Our Hiking Blog

What is the best hiking gear?

Wanting to start bushwalking and don’t know what is the best equipment to take?

Looking for an independent review of hiking gear for backpacking on a multi day trip?

In this guest post, self confessed gear junkie Larry Hamilton, continues his gear review from a trip last year over the South Coast Track in Tasmania.

You can read Part One here: Best hiking gear for a multi day trip in Tasmania

Over to Larry:

Multi Tool:

I swapped my Leatherman Crunch which previously accompanied me to provide a knife and repair tool to a Leatherman Juice, dropping some weight along the way. I’ve not actually ever used a pair of pliers when walking but I can’t seem to take the step of leaving such a tool behind. I did manage to leave behind my Gerber LST knife which is my favourite walking knife on the basis that it was overkill when the Juice has an inbuilt knife, albeit not as good.

First Aid Kit:

I pared back what I take in my first aid kit and reduced weight significantly. As always though, the first aid kit remained essentially unused but its presence in my pack eases my mind about risk management.

Batteries:

This year I opted to take lithium batteries for my headlight, my led lantern, my GPS, my radio and Iriver mp3 player. Damn, that is a lot of electronics when you write it like that! I ended up paying an extraordinary amount for lithium batteries for the 14 days I might be out, but saved weight on the alkaline versions.

I’d not experimented with lithium batteries (foolishly) before going and was shocked by how much longer they lasted than normal alkaline batteries. I brought home too many unused batteries which meant I carried a significant amount more weight than I needed to.

Lantern:

I changed my led lantern from my last trip as I found a Coleman Exponent lantern which collapsed into quite a compact package and couldn’t resist another piece of gear. But I reassured myself in that by doing so I saved a bit of space, gained some robustness and it was lighter too. The headlight and other electronic gear was unchanged from my pile of tried and tested gear I’ve taken on many trips.

Sleeping Bag:
My sleeping bag is a Macpac Tempest bag which I’ve had for quite a while. It is marginal for a winter bag as I seem to need a warmer bag than do other people and so this year I swapped my silk liner for a Thermolite Reactor inner sheet which is supposed to add several degrees of warmth to the bag. That turned out to be a winner.

I like the feel of the Reactor liner and the fact that it doesn’t rustle. It also felt warmer but probably not by as much as the advertising alleges. I’m still going to look for a warmer bag for winter and when I eventually get one it will have waterproofness or water repellency on the foot of the bag. As with last year I suffered from condensation in my tent and the foot of my bag got too wet too often for my liking.

Watch:

Partly because of the appalling weather last year and partly because I like fancy toys I lashed out before going, on a Casio Protrek Watch with a compass, barometer an altimeter and a tide graph. This meant I could leave behind my traditional compass which I’ve not used in earnest for several years now. As I have a compass in my GPS and with my watch as a spare compass I figure a traditional compass is overkill. I liked the barometer reading on the watch and used the altimeter but really it was the time display that was necessary.

The rest was mostly overkill. I used the tide graph but as I carried a printed page of the tide chart for the relevant dates anyway, the watch was desirable but I should have spent the money on something else. I won’t disclose what my wife said about this purchase!!!

Techo/ Phone / GPS:

This year I took my mobile phone (Next G) to phone for a taxi from Cockle Creek but also took a Telstra phone card as insurance. Normally I would not carry a phone. I’d also purchased a PLB earlier in the year as I travel extensively for work in some isolated desert environments and so I had my own rather than hiring one as I’d done previously.

As always I carry a map of the terrain which in this case was the South Coast Walks map and notes in a waterproof map case. I like referring to maps but like my compass I’ve not really used a map for navigation for a number of years because my GPS (Garmin GPSmap 60csx) has quite detailed maps uploaded. As with last year I found the Shonkymaps topographic map quite accurate and well and truly sufficient for navigation.

Clothing:

Unused this time was a light weight beanie that I use for sleeping or under my oiled japara walking hat. It turned out just not to be cold enough to need. I took (as always) a complete spare set of clothes including thermals in a dry-bag and they stayed there as insurance. These got used last year when the weather was so bad so I didn’t feel too burdened by carrying them unused.

I did though, take two sets of walking gear (pants, shirt, socks and underwear) and didn’t use the second pair. I normally wouldn’t take these but because I had planned to be out for up to 14 days I thought I might not be able to stand how I smelt along the way. The problem is that once my walking gear gets wet I figure I shouldn’t swap to dry gear and carry the wet stuff thus reducing two sets to a wet state. So I stayed in wet gear for the trip and rinsed out my socks and underwear a few times.

It is not too pleasant on a windy, cold morning, getting into saturated clothes but I think it is better than getting two sets of clothes wet. I wouldn’t take that second set of walking gear again unless I had companions with functioning olfactory membranes. Walking alone has some unexpected benefits.

Walking Poles:

Last year I fell a couple of times in mud holes on my aluminium walking poles and had promised myself a new pair this year as I felt they weren’t to be trusted. They held up pretty well in the interim and despite my earlier reservations I took them again on this walk, only to fall heavily and bend one again. With some care to straighten it out as well as I could, it held out for the walk. So I can attest to reliability of the Komperdell Savannah poles I’ve had now for a number of years.

I think that I should look around for a new set and will investigate some of the new materials to check if they are stronger as well as lighter. My experience suggests that strength is worth more than light weight. My wife uses ultralight carbon poles but they seem flimsy to me.

Tent:

My tent is a Vango Force Ten Helium100 which I used on the Port Davey Track. At one kilo total weight I like this and apart from some condensation issues when it is both wet and cold I have found no problems with it.

Camera:

Last year I had a real problem with a non functioning digital camera (a Ricoh GR digital) and swore that I wouldn’t use one again. But I had it repaired and tested it extensively during the year without another incident and so took the risk again. This time I had no problems and was pleased with its performance.

Pack Weight:

So from the foregoing it is evident that I can shave more weight from my pack (a progressive exercise) but my pack weight was 25kg without fuel on the scales at Par Avion which I think wasn’t too bad. I had to add 1600ml of metho but subtract an evening meal and a breakfast which I consumed at Melaleuca as I stayed there for a night before starting the walk so I guess I started the walk at just over 25kg which I thought was acceptable given that I was carrying food and fuel for at least 14 days.

Larry has been a fantastic contributer to Our Hiking Blog over the last couple of years. We love his writing style, honesty, sense of humour and lateral thinking.

Below are the other articles he has been kind enough to share:

The South Coast Track – Solo Winter Trip report by Larry Hamilton – Part One
South Coast Track – Part Two by Larry Hamilton – Ironbound Ranges and Leeches
South Coast Track – Part Three by Larry Hamilton – Surprise Bay to Cockle Creek
Larry’s Port Davey Trip Report- great reading
Gear List for Wilderness Bushwalking Trip – Larry Hamilton’s excellent gear list (Part One of this article)

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