, you know, camp chair for me is super important because I spent a lot of years just sitting on the ground and my lower back is paying for it now. So having a chair to sit on is just so much more comfortable and they don't weigh that much.

    Katie

    Yeah, there's a variety of them too.

    Shawn

    Oh, yeah.

    Katie

    A lot of options.

    Shawn

    Yeah, there's a lot of options now with chairs that weigh close to a pound or slightly more, slightly less.

    Katie

    Yeah, I think that puts us on to fishing, which I would say is we actually don't need to touch. I feel like we don't need to touch on a lot of what, you know, like brands and things like that, because I think most people listening, this is their bread and butter. Right. It's more about what do you bring and not bring is more of the discussion here, not necessarily how do you choose a good fishing net or whatever. So I'll just say off the bat that I bring, I often skip waders. I almost always skip boots. I might bring waders and sandals. And I often leave my whole fishing pack back, but I will bring fly boxes loose in my backpack. Um, and apart from that, I'm mostly bringing just like what I fish with.

    Shawn

    Right.

    Katie

    You know, that I'm not leaving a lot of stuff behind.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    So what, what are, what's your belief on that?

    Shawn

    Um, I do carry a chest pack, just cause I, you know, I want to have some floating and you can go crazy with all the flies. Um, I, I actually built a back country box, fly box. So I have all the flies that I've just had success over the years, in this one box. And then I have a small, what I call bugger box with, you know, some streamers and whatnot. But I carry dries and nymphs. But I like having the chest pack so that I can have my tools in there. And, you know, I'll even shove some snacks in there if I'm just, you know, going for a walk around the lake or whatever. Waders, sometimes I carry them, sometimes I don't. You know, I went from carrying chest waders to just hip waders. And there's some really super light boots by SoftScience that are just ridiculously, you know, light. But you can get away, as you said, with some sandals, you know, over your neoprene if you really want to have waders. Typically in the backcountry, you know, you can get to the water for the most part without having to wade.

    Katie

    Yeah, it depends. There's certain lakes. So streams, if I'm going backcountry for stream fishing, I don't need waders. Yeah. You can wet wade. For me, it's if there's a lake and there's a shelf where you've got to get over the edge of that shelf. That shelf goes 50 feet out in the water. I'm going to want to wait out on that. But yeah, I'll just use my Tevas, put them over my booties. And they also serve as like camp shoes. If it's nice and warm out, you can wear them around camp.

    Shawn

    And I've wet-weighted too. I've got my camp shoes that are water shoes. And I will sometimes wet-weight with those. And if you've got willows right up to the bank, it's really tough to fish unless you actually get in the water. And so they definitely are helpful. As far as a net, sometimes I carry a net. Sometimes I don't. It just kind of depends. If I'm going for five days, I'm probably not carrying a net. If I'm going someplace where I know I'm going to get into some big fish and I really should probably have a net, then I might carry it.

    Katie

    I think that's kind of where I'm at is if I'm expecting to catch a fish that might be 15 plus inches, I'm going to start carrying a net. If I'm catching little brook trout out of a stream, I don't care. I'll just shake them off the hook before they get to me at that point.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. And then, you know, as far as just rods, I use a four weight just because it's, you know, that's kind of my go to backcountry rod.

    Katie

    What does John have to say about that? Six weight for everything.

    Shawn

    Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people have their go to rod is probably a five weight.

    Katie

    I'm with you. For backcountry, I tend to go a little bit lighter weight.

    Shawn

    I like to go with a lighter weight. And, you know, I've never really had an issue with, you know, landing a larger fish in a high country lake with a four weight.

    Katie

    Most of them aren't that big, too. A lot of the fish I'm catching in the backcountry, it's more about being out there and maybe quantity. It's often not a giant fish. I mean, sometimes it is. And if I know that going in, I'll adjust. But for your run of the mill, like, let's go see what's in this lake. I'm not going to assume there's like tanks in there.

    Shawn

    Unless I heard otherwise beforehand. Right. Yeah, I mean, if I know I'm going somewhere where there's some bigger fish, I might carry a larger, heavier weight rod. But for the most part, I'm using that four weight. Yep. So, you know, you can go crazy. You know, you don't have to carry. I'm guessing most people that listen to your podcast aren't wearing a fishing vest in the backcountry. They probably either got a lanyard with the bare essentials on it and some, you know, fly boxes in their pocket or whatever or a chest pack. I've seen some people carry a sling pack. you don't have to go crazy with it.

    Katie

    Yeah. I might need to get a, so I use a hip pack. I'm pretty set on a hip pack at this point, but I might need to get one of those really, really minimal chest packs. It's got enough room for like a fly box, a pair of nippers, a pair of hemostats, and maybe a granola bar. And some floating. Yeah. And I'm not going to use that on a day-to-day basis down here, but my hip pack is, it's too bulky to carry up on a lot of these trips.

    Shawn

    Yeah. Yeah. There's some really small chest packs that, that are super light and you can just, you know, put them on the top of your, or your backpack and carry them in. And, and actually I know people that actually wear their chest pack with their pack on.

    Katie

    Like a bino harness almost.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly.

    Katie

    Oh, that actually brings us to the last thing that I didn't actually have written down, but that's the pack itself.

    Shawn

    Yeah.

    Katie

    Maybe good, good thing to round out and end on.

    Shawn

    Yeah. There again, it all depends on, you know, how, how far in you're going and how long of a trip you're, you're going to be on, you know, if you're going to be out there for a week, you might need 5,000 cubic inch, pack. And if you're only going to be out for a weekend, maybe, you know, and super ultra light, everything maybe only need, you know, 3,000 or 2,500 cubic inches. Um, and I've kind of gone with both. I've used some really small day packs to go in for just a weekend just cause I didn't need to carry that much, you know, by myself. Um, and that's, you know, where I freeze drive meals because I, it didn't take up much weight and, and, I could put it all in a small pack, but, my go-to pack is, is 5,000. And, I do have some smaller ones that, but I just don't use them very frequently at all. Um, and, and I typically have a really lightweight day pack that I, you know, put my sleep bag in and then it goes in the bottom of my pack and I carry that you know for my for my day trips but you can also a lot of packs now you can detach the the lid and that becomes you know a fanny pack or whatever that you can use for just going out for the day and there's you know there's so many different brands that you can look at for for backpacks you know north face uh Arcteryx still makes packs you know I have a mystery ranch pack. There's local manufacturers. Kifaru makes hunting packs, as you know.

    Katie

    My Kifaru pack has basically become my pack year-round at this point. I used to have a Kelty that I would use during the granola season and the Kifaru that I used during the hunting season. Then I was like, it's so much more comfortable for me just to carry this Kifaru pack. It holds the weight better. Might as well just use it year-round. It's become my go-to pack.

    Shawn

    But there again, having a pack that fits right. If you're going to buy a pack, you should go to the store, have them put 40 pounds in it, and wear it around the store for half an hour.

    Katie

    That's a big thing. You put a pack on it, they all feel comfortable when they're empty.

    Shawn

    Yeah. You got to put some weight in there.

    Katie

    It's once you get a bunch of weight in there. That's the thing about the Kifaru. You're not going to be saving a bunch of money on that. You're spending a lot of money, but if it can fit in the pack, the pack can handle carrying it. Whereas I feel like my Kelty, there's enough space to put a lot more weight in it than it's comfortable wearing.

    Shawn

    Yeah, exactly. So a good solid suspension system that is going to handle the weight that you need to put in it. And just, again, try it on. Because all packs are different. All people will have different weights and the packs are all going to fit slightly different. So you just got to try it on and get the one that fits best.

    Katie

    Yeah. I think it should be stated too, at least the Kifaru, and I know a lot of the other, at least hunting specific packs, with that extra cost that you're spending, you're often getting a pack that's kind of built for you. It's sized for you. The waist belt is a certain size. The shoulder straps are a certain size. The frame is a certain size. And if you're going to save money, that's great that you don't have to spend as much, but you're going to be getting a cookie cutter backpack, which if you are, like we were talking about Mike earlier, you know, a six foot, 160 pound guy, like that's great. Uh, if you are me, you might benefit from having something a little bit more custom. Yeah. Uh, and I can't, I can't fit typical day packs.

    Shawn

    My waist is so small. I can't, they just aren't, you know, that the waist belt doesn't fit. So I have to have a small waist belt and medium harness. So you need to have the ability to have that customization to really get a pack that fits properly, that you're going to be able to carry 50 pounds for, you know, 10 or 15 miles for multiple days. So it's really important to have a comfortable pack. Comfortable pack, comfortable boots is going to make your life so much more pleasant when you're backpacking.

    Katie

    Yeah, I would say if you can get a good backpack, boots and sleep system, the rest of it's kind of gravy. I mean, everything else will, you'll make do with what you've got. But if you've got those things down, you're going to be comfortable going in, you're going to be comfortable sleeping, you're going to wake up rested. And at that point you know you can carry whatever you want for fishing

    Shawn

    yeah exactly there's nothing more miserable to have you know you get to camp and you got blisters on your your your heels and your hips hurt because your pack didn't fit right and your shoulders are sore and then your tent leaks and you're just miserable yeah I've seen it and it's not fun so yeah having having good equipment is important but you know you can you can get good equipment without breaking the bank

    Katie

    yeah you just have to you know get what's right for you and put it where it counts I mean like we talked about utensils yeah like you could save money there and put that money towards something else yeah exactly cool well I think this is about it on my list do you have any anything else to add or any final thoughts otherwise we can kind of get wrapped up here

    Shawn

    no I don't think so I think we covered we covered a ton of stuff in in the period of time we could have spent an entire podcast on any one of these topics so

    Katie

    absolutely we covered a ton of stuff so hopefully hopefully it was helpful for people just to hear us chat yeah I think I think so I think especially for people who haven't done an overnight trip before it seems a little overwhelming and it probably didn't sound any less overwhelming hearing us talk about for an hour and a half but at the end of the day put your money toward a couple key items and after that you can and a lot of the stuff you can build up over time you know buy what you can now and there's something to be said about buy buy once cry once at the same time if you wanted to buy all this stuff right now it would cost you thousands of dollars yeah you can spend your money on a couple good things now and sure maybe get by with with a taco bell fork for a couple years before you buy your next tent

    Shawn

    you know and you can rent a tent from rei or whatever if you have to if you can't afford to buy you know a good tent you want to spend the money in a pack or whatever boots or you know like you said go in you know a little bit until you know that you're committed to it and then you know then get build on it build on it and get the nice equipment that you know you need and want

    Katie

    absolutely so cool well we can wrap up this lot of fun. Thanks. Thanks for coming back for a second, around two. Yeah, it was great. Thanks. All right, guys. Thanks for listening. Uh, don't forget to head over to the website, fishuntamed.com for all episodes and show notes. And also please subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. That'll get my episodes delivered straight to your phone. And also if you have not yet, please consider going over to Apple podcasts and leaving a rating or review. That's very helpful for me and I'd greatly appreciate it. Other than that, thank you guys again for listening and I will be back in two weeks. Bye everybody.

Note:

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Katie Kusold
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