Yeah. Put the team on my back.
Welcome to the backpacking podcast brought to you by
Outdoor Vitals, makers of Performance First Ultra Light
Gear. If I sound a little down today,
it's because Jeremiah Today is, as it is titled in the
description, the final live stream.
The final live stream. Yeah, the final one, Yeah, it's
been a good run. It's been a good run, yeah.
I feel sad. Yeah, I, I just, it's hard, you
know, we've been doing this now for six years and it's been a
lot of fun. Had a lot of good memories.
But today's the day we wrap it up and we will not be doing
another live stream today. We'll do 1 next week, but we
can't do another 1 today. Happy April Fools to everybody
here on the Backpacking Podcast. We are so glad to have you.
All right here. And people already called us
out. Jeff Peters has called us a
liar. Absolutely.
This is not the last one. But let's go ahead and get these
on here final, you liars. Yeah, right.
Jay Flo's telling us it's April Fools.
Wait a second. I don't know about this one.
David Cooper. Yay.
They're going to be gone. We'll find somebody better to
listen to. Wait a second.
Like there's more Suga Canadensis.
Good riddance. Oh man.
Oh my gosh. It's just it's hurting my
feelings now. We should have never titled it
that. My fragile heart can't handle
this. Stringer, you scared me.
Welcome to the show. Josh Junkin says almost made me
want to jump off the Indian staircase.
So Jeremiah, you want to tell us a little bit about this brand
new tent that Outdoor Vitals has come out with?
Yes Backpacking podcast brought to you by Outdoor Vitals, makers
of performance first ultralight gear.
And last week they released this circ trekking pole tent and it's
ideal for ultralight backpacking through hiking, Alpine and high
humidity environments. Taller backpackers seeking
better fit. That would be me.
Taller backpackers and fast packing and minimalist setups.
And I'll give you a quick blurb blurb about the tent.
It is engineered for backpackers who want maximum usable space,
exceptional airflow, and reliable wet performance.
It only weighs about 1 LB thirteen oz.
That is including John the guy. Lines, stuff sacks.
Steaks are not included. And that is not made out of
Dynamo, folks. That is a lightweight tent.
That's not made out of dynamic. That's pretty impressive.
Yeah, man, it's 53 inches for Peacocks, 44 on the low end and
it's a a 9091 by 28 inch floor. So something that I can actually
fit in. And you heard me last week.
If you, if you listen to our most recent episode, I'm
committing to trying out the circ tent because I pretty much
exclusively hammock camp and I did over the weekend, but I'm
going to break out the Cirque tint.
And another quick announcement. By the way, John did put the
last live stream or our final episode or something like that
in the title. And next week we'll have a
recorded episode that will release on YouTube, Spotify,
Apple podcast everywhere. That'll be out on Friday.
So if you're one of our normal live stream listeners, you pop
on here and chat with us and stuff.
We won't have one next week, but you will have content out there,
so enjoy the recorded episode and we're going to have a lot of
fun with that so. We are and and David Cooper
said, yeah, let's listen to a couple bear tacos talk about a
ground tent. I'm offended by that.
It's bear burrito. Thank you.
Bear burrito, not bear Taco. Jeremiah with the being April
Fools. I think it's, I think it's
important that we share some of the awesome April Fools material
that's been sent out over the last few days from the outdoor
industry. So if it's OK with you, I'd like
to show a few of these emails that I got over the last few
days. We looked at these before we got
online and they're fantastic. Check this out.
So the first one I'm going to show you is from Garage Grown
Gear, and this is from a company called Zeta and Zeta has created
Alpha everything, including an Alpha direct backpack, a new
cottage brand expanding what Polar tech Alpha direct fleece
can do. They've got a rock sack.
You've got a little pocket there for your your first aid kit.
You've got a place to put your cook pot.
Heck, man, they're even making tents.
Even making tents. That's right.
Alpha direct for everybody, man, Alpha direct for everybody.
But you know, not to be outdone, our good friends over at Darn
Tough have come out with a new item that I think it's going to
be really interesting for a lot of people and it is called the
ankle blanket. Oh my goodness.
They've even got a great testimony for this one.
It says meet our latest innovation in minimalist
lounging designed for those who find socks too restrictive and
being barefoot too vulnerable, comfort you didn't know you
needed. Knit for a limited time only and
get this testimony on this one. I used to spend hours cutting
the feet off my micro hiker hiker crews to achieve this
level of draftiness. Finally, Darn Tough did the work
for me. My arches are freezing, but my
ankles have never felt more supported during a 12 hour nap.
How awesome is that? Everybody go out and get
yourselves some ankle blankets. And, and, and here's another
one. This is from a European freeze
freeze dried food company called Firepot.
They have created a brand new Firepot restaurant.
And if you're wondering what a freeze dried restaurant is, this
is exactly what it is. It says they'd come up with a
solution. Welcome to the Fire Pot fine
dining experience, the world's first restaurant for outdoor
people. You can expect the same
restaurant quality meals you're used to ordering online,
lovingly served in person, complete with seasonal specials
and fresh mountain water for the table.
Can you imagine a restaurant? You go to the restaurant and
they bring you like Mountain House or Fire pot or peak
refuel. Yeah, well, and, and they've
even added a climbing gym, a selfie wall and a specially
designed cloak room so your kit can come with you.
How nice is that? How nice is that?
But you know, it wasn't just the, the, the backpacking
industry that came out with some great stuff.
I don't know about you guys, but if you grill out, you know that
cleaning off your grill is a pain in the butt.
And for a lot of us, we don't like doing it, but sometimes you
need to. And and so our good friends over
at Rescue have created a brand new cleaner called the Tactic
Grill Pro Plus. The Tactic Grill Pro Plus
Picatinny Rail System, dual flashlight mounts, Laser Greek
grease sight, flamethrower with an ACOG scope and night vision
compatible, you will have no problem cleaning off your grill
using this monster right here. Yeah, they subbed out the barrel
and the trigger in the firing pit and all that stuff for the
brush. The most powerful brush known to
man. Oh, exactly, exactly.
And, and it's not just in grilling and hiking, but even in
the fishing and and hunting category.
Drake has come out with something fantastic for the
summer and that's brand new summer waiters.
Everybody knows that in the summer, waiters can get hot.
I mean, you want to keep your feet and your legs dry, so get
some summer waiters because you can zip those legs off at the
end of the day. Too hot for waiters?
Just zip them off. That's right, coming to a retail
store near. You.
Yeah, I didn't know that. Drake, not only does he perform,
he's also getting into the outdoor industry.
Huh. Oh yeah.
I mean. That's playing, Yeah, he.
He's he's he's he never quits. He don't.
Stop, he even makes zip off lighters.
I don't think Drake does much hunting.
What do you think? Dude, I don't think Drake knows
what hunting is. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's got more
money than God, but I don't think he gets out there and
hunts very much. No, I highly doubt that he does
it all, but I love April Fools. It's one of my favorite times of
the year and I get I just crack up at the stuff these companies
send out. So I wanted to share a few of
those with you guys. We got a lot of comments coming
in here. I haven't even looked at holy
cow, they're coming like hot and heavy.
This. You guys have been awesome the
last few weeks. I just want to point that out.
We've had some great comments. There's somebody in here, said
the Kelty Side Hug double backpack.
I didn't get that one in the e-mail.
I have to look for that. The electric backpacking stove
from the Trek Electric. Backpacking.
Stove the The Moonbeam ice cream is on its fourth week now.
Yes yeah. Beam ice cream.
That is our little sticker challenge.
I haven't changed my my lyrics in a bit.
So J Flow, loyal listener and watcher of the live streams, is
actively calling me out and I appreciate the constructive
feedback. And next week, well, the week
after, I'll change it so you have my word, J Flow.
And if I don't remember somebody getting mine last week was the
thing. I didn't.
Remember somebody getting mine last week?
So if you didn't see, Jay Flo can't win anymore.
He's won too many times. So he just gave it to somebody.
If you can say it next, you're probably going to be the winner
now. So because I don't remember
somebody saying mine last week. So we'll see what happens.
Yeah, we shall wait and see. Yeah.
Jeremiah, can we talk a little bit about something that's
happened with the PCT that we kind of were up in arms about a
couple months ago? Yeah, I looked into it because
we we had announced on here after finding out that there was
some confusion in the federal government realm of things when
it comes to PCT hikers and starting at the southern
terminus. And so I saw that there's been
some clarification and John, John pretty much celebrated a
few weeks ago when what's the lady's name that got?
She got fired. Well, she got, she got moved.
She got, she got redistricted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's, she got
a different title, so I don't. It wasn't firing technically,
but anyway, they moved her out and we had, we had talked about
all the wild stuff like the wall, the border wall going
through Big Bend and how you couldn't access the southern
terminus anymore on the PCT. But apparently there's been a
reversal now. And if you're going to do the
PCT through hike, you are able to officially start at the
southern terminus. Now, the feds do say no touchy,
touchy on the border wall. You're not allowed to approach
it. You're not allowed to lay a
finger on it. I don't know.
I'm not really sure how they're policing that in the middle of
the desert when the only people there are PCT hikers and people
dropping off PCT hikers. So I don't know that that they
really have a lot of teeth in that rule, but I don't know what
do you think? You think that the Christy Gnome
situations had something to do with this?
Man, it's amazing how many things have changed since she
got fired. That's all I'm saying.
Well, correlation doesn't equal causation, John.
No, but it sure does make it look like Christy Gnome got
fired and a lot of things changed.
Yeah. Very specific things.
I want to find out if they're going to still put that wall up
in front of the Rio Grande. I'm praying they're not, but you
know, that's I will read though. It's really interesting.
The PCTA gave an update on March 18th and it says the US Border
Patrol and the US Military express recognition of what a
tremendous moment it is for hikers and equestrians who will
be starting or ending their journey on the trail at the
southern terminus monument. Safety continues to be their top
priority. That being said, trail users can
now enter the National Defense area to take or to visit or take
a picture with the wall. So it's it does say that comes
with restrictions. Will only be able to enter or
exit the restricted area area via a designated opening in the
fence and must only walk North and South without traveling
along the walls adjacent Access Rd.
So. Common sense.
Don't climb over the fence, walk through the open area to get to.
Are we putting this into words? What's going on here?
I don't know, that's just what they said.
They just said it says it's important that all visitors
continue respecting posted boundaries and follow current
regulations. The PCTA will continue to update
information on access and safety precautions as needed.
Can I bring up something that shocked me?
I didn't know this. Please.
They said equestrians, so there are people that that ride horses
and do the PCT. I think that isn't the, isn't
there specific places on the PCT that you can't do the horses?
I think the maybe the first one you get to is the Sierras
because I know that I remember watching Dixie's videos and she
was like the elevation up there and the rivers that you have to
cross and all that stuff. Just like the rugged terrain.
I think that she said gone through those passes you
couldn't do horse, but the rest of its kind of graded for a
horse. So that makes sense.
You know, the, the, the incline isn't as bad for the hacker.
So I don't want to say it's an easier trail than the AT, but
maybe like the inclines are not as steep, but I don't know.
Let me let me double check on that.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the Canada 1
because Steve right brought says you can't get to the Canada 1
either, so I'm interested to see if something happens there where
we can fix that problem. What's what's the deal with the
Canada? I think we.
Talked about it or you know you. Got to the specifics.
They've made it so you can't get to it or you can't.
Was it you can't get you can't get a ride there or something?
It was some weird, some weird thing with that.
You know, whenever I'd done yes, the long trail you you drop off
at the northern terminus, but you if you want to start at the
north. John's taking a drink.
You start at the northern terminus.
You can if you want, but that obelisk is literally just in the
middle of the woods. Like, you see, the Canadian
border is this gap where they've moaned and cut all the
vegetation out, and it's just a strip of grass, this wide strip.
But there's nobody out there policing it.
There's not like somebody at the obelisk, like a Ranger saying
hey, I need your passport so you can walk into Canada so.
OK here. Here's the issue we talked
about. This is from last January.
It says Canada has permanently discontinued the PCT hiker entry
permit, meaning northbound through hikers can no longer
enter Canada via the PCT. Hikers must now turn around at
the US Canada Border monument and backtrack 30 miles to Hart's
Pass, adding significant mileage to the end of their hike.
Yeah, sorry. I should remember, I think I'm
the one that wrote that Downs. You are, that's fine.
You are. But that's OK, man.
It you know it that happens, that happens.
I also got a the horse update for you, unless you have
anything else to say about Canada.
No, we're good. It looks like for the horses
that the Lassen. Is that how you say that
Volcanic National Park, Lassen, Lassen and I've never been there
before. It's LASSEN.
They can't go through there. They also can't do Yosemite
National Park and select sections.
They can't do Crater Lake National Park in the PCT
corridor. They can't do the Bridge of the
Gods Crossing. They can't do Goat Rocks
Wilderness or Glacier Peak Wilderness on select sections.
And says the reason why is, is because some of it's just
impractical, like you got steep granite train, you got narrow
ledges, some parts have ladders. So obviously, you know, the
horses can't go through those sections.
So, so it looks like there's like 6 different areas where
you'd have to detour and then either do a road walk or I'm not
sure. I guess you'd have to pay
somebody to transport your horse for you, right?
Like there's all kind of, we hit this state right here.
The Bluegrass State is like horse racing capital of the
world. You got Churchill Downs.
So we see horses are just part of life around here everywhere
you go. They're everywhere.
They're everywhere down here. But I would imagine that it
might get a little expensive. You know, you're having to pay
somebody to come and pick you up and transport your horse.
So they're having to pull a trailer around one of these
national parks or these select sections and then drop you back
off. So really, it's not even
possible to do a straight through hike on, you know,
equestrian style. Yeah, of course you got a one or
two if people really are trying to do thru hikes there, so.
Sure. Yeah, I'm, I'm sure the the
oddball out might be, but I'd say a lot of people are like,
let me do this three day trip where we're all riding our
horses together and we could do it on this section of the PC
kind of like we do around here on foot.
Yeah, yeah, we come back, back. Wait a second.
David Cooper's a little confused.
He says wait, there's horse racing in Kentucky?
Only sometimes just. Every once in a while we don't
do a lot of it. Hey Jeremiah, didn't you go on a
trip this past week? Oh bro so much fun.
Big group too. Yeah, I would.
Well, I was, I was trying to schedule an annual through hike
of the Beaver Creek Wilderness, which is pretty close to where I
live. And I think the last time we got
to do it might have been 2023. And so we got this core group
here at Kentucky guys that I think there's six of us that
typically go and ask Jonathan what all trails if he wanted to
go to. And he said, yeah, let's do it.
And then I think Darwin off the rails and backpacking with
Buckley, they were planning on coming down to Red River Gorge
over the weekend. Excuse me.
And Jason's like, what do you think about them coming to?
And I said, yeah, that sounds good.
I love hanging out with those guys.
And so one of the Kentucky guys couldn't make it.
So we ended up with 9. And then Rich he, he lives like
1520 minutes from Buckley. I couldn't believe it.
So small world whenever your friends meet each other and then
they live next to each other and so y'all get to go backpacking
together. So nine of us ended up there and
I didn't get off work till like 3:00.
So everybody was there except for me, Matt and Jonathan.
So we met and shuttled vehicles and hiked in and I was looking
at the weather the whole time, man.
Because, you know, I you haven't mentioned it on air yet, but for
the people that are watching. Jeremiah's cornrows, people, you
are red cornrows. Yeah, I got my red cornrows, 6
of them in this week, and I got my hair.
We're going to start calling them string daddy.
String daddy That's hilarious dude.
So I got this done Friday and I said OK, no maintenance.
Whenever you get out to the woods, you know, normally I take
this little like travel size hair brush and when you got
cornrows you can't brush your hair because they're in rows.
So I said OK, this would be great.
Got it done Friday went out and I kept watching the weather
because I was like my hair is going to melt bro by the time
because I have gorilla snot the way that this is done.
Is you have to do some kind of wait you have.
What? Gorilla snot.
What in the What is gorilla snot?
Gorilla snot is like super glue for your hair bro.
There's a meter, you know how like if you do a wine tasting or
something, they have that meter like sweet, semi sweet, dry like
and then the wine bottle puts like a little a little dot on
there where you know where it falls on that meter.
Well, you do the same thing with your jail.
So you got like barely holds all the way up to stiff hold.
And this oh, Jeremiah's neutral name red cord.
Is that what that says? That's.
What that says so the. Meter goes from basically no
hold to, you know, buckle up. And this one was Max Holt, the
gorilla snot So Oh. Gosh, I thought.
Man, if it starts raining out here, see we I was supposed to
meet everybody at 4:00 and half the group, well over half the
group, 6 out of the nine were there at like 11:00 AM and I
said well I'm going to get there at 4:00 and guess what time the
rain supposed to start? 4:00 So.
Always. Oh heaven bro, the time I'm
supposed to arrive, it's always supposed to start raining.
Let. Me see.
Hold on, hold on. Devin's on here and he says
dancers use snot. My kid when she performs has it.
Yeah, you know what's up, Devin? Resting.
Yeah, now he's. I noticed that was a daughter.
Yeah. What about?
Right. What about the guys we can use
gorilla snot too? It's OK, It's whatever you want
to do. Man, that's just a strange name
for anything. I mean, I think a Gorilla tape.
Yeah. Gorilla Glue.
I know what that is. And Gorilla Glue.
So is it the same brand? Everything was in Spanish on the
bottle, so I'm guessing that. You sure it actually said
gorilla snot? That's the question.
It's a gorilla snot in English and it had a big picture of a
gorilla on there, but all the directions and everything were
in Spanish. So is is that cultural
appropriation? Well, maybe by the gorillas, I
don't know. Yeah, that David Clippers asking
that. Is that a cult?
Is that cultural appropriation? Yeah.
Well, I'll tell you what, I got there at 4:00 and the rain,
there was just a few sprinkles. So I said let's keep it moving.
Now you do have to watch out for sticks.
Sticks will reach out and grab your hair and then that doesn't
turn out great. So anyway, I arrived at camp and
we, we're actually coming over the hill, bro.
We, we, we had set to meet at this campsite that we've been to
before. And there is, there's a bench
there, There's a, a log cutting location.
There is a big fire ring with a chimney and like different pads
to put tents on. Awesome.
Right by the Creek. I get there and I see the
chimney and I'm like, well, there's the chimney guys.
We got to be closing in. Jeremiah listens to rap music
performed with a banjo. The comments are great.
These comments are cracking. Me up, keep them coming.
I love the comments. So anyway, I see the chimney and
I'm like, well, we're here. And then I hear, I hear somebody
yell, Jeremiah. And apparently they've been
yelling every 30 minutes for, like, the past two hours.
And you, they were trying to say, you know, are we about to
arrive? Because it was getting about
that time. They knew that I was supposed to
get there at 4:00. And then we still had to hike in
like a mile or two. So we were probably 100 yards
out. And I hear Jeremiah and I gave
him a big hi. Yeah.
And then everybody started laughing and hooping and
hollering, celebrating. And I walk into the campsite,
bro, and there is trees everywhere.
That big ice storm that came through, you know, like last
month or the month before that downed so many trees it totally
demolished the campsite. I walked in the campsite and
there was a tree laying right where the bench was supposed to
be, the fire pit, a giant tree in it.
And I'm not talking about like, let's just cut these out of the
way. These trees are massive, so
there's no getting rid of them. You'd have to have like a legit
chainsaw or Forest Service or something to come in and clean
that up. And it's a wilderness area, so
guess what? They ain't coming.
They're not coming. Nope.
We had to establish a new campsite on the other side of
the Creek. Luckily this is wilderness area,
so there's not really any official trails.
You just go out there and you can wander as much as you want.
Nowhere is really off limits and you can camp wherever.
So we set up a campsite on the other side of the water where we
would normally be, and everybody has everything set up and me,
Jonathan and Matt haven't set up well.
I start saying hi to everybody. Matt goes to set his stuff up
because he shuttled with me, and Jonathan goes to set his stuff
up and I break out my chair and sit down around the fire and
just start hanging out and talking.
So Matt gets his tent set up. I'm watching Jonathan and Rich
clear out a spot for Jonathan's hammock.
Remember, there's deadfall everywhere, bro.
Right, right, right. Oh, they're having to cut a dead
tree out of the way so Jonathan has enough room that he can set
his hammock up and he doesn't have a tree to fall on him in
the middle of the night. There's son.
Man, I don't know how we had so many people do this.
YouTube. We didn't get to some video.
I'm watching them. This tree falls directly on top
of Jonathan's backpack, and he had already unpacked some of it.
And I guess he figured out, hey, I got to move, you know, move
this tree out the way before I can finish.
The rest of the stuff fell directly on his background.
I said, oh, my goodness, guys, guys, guys.
The tree just Stringer on timber.
And then I say, is everything OK?
He's like, yeah, I think it's all right.
It's all right. And then he then he brings his
chair over to sit around the fire, and, Yep, it's broken.
He broke it. The chair broke.
I think that was the only casualty of war for that tree
falling. That's.
That's awful. And I can I say something real
quick for for him? Absolutely.
Jonathan, you are not on the band list this week.
I looked. So if you want to comment, if
you're watching, you can and you're not in jail.
So I'll throw that out there for him.
So see, he's setting up, and as he's setting up, a tree falls
behind him. No, they cut a tree and didn't
move the backpack. Out and they dropped the tree on
his backpack. With a silky saw the Gomboy,
yes, they saw the tree and the tree was probably, I don't know,
maybe like 6 inches in diameter, maybe a little bit bigger than
there. So it wasn't the biggest tree in
the world, but it was still, you know, several 100 lbs or
whatever. I don't know, 200 lbs.
And nothing pulled any holes in his backpack or anything like
that. It didn't RIP the backpack, but
the plastic part like the chair, it's got metal rods that go
together and they meet it plastic and that's the thing
that twists and stuff to. So it broke that and he ended up
having to like cut a log and put it under it at the right height
and then set the chair on top of it so the metal didn't slip off
the plastic. You know, you know what that
sounds like to me. What's that?
That sounds to me like he needs to get him a Big Agnes chair
because everything's metal on the Big Agnes chair.
Just throwing that out there. Hey, that's not a bad idea.
He's you don't. Have you don't have plastic
pieces of brake when it's all metal?
Yeah, they just bend when trees fall on them.
Hey, but you've always been back.
That's true. You know, Matt, actually, he had
an extra metal piece with his chair.
I said, what are you doing with this dude?
Is this a weapon or what? He had the tube off of one of
those Hyperlite or not Hyperlite.
What's the the chair? Zero.
What brand is that? Helenox.
Helenox So the sunset chair is the bigger version of the chair
0. So Matt he contacted them
because one of his aluminum rods that makes up the chair, it
broke. And so they said you have to buy
the whole new chair. The only thing they'll give you
new is like the shock cord and the fabric.
I think you can buy everything else.
You have to just buy their new chair because they don't they
don't want they that's a money maker.
Would they rather send you a metal tube for 10 bucks or were
they? Would they rather make 100%
profit margin? Selling, I mean that they can
keep doing that. We'll just start talking about
other brands and get all the other outdoor Youtubers, start
talking about other brands and all of a sudden he'll knock
somebody like, oh, hey, you just needed that little $5 piece.
Sure, here you go. We're sorry.
Well, apparently. He went on Amazon and he figured
out the exact length, the exact thickness, and the material that
he needed to replace it with. And then he read on the shock
cord through the little tube. And so check this out.
I have to point this out because I agree 100% with this comment.
The Big Agnes Skyline UL the best backpacking chair because
it sits higher off the ground to make it easier to get in and out
of, and it's all metal so. That is a bonus.
And and the other thing that's great about that chair that is
not spoken of often is that the the way they angle the back legs
on it, it doesn't sink as much as the healing ox.
So just want to throw that out there.
While we're on chairs can can we pause the story for a second, do
a little side quest? Little chair can, absolutely.
So I was swapping through short porn video on either Facebook or
Instagram or X or something, I can't remember, maybe YouTube.
And it popped up an ad because your phone's always listening.
It popped up an ad and it was for a backpacking chair, but it
was from Teemu. And so I was like, I'm not going
to get the Teemu backpacking chair, but I thought maybe
there's a legit version of this. So have you seen a graphite?
The rods are graphite. I couldn't decide if this is the
worst decision or the best decision ever.
It's like this is super ultra light because the the rods that
make up the chair are made. No, not graphite, carbon fiber.
I'm sorry, carbon fiber. And I said carbon fiber.
My trekking poles are made out of carbon fiber and I snapped
one. And if somebody sits roughly in
this chair, isn't it just going to break?
Like I get that it's ultra light but.
Backpacking chairs flex, OK, Like carbon's not good at
flexing, like flexing breaks it. So I don't know man, I don't
think, I don't think I'll be buying that chair personally.
What do you guys think in the in the comments?
Would you buy a carbon fiber framed backpacking chair?
Yeah, I'm curious to see what y'all say.
Because I have yet to sit in any backpacking chair, at least any
kind of ultra light version of a of a backpacking chair that
doesn't flex and move a little bit.
Yeah, usually you sit in it and like where the fabric is,
everything sags towards you and like it flexes the.
Frame in yeah and we got a deep cut.
We got a deep cut in the comments Yeah.
The healing ox chair .5 sounds way better than the healing ox
chair L. Now for those who don't know
what he's talking about, this is old school like JK is hiking
video. I think I don't think I was with
John Kelly at that point. I think the channel was still
called JK is hiking. And I did a video where I found
where I had a healing notch chair zero.
It was a trip. I went with you and Ben McMillan
and Mr. backpacking with Jason and my chair snapped.
I was making bacon for you guys that morning and I went to sit
in my chair, tripped over a a a root and when I landed in the
chair it it just snapped the leg.
And so I took the fabric off of that, bought a chair one, put
them together, took a half a pound off the chair one and
added a half a pound to the chair 0.
Came out with the chair .5 and all I'm going to say is I used
that chair for years that now belongs to.
Jared Champion Jared. Champion.
Yeah, he owns that now. He won that last year or a
couple years ago, something like that.
So, but I used that chair for years.
That chair was fantastic. And I did a whole video just
talking about how they need to create this thing.
And then a year and a half, two years later, they finally create
the Chair 0L, which is based in the Chair 0.
Yeah, I did. SharePoint 5I should say.
I did do a little Google here while you're talking about the
carbon fiber backpacking chair and I see Dan Becker done a
video on a carbon fiber. Somebody else commented about
that, but. I can't remember watching the
video that's on backpackinglight.com.
They have like a a forum about it, but it was a.
Weird chair. It was like 2 flat pieces that
that you you fit together. I remember the video.
It didn't look like a very comfortable chair to be honest.
Well, all I'm seeing is like when you know, Google's pops up
their sponsored products and it's like the shopping tab.
The first one's the Teemo 1 and it's $53 to get the carbon
fiber, but you can get one on Amazon.
It's HIBLE is the name of the brand Hibble Ibble.
I think it might be Hibble because it's only got 1B Hibble
Carbon fiber folding camping chair 50. 299 What's it?
Called HIBLE carbon fiber folding camping chair.
It looks like a chair 0 but it's the frame is carbon fiber.
So I don't know I just I was curious if you'd ever heard of
anything like that and if you would consider sitting in one
Cuz I'm gonna be honest I weigh about 225 right now probably
with clothes on and stuff. So it says it supports 265 but I
just don't trust it. I think there's here's the chair
right here. Oh, you pulled it up?
Yeah, I've got it up right now. It's 5299, which is cheaper than
a lot of other chairs. Yeah, it says it's carbon fiber.
It doesn't have a weight on this part.
Let me see if it's got a weight. It can hold people up to 265
lbs. It's £2 total on the last bullet
there about this item. Is it really?
You know it says compact and versatility.
It weighs about 2 lbs, but I wonder how far off the ground
you see it because it says it's 19 by 20 1/2 by 25.
Here's one by Ms. Nail. You know, that's got to be a
good company. Ms. Nail, like all one word.
So it's snail and there's weighs 1.6 lbs and it's carbon fiber.
Yeah. So I mean, if it's not going to
be lighter, then why would you even make it?
Well, somebody's buying it though, because they've got
stars up here. They've got 27 people have have
taken this thing. I'm curious.
This is me, Jeremiah. I'm I'm what these people likes
to know. I want to know what the the the
one star said. Oh, let's read A1 star review.
I love. Got it OK I'm OK.
One star don't buy. I set it up in the living room
one time, set it for 15 minutes or so.
It was pretty comfortable. Took it on a hike a month later,
set it up, sat down and it broke.
I would have took pics but I was mad and didn't think about it.
Left it in the woods. Don't buy if you're over £200.
Well, First off, buddy, you just, you just littered this.
This guy obviously doesn't understand leaving a trace
because he left a trace and it's a cheap carbon fiber chair.
So can. I give you one from the Hibble,
a short 10, please, please in all can let me see if I can go
back here and find it and I'll put it up on the screen too.
While you're talking about it, click the one star.
There's a couple of worn stars that somebody's left.
I'm not going to read the long one, that would take too long.
But the short 1 it says in all capital letters.
This is insanely tiny. There is no way this is made for
an adult, let alone going to hold an adult rated at 330 lbs.
First of all, it says 265 in the description.
It is a total joke. I am beyond angry getting this
and seeing how tiny this is. I noticed the folding chair my
neighbor's kid across the street have and it's larger than this
is. Immediately tore it back down
and threw it into the garbage pile.
This has to be a fake review, right?
It's got to because. I've got another one.
There's another one that says not sized for an adult.
I read the dimensions of this chair I should have.
I assumed since it said camping chair and didn't specify child
size that it would be sized for an adult.
It is not. It is very small.
I actually laughed when I had to put it together.
The chair sits super low to the ground.
I'm five 3 1/2 and it's way too low for me.
My knees sit too high. It's kind of like sitting in a
toddler chair, except unless you make an effort to sit upright
with nothing supporting your back, you were forced to sit at
it at an awkward recline angle if you lean your back up against
the back of the chair, man. They must have never sit in a
backpacking chair, whoever's writing these, because all those
little backpacking chairs, they only sit a few inches.
There's a notice that's smaller than it looks, apparently.
Man, a lot of people don't like this chair.
This look I'm I I clicked on the video and the images that Amazon
gives you. There's a lot of convenient
angles that they're taking these from, but it looks like just a
regular backpacking chair. Maybe maybe.
I think I think these people just never sat in a backpack in
style chair and it's got a little pocket on the side.
I like that they should also a little pocket.
You know my my favorite feature on my big like it's a knockoff
Gopamount is the name of the brand.
It's some cheap Chinese dopamount Gopamount GOP.
Is that a Go Next? Is that a Go Next affiliate?
Yeah, it's. It's their twin company, sister,
sister company. So my favorite thing on there is
like there's a little, there's a little pouch, like if you're
sitting there, there's a pouch that's tucked up under the chair
where you're sitting and it's Velcroed and you can UN Velcro
it. And if it's a water bottle and a
cell phone, it's got two different like little pockets.
It's there and so it hangs down like if you're sitting there,
it's between your knees. And you can always have your
water and then whatever else. I usually put my phone in there,
but always keeps them out of the way.
And you can even tuck it under by using the Velcro.
Every chair should sew on a little side pocket somewhere.
Absolutely. Here's between your legs or on
the side. Absolutely check this out, David
Cooper says. Leave No Trace says don't leave
your broken chair in the woods. OK, I got some.
Leave no trace for you, John. Leave me some trace.
OK. I'll wait one more.
There's one more that's that's great.
It says yes it does splinter. Getting a splinter of resin
infused carbon fiber is way worse than a wood splinter bro.
That would be terrible. Could you imagine getting a
splinter up your backside from a from a carbon fiber chair
breaking? Yeah, if you.
Oh, thank you. If you don't want to imagine it
and you want a little tease of what we're talking about here,
there's this Thief Muskers YouTube channel.
Have you heard of this Thief Busters?
No. Oh, dude, once, once we get done
with the shows today, you have to go check out this YouTube
channel, Thief Busters. So it's a couple guys.
I think it's either California or Florida.
I think maybe California though, and they set up these box, but
they rig them up so that when thieves steal them, it does
something to them. So I've seen them hook up like a
Taser to it so it shocks their hands.
I've seen them do a, you know how people will hide an airbag
under like a couch cushion, then they'll blow it off and then the
person go flying into the air. They've done that.
I've seen them put a Taser under the seat.
I've seen them do a spike. They do a spike that when you.
Oh, I've seen these guys before. I'm looking at the page right
now. I've seen this stuff is
hilarious. Bro they need a lawyer that what
they're doing cannot be legal. They put spikes when you sit on
the seat it does like 7 spikes and it's not only does it spike
your butt but it they also hooked up like a there's.
Nothing. Listen man, there's nothing
illegal with owning your own stuff.
Oh, well, that's true. There's nothing illegal about
what they're doing because the person doesn't get hurt if they
don't steal it. But these guys are hiding behind
a wall with a camera and yeah, the button whenever the person
steals the bike to shock them. And guess what?
That person's never going to do again.
Jeremiah. Hopefully steal if you stole
after taking one of those spikes.
Sometimes they break out a measuring tape and they're like
this is what you just got in the backside and it would be like 7
inch spike rod. Dude.
I'm like, there's no way this is legal.
Yeah, but I love it. I love it.
I digress. I'm.
I'm here for it. Back to the Leave no trace so.
All of that to go to Leave no trace.
Back to Leave No Trace. Yeah, we've completed the side
quest, folks. We're back to the story.
So. That sounds even worse than go
next. Gopam out.
So I'll tell you ma'am, we we had a great time.
Friday we hung out all chilled and then Saturday was the big
day. Friday was a mile and 1/2 from
the vehicle after shuttling them to the campsite.
And then we're kind of undecided where we wanted to sleep at
Saturday because we wanted to go on a little exploration mission,
if you will. But one of the issues that you
run into, and I love all these guys, is anytime you have a big
group of people doing anything. I don't care if it's hiking, I
don't care if it's driving somewhere, I don't care if it's
getting on amusement park rides, whatever it is.
Big groups are slow. If you want to go fast, go by
yourself. If you want to go slow but have
a lot of fun, take a lot of friends.
So getting everybody to get packed up.
Usually I'm last so I'm complaining about myself.
Waiting on a. Stringer waiting on a Stringer.
So string daddy, that's right. So we take off finally and our
first mission objective is to find Kentucky's largest Poplar
tree happens to be located in Macquarie County, Kentucky in
Beaver Creek Wilderness. And I know this because Smokey
bees natural Nick. Yeah.
And let's see what what is his YouTube channel?
It's like bluegrass Sam. Yes, Sam, but I don't know his
handle on YouTube Bluegrass. It's like bluegrass Backcountry
or something like that on. Music or something like that.
He he does music on his channel. Too.
Yeah, he does music too. So anyway, they found this
biggest Poplar tree in Kentucky, and it's this massive tree.
And the reason why it's so big is because when they logged out
that area, it was impossible to get to with their equipment and
all that, so they couldn't drag it out there.
So they just left it. And it's been growing ever
since. And I messaged Nick and I said,
hey, I want to find this popular tree.
And he sent me the coordinates, he sent me his video clip, he
sent me screenshots of the map, he sent me directions.
And all of that was for nothing because we reached the turn off,
which was probably 3 miles from our campsite on that one.
We reached that at like 2:30 in the afternoon and I was like 3.
Miles. Bro, I said if we start walking
out of this campsite, what our goal was to leave the campsite
at like 9:30 to 10:30, something like we probably walked out
there about 11:00. We move slow, bro.
We have a lot of fun, but we move slow.
So we reached this turn off and we decided to eat lunch there
and it is off trail. And when I say this is a
wilderness area, what I mean by that is there's no official
trails. There's some people that have
come through 40 years ago or 20 years ago and took a little
hatchet and notched a place in some of the trees to sort of
lead you on a trail. But really, what you're doing is
falling the Creek until you get to where you want to be.
Yeah, you basically, you basically got game trails that
kind of turn into walking trails at some point, yeah.
Exactly. And the problem with that is, is
that not only do you lose the trail all the time, but those
same trees that fell into the campsite from the ice trails.
Yep, all that same situation is on the trail.
So I literally at some points was saying, hey, Rich, can I
borrow your saw? And I was having to saw
different either stuff that had failed that was blow downs, or
sometimes it was just overgrown from roadies, you know,
rhododendrons reclaiming the trail basically.
And those just grab you. Oh yeah, they do.
Long story short, it would have taken too long to take that off
trail to find the Poplar, so we decided to abort mission and
hike on to our next campsite. And so we we decide to go
through what's called the Eye of the Needle.
You got to take. OK, I just have to know.
OK, OK, I have to know. So you'd hike 3 miles?
Would hike 3. Miles at 2:30, At 2:30 PM we
ate. What time did you start hiking?
I don't know, maybe 10:30, 11-30, something like that.
It was one mile. My watch.
I was like. 4 hours and you hiked 3 miles.
I said, boys, we've been walking four hours and 40 minutes today
and we've walked 5.1 miles, bro, you can't not only I'm, I'm not
being hyperbolic here. We were these trails, trails if
you will, that we were walking on was basically the side of a
hill. My ankles and even like the
inside part where my knees are was so sore.
Like the next day I woke up and I thought I was going to cramp
up. It was tough.
Plus my backpack was probably 3540 lbs, you know, So I'm, I'm,
I was thinking, well, this whole trip is 10 miles in three days.
I can bring whatever I want, but it's a great idea when you're
packing your backpack. It's not so great whenever
you're walking for the fourth mile on a hill at a 40° incline
and you're like, I'm glad I got these two trekking poles.
So in some parts you just like walk through the Creek.
The Creek was 50°. It was cold so we reached the
campsite and me and Buckley decided this is wilderness area.
We're in a a section at our campsite.
Nobody's ever camped there before.
If they have there's no like established campsite.
So we built a fire ring there. Wilderness area and there is
some huge flat rocks down around the Creek area.
And I get 1 and I should have sent you a picture of it, but I
didn't. Let's see.
What would you say? 3 foot by two foot rock.
This was a big rock. So Buckley and I big Flat Rock
from the Creek bed. We pounded some sticks into the
ground. I kind of some big old clubs to
use as a hammer. We pounded some sticks in the
ground real deep and set that rock on top of it and made
ourselves a little table. I'll send you some pictures.
Oh, sorry. After this.
And you can kind of get a taste of what size it was.
But fantastic, I think that table's going to be there for at
least the next year or so until my shoddy handiwork let's it
fall over. 35 to 40 LB pack. What's that, say, 15 to 20 lbs
was chocolate? Well, you're not wrong because I
brought dessert for everybody. Yeah, I knew you would.
Yeah. I did.
I brought the biggest Reese's chocolate bar you can get and I
got and it had 15 pieces in it. John and I said it's not one.
Everybody gets one piece and so I gave everybody one piece of
the 15. You know how many of that left
me? A lot. 6 that left.
That left. Me a lot.
Now I say so you could. Have given everybody 2 is what
you're saying. Well, I couldn't give everybody
two. There was nine people.
Oh, that's right. There were nine.
Yeah, somebody. And you know, I'll just take a
hit for the team, man. Sometimes you got to fall on the
sword and eat the six pieces of chocolate so ever.
So it's, it's fair. And everybody even.
And I know how much you hate chocolate.
I mean, I was crying. I was suffering through this
recent juggling bar. Man, thank you, thank you, thank
you for your service, Jeremy. You're welcome.
That's what everybody was telling.
Me. Thank you string Daddy.
You're welcome. So Saturday night I brought a
Mr. Good bar even bigger, 25 pieces.
I said, boys, you're eating high on the Hawk tonight.
Everybody gets 2 pieces. So that meant everybody gets 2
pieces and there's 8 of them, which leaves me with 9 pieces.
I was going to say that's nine pieces leftover.
So I got the upgrade on that one.
I say probably one of the highlights of this trip was
whenever we got to Campsite 2, I had, I don't remember what what
we were doing. I think I went down to the Creek
and was refilling modern stuff. People are doing different camp
chores. Some people are gathering wood,
some people are building a fire ring.
Some people were setting their stuff up, you know, blah, blah,
blah. So we've been hanging the saw on
a tree near the fire pit. And I walked back over there and
I was like, so what's the deal with the saw?
Actually, this had happened on night 1.
It gets better. Night one, I walk up and the saw
was missing about an inch and a half off of the the tip of it.
And I said, Jason, is this your saw?
And he's like, Yep. Because to to flashback like a
year or two ago, I had broken Jason's saw and I had given him
a replacement blade for it, one of the Gone Boy blades.
Right, right, right. And he put it on 2 trips ago.
This was the third trip and I said what happened bro?
He's like we don't know. We still do not know.
So somebody broke it and didn't fess up to it.
Well, that we a limp. We started doing trail court.
You remember last week in our episode We.
Yeah, we did trail court. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I said, guess what? The jury's in, boys.
We started going through and I said it couldn't be me, Jonathan
or Matt because we got here after everybody and you already
had a fire built and this was already broke.
So that eliminates some of the suspects.
And then I was, I was thinking, Jason, you're not going to break
your own saw. But on second thought, he might
have and not come clean about it and try to blame it on somebody
else. I don't think so, but maybe.
So we we got it down to Derwin or Scott.
And I don't think you've met Scott.
Blue Star is what we call him. It's either one of those two.
And Derwin is taking responsibility for it, but not
credit for it. So I don't know really what that
might be. A moral victory thing.
I don't think he's going to spend the money to send the new
saw blade. But what makes it better is
whenever we got ready, I got ready to build my little table
at campsite #2 I said I'm going to have to borrow one of these
saws, boys. I said, let's see.
I open Rich saw, Riches saw, and I open Jason's saw, and Jason's
saw was longer. See, Riches is broke too.
It wasn't broken on this street. It was.
Broken before those things break so easy.
I had one that was broken for a while.
Yeah, and I have one over here that's broken.
Actually, I've broken three of them, so Rich I measure them.
And Riches and Jasons were almost exactly the same.
Jason had it just by smidge. I said, Jason, you won this one,
Rich. You almost tied for first.
And so I started sawing. I started sawing snap.
Everybody but me is sitting around the campfire and
everybody hears the snap and looks over and what's happening.
I broke another two inches off of Jason's saw and I said, I
said I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I said it's not that bad.
It's not that bad. And I finished sawing like the
underside of it and I got the little blade out and it was a 2
inches broken off. And I tossed it, you know, on
one of the rocks at the fire pit and everybody's looking at it
and they're like, Oh my gosh. I said, well, I'm sorry, boys.
I folded it back up and I said, Rich, you're now the winner.
I grabbed his saw. I opened that sucker up.
I went back over there. I kept sawing 1.
Snap his, did you? I didn't snap his so I guess
technically I've broken four of them because I broke 2 adjacent,
but one of his is already broken so I think that's three and a
half. No, you still broke it.
Oh, OK, we'll count that as. Two inches is a lot.
I mean, that's a big section off of the saw.
Yeah, the whole saw is like 8. Inches or so I was gonna say.
That's like 1/4 of the of the whole saw.
Yeah, so you maybe had 2/3 of a saw left, but oh man, we, we
hung out the rest of that night. Woke up the next morning and
Buckley and Derwin had about, I don't know, an 8 hour drive
ahead of them. So they, they rolled out pretty
early and then the rest of the crew rode out about 11:00 and I
think most of them went to Cracker Barrel.
I went home because I ain't got to hang out with Bridget and the
baby all weekend. But man, what a trip.
A lot of fun, laughs, a lot of great people, a lot of people.
It was fun. That's most people I've been on
a trip with since probably the meet up, you know?
Yeah, I was going to say the most I've been on where was
actually a backpacking trip was 12.
It's tough to find the spot for everybody to set up whenever you
got 12. Yeah, exactly.
You know, Brian Winburn's on here right now.
If you want to talk about somebody with a manly saw, Brian
Winburn has the saw. Oh, he's got the Cortana does.
He's got the Cortana, he's got that beast of assault they use
on a live so or alone, I'm sorry, alone so.
Let let me add one more thing on the SAW situation at it.
Luckily, for some reason, I don't know why, I was standing
between deadfall that was going to fall toward where the fire
pit was. It was a massive tree that was
just literally hanging there by thread, barely.
And I said we cannot sit over here.
If y'all want to put the fire pit over here, we got to do
something about this tree. We can't just be sitting over
here. And then Buckley has the same
situation but a small tree over by his hammock and he's got
everything set up. So I Jonathan what all trails,
for some reason, he goes over to the tree and starts like playing
with the one that's massive and is going to fall toward the fire
pit. If it falls, What I'm like,
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Everybody's like stop, stop,
stop. And then I say let me grab my
stuff because I'd witnessed the day before the tree falling on
his back, right, right. So I've already been
traumatized. He's already indicted himself on
this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I've moved my chair and all my stuff out of the way, and he
goes over there and you start yanking on the tree and then it
literally falls straight down and like, sticks into the
ground. So now it's not going anywhere.
Now simultaneously, everybody's watching them except for there's
a small group of people over at Buckley's Hammock, and he's
doing the same thing. He's like choking the life out
of this tree. And it's, it's dead.
And it's like the top of it, you know, the top gets a little
tippy. And yeah, yeah, yeah, the top
part of this tree breaks off and goes directly on top of his
setup. Hammock lands on the beetle
buckle. And we're at this point, like 2
1/2, three miles from the vehicle.
So even if he has to bail and this is around dark time, he's
going to walk out in the dark. And then he has Rich, who rode
with him from West Virginia. Like Buckley came from
Pennsylvania and then he went down to West Virginia or either
met him or went down to West Virginia and picked him up and
then met Derwin. And I don't know how in the
world, but his hammock survived. No holes.
It didn't destroy the suspension.
It literally I watched them both at the same time and I was the
only one that witnessed both of these because I was thinking I
got to get away from both these groups of people.
There's trees falling out of the sky and I'm the only one that
doesn't want to be anywhere near them.
And because you couldn't get away, bro, I waited to set up my
hammock until, like, I don't know, 9:00 the second night
because there's so many trees getting pushed over throughout
the campsite. I said I cannot afford one of
these falling on my hammock and me having to hike out tonight.
I wouldn't have any place to sleep.
But yeah, that was my little tag there.
Buckley pushed that tree over on his own hammock.
Thank God it is his own hammock. No kid, he'd have done that on
my hammock. We might have had a problem.
Yep. Well, he said he he brought a
new golden umbrella. I think I told you that on the
last trip Buckley and I were on together, he broke my umbrella.
So he gave me his. And so he had a replacement and
he's like, I got to stop breaking stuff.
Somehow his hammock survived that, that tree falling on it.
So we had a couple casualties. I did lose something too, just a
little attachment that I used for my chair.
I think everybody either broke something or lost something.
But it's backpacking. It happens.
Yep, and we got to get the word out to to Ben McMillan got his
first hammock set up from Dutch Ware.
I don't know if you saw this online, but if you get a get a
chance go check it out or the hilltop packs social media
platforms because he definitely has a hammock now.
And no joke, Phil Collins is on the winner cover of his hammock
so Oh. My good is that the he said the
view from laying in my hammock. Yes, yes, I saw that bro, I said
Oh my goodness, what is going on here?
And then I don't. Know why?
I don't know why he loves Phil Collins so much, but apparently
Ben loves him some Phil Collins. So yeah, Jeremiah, last question
before we go off the air. OK, go ahead.
Simple answer, yes or no? Did you win the game?
I won the game, man, I. Had the case.
I had to poop so bad on the way out.
I said I'm going to try to. I'm going to try to wait till we
get to the car. And then we got to the car and
there's no bathroom and I had to shuttle back to my truck and
then I had to drive home. I somehow made it.
I kissed my wife. Wait.
You ain't poop until you got home.
That's right bro, from from Friday at lunch to Sunday at
maybe 1:00. Wow, I'm gonna keep this.
Props for that. That's impressive.
It's quite unbelievable. That's that, that's impressive.
That's all I must say that is highly, highly impressive.
It's. Poop time.
Well, with that said, thank you guys for tuning in to the
Backpacking Podcast live stream. Unfortunately, this is our last
one until two weeks from today, so we will catch you on the next
one. Happy April 1st and we'll see
you next time.