it's not always money well spent welcome back guys and gals, as always my name is matt
if you guys are new here welcome to the channel today we're gonna
do things a little bit differently I tend to talk a lot about backpacking
gear that I love and I tend to show off gear that I'm really into and kind of my
system and what I'm using we're gonna do things a little bit differently today
and I'm gonna talk about some backpacking gear that over the years
I've bought and have really come to regret making those purchases here I
regret buying or backpacking gear that didn't work out for me
that's we're gonna talk about today so we're just gonna jump into it we're
gonna talk about here that I bought over the years that really did not work out
for me so let's get into it you guys probably
hear me rent rave and talk and praise hammocks all the time so it may surprise
you guys that the very first thing we're gonna talk about in the gear that I
regret buying is actually a hammock it's this guy right here if you guys have
ever looked up hammocks at all on Amazon or seen the Eno hammocks
it's basically what this is this is just a $25 parachute style hammock that I
picked up off Amazon it's just this like really heavy cheap parachute nylon they
almost all come in these three sections with this really heavily sewn seam here
I think this seam is actually one of the big reasons that I can't stand this
hammock I get really really bad calf Rajon even just lounging in this thing
in my yard just from the seam get it on my shoulder as well on the opposite side
so yeah I'm really not a fan of these hammocks at all was actually what I had
picked up as sort of my like intro to hammocks and I've had this thing for a
quite a while when I first got into hammock camping I had a couple buddies
that were into it and I looked at the amount of money that they were dropping
on their hammock in systems like my friend Devon went with a Dutch word
chameleon and my friend Erik went with a war bonnet blackbird xlc both of them
had the custom under quilts and top quilts and everything for their hammock
setups and you know the the tarps with the doors and all that stuff so they ran
pretty pricey setups and for me looking into hammock camping I was like that's a
lot of money to invest into it before knowing if I'm actually gonna
like sleeping in a hammock so I went looking around for cheaper alternatives
this guy here is what I found if this was my only experience with hammock
camping I would not be a hammock camper at all I wouldn't even be close going on
a couple trips with my buddies Devin and Eric they they talked me into trying out
their hammocks and crawling inside an actual dedicated 11 foot both sleeping
hat which is like the hammocks I have now like my little chopper hammocks
warrior and when you dream haven't grabbed an entirely different experience
compared to laying in a little like a half to nine foot hammock like these
parachute hammocks are definitely not even worth the 20 bucks that I spent to
get it the next gear regret we're gonna talk about is one that I mentioned
briefly on a livestream I did recently with my buddies Jessie and Justin over
on Justin's Channel Justin outdoors I'll put a link to that up here if you guys
haven't checked that out yet you get a live stream over on Justin's channel
where we talked about you know we hate and I talked about this guy here
specifically who the gold zero torch 250 at one point in time I thought that this
was gonna revolutionize my backpacking experience what this is is a giant
battery bank so you've got a USB here so you can plug your USB cord into to
charge devices and whatnot it's also got a whole bunch of different light
functions it's got a little red light there and then you get this big
spotlight here and then my thought where this would revolutionize my backpack II
set up is this got this little solar panel here on the front I went and spent
about a hundred and twenty dollars and I bought this thing I've taken it on to
backpacking trips one of the trips I brought it to actually see if I could
use this as a viable lighting source for my youtube videos but the weight and
bulk of it and just the fact that like there's no way to lock it out and what I
find happens to me a lot is because the buttons are really sensitive it doesn't
take much to turn the button on and run the light and it just drains the battery
I didn't think that was going to be a problem when I first got it because I
thought oh it's got a solar panel on it awesome if you guys saw the livestream I
did with Justin and Jessi you guys will know that I am NOT a believer in solar
in the backcountry it could just be the area that I hike but in my experience
Solar has been an absolute epic fail here I tend to deal with a lot of tree
cover in the Rockies here so you centered about half your day hiking in
the trees anyways and a lot of times you get an entire summer where you get
rained on every trip he goes so I just I don't find solar a viable reliable
source for power in the backcountry I've just opted to carry battery banks with
enough milliamp power to power me to charge up all my devices to keep me
going through a trip we're gonna talk about knives this guy right here this is
the Spyderco finch - this is the knife that i use currently no joke this is the
knife i carry with me all my backpacking trips it's absolutely tiny razor-sharp
missing weighs an ounce in all my years backpacking this knife here would have
sufficed for any time that I've ever needed to pull a blade out of my pack
the only things I've ever had to cut on a backpacking trip ever has been saving
the end of a stick off to put a hot dog on or cutting a piece piece of cordage
that is pretty much it I've never really used a knife for anything else in all my
years of backpacking so that's how they carry now is a little Spyderco Finch -
but that was not always the case the SOG seal pup this is like a Navy
SEAL tactical knife it's like a Maddy sized Rambo knife this is what I was
carrying with me for a backpacking knife all right legit used to carry a knife
like this strap to the shoulder strap on my pack so I just had this like little
freaking tactical Navy SEAL knife strapped to me all the time I'm not
really sure what I was thinking and this is half a pound right there
this one I used to carry for a knife so X piece of gear we're gonna talk about
is this guy right here this is the Teton sports poncho tarp now this isn't a
direct shot at the Teton sport poncho tarp directly but just I guess poncho
tarps in general for me I first started to think about going into lightweight
backpacking this was my plan was to go with a poncho tarp as my rain gear and
also as my shelter system so I was gonna pitch this as a tarp shelter and just
hang a little bug netting inside of it just an absolute epic failure I
discovered with this real quick how much I despise ponchos out and backpacking so
uh it made it on one trip with me and that was it
the poncho tarp idea was a huge failure for me if you guys are tiny seeing me
talk about gear that I absolutely despise and I'm never gonna use again
and you guys rather see me talk about gear but I really like and really in
I'm really looking forward to using in 2020 what I'm gonna do for you guys is
put a link right up here to buy new gear for 2020 that I'm absolutely stoked to
use so when you guys are done watching this one heading over that one so as
always guys I am Maddy thank y'all so dang much for watching and I will see
you guys on the next one