hey guys it's papa steve on the move you know every year there's a few pieces of gear that
i take out of my kit for the next year some are great pieces of gear that i love and just replace
for one reason or another and some are actually regrets that i ever bought in the first place
you know if you haven't already subscribed why don't you do that now so you don't miss any of the
great content coming up i keep my kit fairly small my backpack i'm always looking to either improve
one of three things to improve comfort to decrease weight or to improve utility to that end um
there's always a few things each year that i leave out of my pack and a few things that i add in
so for 2021 i've got a five different things that i'll be changing up
now first of all i want to be clear that these are strictly my opinions i buy all the gear i'm
not sponsored so anything i endorse is my opinion only it's highly subjective you guys might love
some of the stuff i don't and and that's okay so the first item up is the therm-a-rest pro light
sleeping pad i really like this pad i kept it around because my wife prefers it to my new one
it's uh it's a self-inflating pad which makes it really handy when you're into
camp um it's a little bit difficult to deflate but that's all par for the course
it's 20 inches wide by 72 inches long by one inch thick and the rv rating is a 2.4 now rv rating
that's uh that's the number the higher the number the more insulating value it's going to have when
you're on the ground this one's made out of a 50d poly so it makes it pretty resistant to punctures
and it's pretty good pad and i mean don't get me wrong there's nothing wrong with this pad
my new one is the nemo astro light now this one's made out of a 20d poly so a little
more susceptible to punctures i kind of got to watch where i put my put it down on the ground
kick some rocks out of the way it's exactly the same width and length as the therm-a-rest one
20 inches by 72 inches but this one is three and a half inches thick it's a little more comfortable
to lay on it's also got an rv value of 2.6 so keeps me a little bit warmer on the cold ground
now these are pretty comparable pads the main reason though that i've stopped using the
therm-a-rest for 2021 is size the nemo astro is just that much smaller in my pack when you compare
that i mean this one is it it's like two-thirds the size of this one and that real estate in your
backpack on multi-day trips is really valuable so for that reason alone the therm-a-rest pro light
sorry it's going back into the storage for 2021 i'll be using just the nemo astro
now the second item up is the rick steves microfiber towel now i've been packing this thing
with me on travels everywhere i go it always finds its way into my suitcase it's a great travel towel
now it's made to pretty much replace your bath towel when you're on the road
now i started bringing it with me in my pack but i found the towel is just too big like
when i'm swimming i didn't need the big uh the big bath towel and i certainly it was too big
to use around camp for a tea towel or a cloth so i found the bulk of it just wasn't quite useful
and i went out and bought one of these little pack towels um it's pretty much the same
microfiber material but it comes in its little stuff sack you know it dries really fast and
the utility of it just was a lot more useful than the big towel so for that reason alone
sorry rick but the microfiber towel is going back in the suitcase for 2021
third item up is a marmot trestles synthetic fill sleeping bag
now when i first started getting back into backpacking a couple years back
i went out and bought two of these things i did my reviews they were great they were really light
they came with their own stuff sacks and they were three season rated so when i got them home
and i packed my backpack i found this thing took up a lot of room so i had to actually
pack it underneath the pack and that's not really where you want to keep your sleeping bag
so i wound up selling those bags and i bought myself a nice down therm-a-rest quest star bag
i was a little too cheap to invest in down in the first place and i'll tell you all you beginners
getting into backpacking and back backcountry camping definitely don't make that mistake go
out spend some money find yourself a nice down bag and invest in a good three season down bag because
you're gonna love it it's um takes up way less space in your pack and it's way lighter and uh
this one this therm-a-rest quest star is actually made out of hydrophobic down which makes it a lot
more resilient it kind of you can squeeze it down it puffs back up really high and it's 90 percent
more resilient to water so it's going to absorb a lot less water which means drying it out in a wet
tent or something is going to be critical so for that reason i sold those trestles bags the marmots
um for that reason for sure they you will not see them in my pack in 2021.
now the fourth item is actually two items i've got the mecco crank flashlight and
the black diamond astro headlamp and i used to bring both of these with me
now the meko hand crank actually works because it doesn't take any batteries so you could
crank it up and turn it on and it works it's a flashlight it's got a solar panel on the side
and uh all around it was a very good useful item and the headlamp of course you need for hands-free
goes on your head and i still use it for biking or when i'm moving really fast and i need something
like that but these no longer come in my pack for one main reason i bought this phoenix e18r
rechargeable light i mean look at the size this thing's super tiny it's super powerful
it's got four different settings and the utility of this thing is just fantastic it's got a clip
that clips onto the front of my hat to replace my headlamp and it's got a little hook here where i
put something i can put a carabiner up on the top of the tent and use this as a lantern and i've
never had to charge it in the field the battery lasts for days so for that reason these two
flashlights are hitting the old chest last item up it's the sawyer squeeze water filter now i've done
a review on this thing comparing it to my new my new filter the platypus gravityworks 4 liter and
i'll leave you a link for that here and down in the comments so i won't get into it all now but um
i bought the sawyer micro squeeze first and that thing totally failed on me in the in the field
no amount of back flushing was going to clean that filter out um i had to boil water all weekend just
to get me home but i did go out and get another one this sawyer mini squeeze which still works
i mean i have to carry this bag of gear around with it so there's a squeeze bag i i bought a
new squeeze bag an aftermarket one but you got you got the back flush filter in there as well and um
with this gear it's still pretty small packs up light it works it's a it's a good filter but
the platypus it's uh it's an all-in-one i mean this thing filters a lot of water really fast
really easy and you can check out my video for a demo but for that reason the sawyer
squeeze water filter definitely will not be coming in my backpack in 2021
so that's that's my five items i'm leaving out for this year
curious to know what you guys think leave me some comments down below or contact me on social media
i'm on instagram facebook and twitter you can find links down below in the comments hope you guys uh
continue to like and subscribe till then i'll see you on the trail it's papa steve on the move you