Let's talk about gear. When I first started backpacking I
looked like this. Ugh look at that guy.
Looks like i'm carrying around a used diaper.
That is not a good look and today at the end of the year
I look like this. Now there we go that's more like it.
That is a handsome mountain goat right there.
And between those two guys was this guy. Yeah there you go i'm starting to get it
there. You know looks a little bit better. At least all
my stuff is in the diaper. And the big leap
between this guy to this guy was his sleeping setup. When I got into
backpacking I didn't have all the gear I wasn't a backpacker.
Backpacking is an expensive sport it's an expensive hobby. But
i knew that if i wanted to get to doing 26 miles
I was gonna have to spend some money, I was gonna have to make a gear upgrade
and so what I focused on was my sleeping situation.
Sleeping bag, pillow, air mattress, and I was able to get it down for
only about 300 and this is how I did it. Sleeping bag, pillow, air mattress.
Sleeping bag, sleeping pad, pillow.
First things first I needed to upgrade my sleeping bag.
This is the Igneo 17. REI is constantly running sales, deals,
things like that and this bag always seems to be the one that they're
running on special. This is the long version, this is six
feet six inches and I find it very comfy.
I recently tested this at Independence Lakes.
It actually snowed, end of August, snowing in Idaho, who would have thought.
And this thing did the trick. 28 degrees I could tell was just right
on the comfort level . Sleeping on my back I
did notice some colder air. The reason that is
is just because of the way down works.
Down can't keep you warm if it's compressed. So if you're sleeping on your back and
that whole back side of the sleeping bag is
compressed it's not going to keep you warm.
That's why it's really important if you're going out in cold weather
to have insulation and a really good sleeping pad and this is why quilts are
all the rage right now. You get rid of that back part that's
doing nothing for you and you save some weight. I myself still
like the sleeping bag. To get lightweight, comfortable, warm
sleeping bags, it's gonna usually cost you some money that stuff just
isn't cheap. REI just has sales going all the time
they have sales for Labor day, they have sales for Memorial weekend, they have
sales for Fourth of July, they have sales for your Grandmother's birthday,
they have sales for Black Friday, they have sales for the New Year so if you
can hop on the sale, I mean that's the way to go. Now you're
probably sitting there and you're like Jon I need a sleeping bag tomorrow
there's no sale. Before I bought this one
I had another bag on my radar, which I bought,
for my girlfriend. This is the Kelty Cosmic 20. This is obviously
the female version, the women's version of it. They make this in a men's version.
Phenomenal bags my girlfriend's been really happy we've done
Trinity Lakes in the cold so this has kept her warm. It's got that
great price point they sell this at REI as well.
Super soft and it's a cool color i'm not gonna lie
I would rock this color. You know the comfort level of this one
is listed at 26 degrees, I'm not sure if that's the total comfort but you know
around 32 is probably where you're looking. Really
these comfort levels and bags and things like that people really
underestimate the sleeping pad it's not just the
sleeping bag. But this thing is going to keep you warm three seasons
and at 180 bucks you know
there's not much to complain about. So let's say for our sleeping bag we were
able to make it out spending only 179. The other thing you're
gonna need to get with your down sleeping bag
is a better compression sack than the one that comes with it.
This is a Sea to Summit compression sack, this is a 10 liter
sack. I find that is a great size even for my long version of the
igneous 17. It's pretty expensive at 35
I got the extra sil but it's worth because it really is gonna save you
some space in the long run.
And it's super durable even putting all that pressure
and pulling on it like that no rips no tears.
Next step was to find a sleeping pad. This is the sleeping pad that I started
with. This is the Static V. I feel like this is
quickly becoming the go-to sleeping pad in the backpacking community it just
works great for a great price. Weighs 18 ounces so a little bit over a
pound. You could see how small it packs up. You don't have to spend 200
bucks you can just get away with 65 and this
thing has really helped me. Now the one thing is
this comes with an r value of 1.3. If you're like me you're like what the hell
is an r value. That has something to do with insulation.
Let me explain it to you the way that you need to understand it
and the way I need to understand it. Typically backpacking sleeping pads come
with an r value rating of between one and seven.
The higher that number is the more insulation,
the better it's going to keep you warm. This has an r value
of 1.3 which is not terrible. It's definitely not a winter
sleeping pad. Normally for most of the time
you're gonna be using this and you're gonna want this. I am heading to McCall
in October. McCall Idaho in October is cold.
So I went and I got this bad boy this is the Insulated Static V
Lite. This is the insulated version of
this. It's got an r value rating of 4.4 so
almost close to this big behemoth and at 20 ounces it's only 2 ounces more
than its counterpart here. There is a little bit of a difference
in terms of like the bulk obviously this one is going to take up
more room in your bag than this one. This is going to be
the way that most of you want to go. This is going to be
overkill for most of you and then if you have the budget you can get both.
Definitely
don't get that one. Lastly a pillow, we all want a pillow, you're gonna want a
pillow, okay it's nice, it's comfy. When i first bought a camping pillow
I just went to Amazon and I typed in camping pillow,
boom and it was this thing. And this is not what you want. It takes up
way too much space in your bag and uh honestly doesn't work very well.
Get rid of that.
This little guy this is the pillow x from Klymit, the same company that made
that really awesome sleeping pad that we just saw.
Less than two ounces you can see it fits in the palm of my hand and there's not
much to say about it you should have one of these okay,
it's comfy, it works, it's durable, it's light.
If you're just a bougie bougie person like my special lady friend I just got
her the pillow X large so you can see
how much larger it is. This is a whopping 3.2 ounces and was a whopping 5 bucks
more so 1.95 ounces
this little guy runs you 20 bucks this guy
3.2 ounces runs you 25 bucks. You can't go wrong get yourself an
inflatable pillow and stay comfy. So obviously there's a
lot of different routes that I've given you to take with your
gear on a budget but I think typically this is what
you're looking at and this is a great setup for the
beginning backpacker and all of this comes to a whopping
total of...
i don't know I can't see it did I put a number there quick math divide the two
carry the four 298 dollars, I think that's a win,
that's a good place to start. Since this channel is all about Idaho and i'm going
to start doing gear review videos in the future
I want to make sure we support local Idaho
outdoor businesses. For this first video I want to give a shout out to Banana Inc.
You've probably seen them before in my videos
they sponsor me a lot. They've just been a huge help
for me getting this channel off the ground and supporting us. They
have not paid for this in any way this is all
Banana Inc stuff that i'm wearing right now. Lana
the owner behind it is fantastic she just kicks butt you know she
and her team really care about Idaho so if you want to get some sweet sweet
Idaho merch and you want to know that your money is
going to a great Idaho local business the Banana Ink shop
website is in the description below along with all the other links to the
other products, they are affiliate links, they help support me,
they help support the channel and I couldn't thank you enough for
doing that. Thank you for watching and we'll see you
next time.