Podcast: Download (Duration: 29:21 — 27.8MB)
Show Notes: Episode 137
Today on the First 40 Miles, how do you find people to hike with? We’ll play a fun game today to see if we can answer that question. Then we’ll review a 3 liter water storage reservoir that has a unique blasting feature. On today’s Backpack Hack of the Week, have you ever made up constellation names just to impress your hiking mates? Not only is that hilarious, but it’s also avoidable—and we’ll show you how. Then a little trail wisdom from a man who wished to live deliberately.
Opening
- Letter from listener via Facebook about wanting a hiking group!
- We have a built in social structure with our family—and that really satisfies my need for social interaction.
- But what if you’re looking for ways to connect more?
- More people! More group events! Service opportunities!
- You can always invite! That’s a great way to introduce folks to hiking and backpacking
Top 5 Opportunities to Build Your Hiking and Backpacking Community
We’re going to try a little experiment today. We have in one stuff sack, we have a selection of groups that hike socially. In the other stuff sack, we have a US Map that has been cut into squares
Hiking Club of (Location) or Trail association of (Location)
Hiking Clubs for Seniors
Group hang on the Hammock Forum
SUMMIT Gear Review™: Hydrapak Trek Kit 3 Liter
Structure
- TPU, abrasion resistant, super tough
- Screw on lid that can take tubing or close to be water-tight
Utility
- Holds 3 liters
- Can take boiling water or freeze
- Handle/loops on the side and on the top.
- Slim and low profile
- The entire water bottle/reservoir can be stashed in a pocket
Mass
- Weighs 7.2 ounces
Maintenance
- Flush
- Clean with Bottle Bright tablet
Investment
- $40
Trial
- We used this on our Ecola State Park trip
- Great for when we needed a big sack of water to refill our bottles
- Lightweight, durable, has fun feature that can be used to drive your hiking friends crazy or can be a fun way to deliver water to your parched mouth.
- Not a filter but can work with with Katadyn BeFree water filter
- Don’t lose the cap…if you do, you’ll have to buy a whole new trek kit or get another lid that doesn’t use features of the water blaster. Water blaster works without lid, but you have to hold the water bag up
- Squirt feature—great for sharing water, cooling down, washing off gear.
Backpack Hack of the Week™: Constellation Identification App: Sky Map
- Sky Map (a Google app for Android devices)
- Used to be called Google Sky
- App that you can download for free
- Hold it up to the sky and it will identify what you are looking at, constellations)
Trail Wisdom
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness out of it and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience…. –Henry David Thoreau