Preparing for an Ideal Weather Backpacking Trip.

Yep, it's another preparation video. So I've got a few different things to my kit this time, and that's why I want to make the video, really. I have a trip planned with my friend Doug. We're going to go up and do 35 kilometers in Algonquin Park in a couple days on a backpacking loop. 35 kilometers is equal to around roughly 22 miles. So the plan is we're going to drive there all day. It's going to take a while to get there. We won't get there until like 5 o'clock at night. We're going to walk in for about three or four hours set up, and then the next day is going to be our big day. it's gonna be our full day so we're gonna hike that day all day probably eight nine hours uh and then camp that night and then just walk about five kilometers out to the car the next morning and leave so this is an ideal weather backpacking trip and that's why things are a bit different so let's go through it clothes first off i'm bringing one pair of Under Armour uh underwear they're like a poly poly i don't know that fake stuff that Under Armour uses i like it it breathes well one merino thin merino hoodie it's a Mountain Equipment co-op brand one pair of thick socks thicker hiking socks that's all the clothes I'm bringing at all not including what's on my body what I'm wearing is a polyester top just a t-shirt pair of thin small ankle high merino socks this isn't a first for me I want to be able to dry my socks out and have thin socks it seems like ideal way to go so that's what I'm wearing in another pair of Under Armour underwear and these pants which are a cotton poly blend or a cotton nylon blend but they have the the capability of zipping off into shorts and on my last backpacking trip with Kyle in West Virginia I was rolling my pants up so that I could wear them like shorts because I really needed the ventilation these are going to zip off probably halfway through the second day even if not before that it's gonna be like 70 degrees in the daytime so i'm going to be warm and that's why i'm bringing these as opposed to i have a lighter pair i had north face nylon pair of pants but they don't zip off and i really think that i'm going to want the shorts so that's it that's my clothes period i have one Primloft jacket my light Primloft jacket that you see me wear all the time i would not go without this so every article of clothing is done i'm not bringing rain gear it's not predicted to rain the second night it has a 30% chance to rain at night i don't care i'm not bringing rain gear at all. Sleeping, I have my Astro Aerolite, my Nemo Astro Aerolite pad. I'm going to put everything in my gear list in the links in the description below, and I'm going to put weights next to it this time. I've kind of actually been liking doing that, so researching it and documenting it. So I'm going to put it there just in case anybody has any questions about it. Nemo Astro Aerolite sleeping pad. For shelter, I'm bringing this small bag, small nylon bag, and all it has in it is my five foot by seven foot Bushcraft Outfitters Mast tarp. Very, very, very small compared to acknowledging it's a quarter of the size. That's my shelter. I have an eight foot length of paracord wrapped around it, tying it together. Also in this bag, I have probably 20 feet of white paracord to my bear bag and i have probably 20 feet of this reflective cord smaller smaller in diameter and way lighter than paracord but it's the only piece i have so that's why i'm bringing some paracord as well so shelter is taken care of sleeping bag is going to be my positive 3 celsius down bag also from Mountain Equipment Co-op i've used this a lot in the past it's losing down, it's losing its warmth but in Celsius at night, the first night is supposed to be positive four, second night is supposed to be like nine or ten, so I'm good with that, I am bringing a liner, a sleeping bag liner, just a crappy little one to add maybe a little bit of warmth and in all honesty, I probably don't need it and it's probably not going to add anything but for the weight and the size, I have tons of room in my backpack, it's staying in there, what else, okay camera GoPro Hero Silver 4 with this tiny little tripod that's it and then I have um An extra GoPro battery. I have all these little Ziploc bags containing stuff I have extra little GoPro battery and this hat attachment that attaches to the brim of a baseball cap which I will be wearing a baseball cap this time No, too. So that's camera stuff all figured out. Let's go through these little bags So I have all these little bags that are going to go into one bigger mesh bag But I I separated them so I don't not rummaging through it and having to find stuff So this is my first aid and my patch kit. Hopefully did not have to use it at all It's gonna go at the bottom of the bag. This is normal toilet paper These are wet wipes a combination of the two is my preferred method. These are two bread bags rolled up into a Into a snack bag here What I'm gonna do at night is when I get to camp because my feet are going to get soaked Take off my shoes take off my socks to dry my feet slide these on put my shoes back on that way I can walk around camp without fear of getting something on my feet or stabbing me on my feet I mean or without having to put my feet back into wet shoes which isn't fun so those weigh nothing and that's gonna be a lifesaver I have hand sanitizer floss sticks and chapstick aqua mirror drops they're the Canadian version they're actually called pristine but that's what we're using for water purification Doug and I are gonna use both of these that's it for that so all these little little bags get put together in one mesh bag and it's compact it's all together it's all good so let's do food i bought a dehydrator yesterday um and i'm so glad i did no more mountain house crap the last time we did that trip uh kyle and i went to west virginia i had i had a crazy ibs attack i have ibs but it was brought on i think by Mountain House meals There's so much sodium nitrate in that, and plus the green pepperoni with nitrates in it and stuff. Just not good for you. It doesn't taste good. It's expensive. I'm not an advocate of Mountain House. I'm sorry. It's just not what it is for me. But I am an advocate of making your own dehydrated food. So in the past I've used it. Kyle has made them. My other friend Ken's made them for me. But I bought my own this time. So this is ground pork, rice, green beans, carrots, peas, wild onions that I picked and a couple other veggies in there and then in this one I have Montreal steak spice and this one I have Lowry's seasoning and I just put a little piece of tape on there to to identify it. So supper and supper for two nights. For snacks and lunch and on the trail I have a half a little brick of Havarti roasted garlic cheese, I have three sticks of turkey pepperoni stick, and then in snacks I have these little fruit roll-up things, in the future I'll be making my own fruit roll-ups but I just didn't have time this time, so I have two skinny ones and one thick one, I have a package of Crystal Light, now what I'm showing you, the snacks are all staying together, I'll finish the snacks first, I figured in the past I've wanted savoury things like barbecue chips and stuff when i'm backpacking so i went to the bulk barn and i got um uh party mix which has got like ringalos cheesies pretzels some uh fritos stuff like that in there i have one of those in my snack bag i have a mint chocolate i have dark chocolate covered almonds so all of this stuff that i showed you is gonna go in one separate um snack bag that's gonna stay at the top of my pack so i can access it easily whatever i want on the trail in the Crystal Light for on the trail when I'm getting my water now in my other food bag these are both tiny little minuscule silnylon or mesh bags they don't weigh anything my other food bag I'm not going to have to access until nighttime or in the morning depending so I don't need it readily access accessible in my pack so it can go at the bottom whatever I have those two meals for supper I have four packs of oatmeal two for each morning I have another one of those chips that I'll snack around the fire i have my spork i have two teas and i have another crystal light thing also i have i wasn't going to do it but i want to so i brought a little bit of whiskey this time i swore i'm done drinking when i'm camping because it doesn't it makes me not sleep well and all that but this is 200 mils of whiskey that's made in my city it's uh not much you know i mean two swigs out of it each night and i'll just feel a little bit better so that's that's what i'm going to go with booze wise no liqueur this time it's too much so that'll all go in a second bag like I was saying for water this time I've got the Dasani one liter disposable water bottle as opposed to an Algae I do have an Algae here I'm not bringing it but I put it in my weight in my bag for weight man put it in my bag for weight to take up what I'm going to be using which is a soft sided platypus water water I have also a headlamp a tiny little book where I'm going to keep notes with a little small pencil and this is new as well so my cook kit my cook kit everybody sorry my pot has always been my titanium Snow Peak pot it works well but last time I used my my pocket rocket and while I liked having the idea the idea of having my own stove and not relying on one of my camping partners to use their stove or fire I didn't like carrying the canister the canister is ridiculously heavy if you use all of the fuel fluid or fuel in the canister you can't throw it away you can't burn it you have to carry it still and if you don't use it all you're carrying around unused fuel so i'm going to go with the cat stove it's old hat to a lot of people but to me i've never had one before that's worked well and i think that was because of the windscreen so in my titanium Snow Peak Solo pot fits my whole cook kit. The lid can fit on it and I just have a elastic band around the top to hold it all still in my pack. So my cook kit consists of a cat stove that I made with a hole punch. Everybody knows how to do that. A windscreen from my Etowah stove which I did not like and fuel for more than four days but I'm not going for that long I just I'm gonna have extra fuel in case. This is denatured alcohol. It all fits in my stove, in my pot, and it's all good. And, sorry, a small bit lighter. And a couple of other things I'm going to be bringing, as always, my Reflectix with my blue foam pad, okay? So that's going to... Oh, and sorry, my backpack is a MEC, Mountain Equipment Co-op Spirit 40 litre. On my last trip, I think I said it was a 30 litre. It's definitely a 40 litre. It says it right on so again packing my Reflectix goes right on the back and this time I'm not putting my sleeping bag in a compression sack I found out by just testing it around here at home I don't need to I have more than enough room in my backpack this time because I'm going so lightweight that I don't need to put it in a compression sack to actually keep it a good size so literally just Stuffing it in to the bottom and then the next thing I'll put in is the sleeping bag liner Just again stuffing it in so then from there on would be the sleeping pad my my nest and my paracord will go in that bag the Reflective cord as well will go in that bag. The reason I'm doing that is just so it all stays together The bags not necessary, but I figured if I have my whole shelter set up in one bag. It's easier Oh, my food bags look like this now, so this is my supper and breakfast bag that I can leave farther down in my pack. This is my snack bag that's going to stay on the top. This is all those little Ziploc odds and ends bags that hopefully I don't have to use at all. So that can go in farther as well. And then after that, really, it's just the clothes that I'm bringing. My shirt, my underwear, and my socks are just going in loose. I'm not putting a white trash compactor bag liner in this time because I don't need it. It's not going to rain. My cook kit, and that's it. Oh, sorry, my Primloft, and that's it. So I have a ton of room. I'm going to put my food, my snack food, in the top. I'm going to put my notepad. I'm going to keep notes. I've been writing down good ideas and what works and stuff recently, so that's going in the top and little zipper part as well as my headlamp and that's it for that the aqua mirror drops the Pristine drops are going in this front pouch easy access Zip it up. My GoPro is gonna be my hand most of the time But until then it's just getting slid down in the front My water is on the side and then just for for Sake of weighing and all that stuff. This is gonna my Nalgene is gonna be on this side But this is where my my platypus soft water bottle is gonna go. It's also one liter So it'll be around the same weight. It'll be a lesser weight because it's not as heavy as a Nalgene Just a last thing shoes are my Montrail trail runners again These are tried and true for me now, so they're all banged up and dirty But they're no no worse for wear full mesh on the top the soles Have this like almost water repelling bottom, which I really like the tops get soaked But the bottoms seem to stay relatively dry. They dry easy. They come in and out easy, which is important I'm gonna be drying these every day One hiking pole. This is a McKinley hiking pole. My sunglasses and just a baseball hat So here's a look at our route coming in off highway 60. Here's the trailhead We walk 3.8 clicks to that marker down half to the 6.9 clicks. So we're walking about Roughly 8 kilometers. We're gonna camp on the east side of Provoking Lake. Preferably the last site of Provoking Lake the next day in the morning we're going to get up hike down here all here boom boom boom back up to Provoking Lake camp on the west side of Provoking Lake, uh that night and then in the next morning we'll just have like a five kilometer jaunt back to the car and we're out so i just got back from the vet with Scout he had to go for his annual checkup and annual robbery for me but when i was there, I decided to bring my backpack. I weighed everything separately, but I wanted to know the exact weight of everything. Backpack, food, water, everything all in. It weighs up at 17.21 pounds, and I am ecstatic about that. I've never had a bag this light. The trail we're doing is moderate to extreme, up, down, lots of stuff like that, so a light bag is really good. I'm pumped, man. I can't wait. So hope you guys enjoyed this video. Maybe you learned something. Stay tuned. There will be a video for the trip. Thanks for watching. I'm making a video. Oh, okay.