“I am going to do a post about my favourite hiking items” I thought and started my process of thinking about what items to put on it.
This turned out to be way harder than I thought!
Every item in my backpack is carefully researched and chosen and a lot of the items I used for my thru-hike of the Pacific Crest Trail has been upgraded to “better” items. But I haven’t put the same milage into those items yet, so are they just chosen because they are my “new toys”?
So I have decided to do the list a little different and chosen 3 items that I have used on all my thru-hikes since the PCT.
And then I will throw in a bonus item that I really love, and plan on using for my thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail in 2022.
My favourite hiking items
My iPhone
Having a smartphone on trail in this day and age if probably a must unless you want to go really old school and carry maps and a compass etc. and send letters to get help if you get hurt on trail 😉
Just kidding! There can be a lot of reasons why someone would want to leave their phone at home, but I can’t think of any that would apply to me.
Having a phone on trail is so amazing. if you are on a on one of the bigger trails you can save weight and space by not having to carry a map because Guthook is about as good as it gets.
Multi purpose
I know people will say but what if your phone dies or gets lost etc. then you have a problem. I don’t really think so, the trails are pretty well marked, so most of the time you do not need a map, and unless you’re on some kind of survival adventure you probably dont even know how to navigate a map.
Guthook will help you with news about water situation at different spots and tell you how close you are to the next town etc. it can do a lot of cool stuff that a map will not tell you.
It is also a nice way to tell the outside world of your adventure – and listen to music or podcasts while hiking.
I decided to stop using Facebook when I started my thru-hike of the PCT because there’s way too much fear mongering going on regarding hiking. And also trying to keep up with the stuff on Facebook just isn’t as interesting as your surroundings and the people you meet on trail, so for me it was pretty easy to stop using FB, and I haven’t really used it ever since (I poke my head in once in a while and use messenger constantly – but thankfully I don’t have the urge to constantly check new posts anymore – so more time for me 🙂 )
But a smartphone, guthook and a bunch of music|podcasts|audio books is highly recommended!
My BRS-3000T stove
This little bastard is still going strong and it cost me about 10$ Ultra lightweight at 26g/0,92oz and tiny! (Im still talking about the stove you and your dirty mind!)
This is one of those items that just keeps on impressing me, sure it’s not as fast as the jetboil or the MSR pocketrocket, but its about half the size and less than half the weight! and the price is just insane for what you get 🙂
Even if it breaks, I can probably buy a few of them before I reach the price point of the others.
I actually found this article on Cleverhiker where they compare the 10 best stoves – you can read that here
I love it!
My Columbia Convertible Pants
I am on my second pair now because towards the end of the PCT I had ripped a little hole in the first pair going through a brush or something. And the area about my butt was starting to get very thin from wear and tear.
What I love about these pants is that they can be long pants in the mornings and evenings, and shorts if you want to get a tan on your legs (I deliberately chose not to use them as shorts for most of california as I hate getting greased up my sun lotion, so I had to slowly get a tan before I pretty much only wore them as shorts from around Oregon)
They also dry extremely quick and the fabric is nice and airy so even on hot days I didn’t sweat too much around my legs.
For my CDT thru-hike I might switch it up though and try something else – we’ll see 🙂
My BUFF
I almost forgot about my buff because I use it on a daily basis (during the winter periods).
A buff is an invaluable piece on trail as it can be used for a variety of things. I mainly use it to keep my head warm when I sleep, but you can wrap it around your pillow to make it feel softer, dip it in the cold water and cool yourself off when the sun gets too hot, and of course to keep your neck and upper body warm when you are hiking in the cold.
This is definitely an item I am bringing on all my future hikes.
As I wrote at the start of the post I think it’s almost impossible to choose favourite items because they are (hopefully) all essential to the hike you’re about to go on 🙂
I really love my quilt (yea yea I said it) and my tent as well, but the list would be way too long if I just listed all my items 🙂 so these 4 items are hopefully less obvious than the usual top 3 lists, but I promise you that you won’t regret having these (or something similar) in your pack 🙂
/Boss
