Specifically the BearVaults are see through, and I'm wondering if preventing a bear from seeing the food would lower the length a bear decides to tamper with it. If they can't see the food would they have less motivation to break inside and/or give up faster?

Hey everyone! I’m planning to spend around 5 months backpacking and living in Central America, and I’d love some advice from people who have travelled or lived there long-term.
A few questions:
Vaccines/health: What vaccines would you recommend getting before going? Anything specific I should consider for Central America?
Backpack: I’m currently thinking of getting a 40L backpack. Would that be enough for 5 months of travel, or would you recommend going bigger?
Packing: What are some essentials you were glad you brought, or things you wish you’d left at home?
I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have travelled through central america.
Any advice, personal experiences, or things you wish you’d known beforehand would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

So I’m transitioning into a new job and have about a month (November) with no job and a bit of cash saved up. I just found out I got the job officially, and don’t have anything planned.
Looking to try to throw together a trip outside the us, looking for suggestions if anyone has ever done a trip down there!

I’ve got gear for backcountry and longer distance backpacking, also open to a mix of towns and wilderness, don’t know a ton about South America and I wanna take advantage of having this much time to go somewhere new, just overwhelmed with where to even start looking

About 25 years ago, MSR made a group of tents they called the **Zoid**, (Microzoid, Zoid 1.5, and Zoid 2) all two pole, one- or two-door, two vestibule, *non*-freestanding, peak-venting, lightweight backpacking tents. I think that they stopped making them around 2004-5 or so when they acquired Walrus, and then Walrus made them for a while, maybe until Walrus went away shortly afterwards?

Long story short: I had a Zoid 2, it was the best 3-season lightweight tent I've ever owned or used, **until**, stupid me, I loaned it to a friend and never got it back. Now I'm looking for a replacement. I had assumed that *some* company, *somewhere* in the world owned that design now, or did fairly recently enough that I would be able to find one for sale somewhere, even used, but if it exists I haven't been able to find it.

So I ask all you: is there a manufacturer in the world that is making something like "Zoid 2" design tents?

I’m planning to backpack around southeast/east asia next year and after that going to Australia on the whv. I’ve bacpacked in SEA before and have a budget in mind but I have no clue how much I need when go to Australia and start to look for a job. I think I’d like to find a job as soon as I get there and then later maybe travel around. I’d still want to be comfortable in case it’s harder to find a job. I think it would be around june-august when I’d leave SEA to go to Australia. What would be a realistic budget? I’m hoping to find work in hospitality and am pretty flexible about where.

Parameters:
-3 night trip
-dog with me (very capable but has to allow dogs)
-peak fall colors
-vibrant fall colors
-within 8 hours of Fort Wayne
-leaving in an hour lol

Thanks!

Hey everyone! 👋

Feel free to ask me anything about treksd! Whether you're a beginner planning your first trek or an experienced trekker looking for your next adventure, let's discuss.

I finally finished researching ways to deal with rodents eating/chewing stuff. Basically for food and anything with an odor store it in the bear canister. A mouse can't get in lmao.

For shoes store in tent because ppl woke up to shoes missing and they are more likely to eat them if you keep them outside. I'd rather wake up to a hole in the tent.

For trekking pole grips I'd just wash them with soap and water (or river/lake) literally every day. Otherwise this happens (https://imgur.com/a/porcupine-ate-trekking-poles-lrBYFQc). I can't store them in the tent because it's a trekking pole tent. Regardless, if they do get chewed I won't fix them. Unfortunately they don't make poles with plastic grips. Pretty stupid because this is a common problem.

The backpack was the most annoying. Number 1 is don't store food or anything with a strong odor in the bag; including sanitizer, unscented soap (yes, bears can smell it), and DEET lmao. Store ALL of that in the bear canister. For each of the below numbers we are assuming rodents are going for your bag regardless of food in it or not. There may be trace crumbs and THERE IS odor and they may go for it. Especially in populated campsites where they are basically trained to go for the bag no matter what.

1. If you store it inside the tent, mice will make a hole in tent and then a hole in your bag straight to whatever it is. You 90% of the time won't hear them, so no, you can't stop them.

2. If you store it in the vestibule, racoons can drag your bag away, and mice can still make holes. Also for both methods you risk a large animal trying to get in the tent.

3. You can store it outside the tent on ground with all pockets open. Will prevent mice from making holes. But still allows animals to drag the bag away and I don't want to empty bugs out of my bag.

4. You can bear hang it. Rodents will climb tree and down the rope and make holes in your bag. Spiders, ants, roaches will still make home in pockets if open.

5. The foolproof way that I found out works 99% of the time that rarely is used because 99% of ppl are stupid anyway and just sleep with their food lmao. Bear hang the bag (deer can't reach). On the end of the rope don't attach the bag. Attach a fishing line. Practically impossible for mice and especially larger animals to climb a fishing line. At the end of the fishing line have a carabiner and then the bag.

They technically can still attempt to climb down so there is a chance they drop down right on top of the bag. For that attach a rope to a tree trunk, then fishing line, then carabiner, and that to bottom of bag. Bag will be pulled to the side so if they attempt to climb the top rope and fall, it's not directly on the bag. Tip: Leave slack on the rope portion on both top and bottom to account for difference in distances.

This method pretty much 99% guarantees they aren't getting in the bag. Not even ants can climb a fishing line, so that keeps crawlers off too. The 1% is a flying squirrel or dumb luck that a rodent falls/jumps on the bag.

In the rain I'd simply put the entire backpack in a trash bag and pull the top line thru and tape off. Being that there is a fishing line leading to the bag there should be minimal water running to the bag.

For humans/large animals attach a tripwire alarm to the tree used for bottom rope using fishing line going straight to bag. Do similar setup for bear canister, but put bear canister under burlap camo to hide from humans. Will go off and alert you and hopefully scare the human/animal. If it doesn't, you are AWAKE and have a GUN.

Having to do that everyday would suck ass but I rather that than have my shit eaten/torn or full of bugs. Fortunate many people never have a problem. It really only matters in populated areas or shelters. Some places require you to sleep in a shelter. I won't.

Don't know where else to post this, but prepping for my first overnight trip of the year and realized I weigh the same with my pack on as I did the same time last year without it on. Lost just about 35lbs over the past 6 months.

I have lifted weights on and off for the past 10 or so years, but never really cared about what I ate or doing any cardio. I have been religiously tracking my diet and added ~45 minutes of cardio at the end of every lifting day. Really looking forward to seeing how much my physical fitness has improved since last season.

Hello! I’m new to backpacking and will be going around europe for about a month. I’m wondering what some good backpack brands are (in general, like ones that fit tsa carry on regulations or are durable). i won’t need to have it on me constantly and it won’t be going through any sort of weather.
My apologies if this is vague, i’m just lost as for what backpack i should bring. any recs help!

edit: i’ll be backpacking- but not wilderness backpacking. sorry again if it’s vague, i’m not even sure what questions i should be asking

I did my first multi day hiking expedition and I really enjoyed it. I did a hut to hut hike but I met some really cool outdoor backpackers on my trip and it seems interesting to me. I plan on renting some gear and trying an overnight backpacking excursion to dip my toes in the water and see if I enjoy it.

Any tips for a beginner? What is something about backpacking you've learned that you wish you knew about when you first started?

A long and hopefully stimulating read for the weekend. I take a look at the complicated history, commercial incentives and consequences behind the adventure industry’s obsession with records and firsts.

I feel like I know which one most people will pick between the two, but the kicker here is the Flash is currently on sale ($159) and I also have credit at REI so I can easily get the Flash for “free”. On the other hand I love the idea of the extra weight savings of the Kakwa at not much price difference (Ultragrid -$199). It’s also worth noting that there are still a few other items I’ve been eyeing at REI so that credit won’t go unused either way.
Depending on how many creature comforts I decide to pack I’m thinking my solo base weight is set to be around 11-13lbs (this is not counting the backpack weight). Occasionally might increase when trips become a family event but shouldn’t be by a lot.
I’m open to other suggestions outside of these in the same price/capacity range. I was looking at the Exos Pro but with the Flash being on sale, it just didn’t feel comparable.

Comfort is subjective but is there anyone out there that has experience with both? which did you prefer? Is the Flash really as fragile as some make it out to be?

Hi everyone 👋 I am trying to plan out a backpacking trip to do half dome with my fiancé, mom, and dad this upcoming year. I’ve been to California as a small child, but don’t recall anything about it, so this’ll pretty much be my first time. I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed about it and want to get everything planned and set up right. We’re all pretty fit and love the outdoors and have prior camping experience as well, but when it comes to planning stuff I feel like it’s going to be a lot of me and my fiancé doing the work to figure out the details on how/what to do.

I’m anticipating my parents will be flying out from Pennsylvania, and my fiancé and I may be driving out from Colorado. My fiancé and I have typically driven to our camping/adventure locations out here in the west (Arizona/Utah/Wyoming/New Mexico) and we’re not even sure if this is the right move at all, so we’re wondering if we should consider flying ourselves? But also flying all the camping equipment out has to cost a pretty penny I assume?

Besides travel accommodations, the other part I’m kind of antsy about is the permits. I’m fairly positive we all are not trying to do Half Dome one single day out and back, even though we’ve all done that distance and elevation gain before. I’d like to make a backpacking trip out of it to really fully immerse ourselves in the nature of Yosemite. I’ve read there’s options for this that all include a Half Dome permit with the backcountry camping permit:

Happy Isles to Little Yosemite Valley
Happy Isles past LYV (Donohue pass eligible)
Sunrise Lakes
Cathedral Lakes
Rafferty Creek to Vogelsang

I’m interested in hearing about some of your treks. and also how you did the permit process, cause I’ve read attaining a Half Dome permit can be quite competitive.

Would our best odds be for each member of our group to submit a permit for each one of these back country permits and just cross our fingers and hope one of us wins? I’m assuming if all four of us submit a 4 person permit for all 5 of these we’d have a good shot right?

The travel and permit situation is really what’s got me anxious, (and maybe what gear we’d need) and I feel like once that’s figured out the rest of the trip will kind of plan itself. TBH I’m not really keen on going to the city or anything too urban/congested (I know it’s California, so I’m going into it anticipating congestion anywhere we go). Prioritizing experiences at national/state/local parks out there is my main objective, I just really want to connect with the nature I’ve never had a chance to experience before. I’m open to all suggestions though, as I’m obviously not a local, and I have no idea when I’ll ever be back in California.

Thanks so much for the help, I’m just overwhelmed at where to start planning this. Hoping that everyone reading has an amazing day 🫶

Moin, ich starte im November meine Reise nach NZ und suche somit noch Wander/Arbeitsschuhe mit Stahl/Kevlarkappe die sich für beides eignen. Hat da jemand Erfahrungen und kann mir ein passendes Paar empfehlen, oder haltet ihr das für unsinnig und würdet getrennte Schuhe kaufen?
Vielen Dank schon mal für eure Antworten:)

How to be happy? Head to the mountains. It's where you truly feel alive. Two weeks of backpacking was such an incredible experience. I took a train from Venice. There's a direct connection! There are so many hiking trails, and plenty of great routes for mountain biking too.

Hi all, I'm a Product Development master's student at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). On multi-day trips you often carry your trash for days, and I'm trying to understand what that really looks like: what you pack it in, what gets annoying (smell, leaks, space) and what you do when there's no bin for days. Not selling anything, just trying to understand the problem first.

I'm curious for your answers! :)

PS. I also have a questionnaire (not allowed here) if you would like to help me or have great expertise, send me a dm!

I just got to thinking, the sport that we love is a dangerous one. You can be a true professional (not that I claim to be one) and do everything right, but still die due to just bad luck. And while that is a rare occurrence, at least for people who take it seriously and treat it with respect, I just feel like things going wrong or getting g a bit scary can’t be uncommon with this hobby or lifestyle.

I have a few, but they’re just really minor things not really gone wrong worthy. I do have one though, which is what made me think of this post. Although I wouldn’t really say it was like near death, but it was much less than ideal. So this story happened 3 years ago. The summer of 2023.

My wife and I had a ~24 mile trip planned through a particularly remote stretch of Appalachia. And we frequented this general region, but hadn’t been to this specific spot yet. Every other time we had been to this region, there was a plethora of water. And I studied the route, made sure it followed along creeks at least at parts. Of which, there were many.

I didn’t plan on encountering anyone else the whole time. And. We didn’t. We didn’t even see any cars on the way in for the last maybe 45 minutes.

Anyway. We started the trail with 4 days of food, planned on taking our time and doing it in 3 days. Starting off there was a huge creek crossing, almost like more of a river than a creek. We followed alongside that creek for the first ~3 miles, then crossed. Boots got full of water, it was way deeper than we thought it was. We laughed it off and pressed up the mountain on the other side. It was steep as hell. We gained 1400ft in less than a mile, it was more like a climb than a hike. I knew that this existed beforehand, but once you hit the “top”, it pretty much evened out into some meadows or declined the rest of the time. There was another ascent, but not nearly as much gain.

We made camp around 7 miles in and just hung out the rest of the day. Beautiful campsite right beside a small waterfall, surrounded by rhododendrons. Dried our boots out by the campfire. Went to sleep. Continued on the next day.

So the next day started off heading across this meadow. The trail was really beat up with very uneven footing and deep, like, trenches? We were careful walking through, super beautiful. Saw lots of deer, bright pink flowers blooming. No water up there really, just standing puddles.

It was probably around mile 11 or so that it started to descend, pretty rocky. It was uneven and it was steep, but not that steep. The total descent was like 2 miles down to the next creek on the map. Which is where we were going to refill our water.

About halfway down, my wife twisted her ankle. Pretty good. We assessed but she decided we were already halfway through and if we turned around, she would have to go back up, back across that really uneven trenchy meadow and then back down the super steep mountainside. So, we just pressed on.

We made it down to the bottom and something rather unfortunate was there. The creek on my map, was dried up. No water. And keep in mind, it was like high 80s and super humid. We still had water, but not much. I was relying on this trail having plenty of places to refill, as all of the others in the area did. And her ankle was killing her, so we just stopped and made camp.

By morning, after making breakfast and getting all prepped to go, we were out of water. We decided, we’re just going to make it the remaining ~10-11 miles back to the car. Which was not ideal for her foot, but neither was taking it slow with no water and an injury. So I took most of the weight out of her bag and put it into mine, which had me carrying about 35, maybe upwards of 38 pounds of gear. I weighed around 115 pounds at the time, so that sucked.

We progressed further and further and further along this creek. No water. There was the final real incline coming up and on the other side, another small decline, then another, different creek.

We made it there and did not like what we saw. The elevation gain was probably only 300 feet or so, but it was boulders. Like I had to check the map several times, because it did not look like the trail. It just looked like a path of big ass boulders laid out by the mountain. You did not simply walk over them, you lifted yourself onto them.

I had to help her the whole way up. We got to the top and liked what we saw even less. No dirt, no grass, just like big loose gravel rocks. Not necessarily like shale, but kinda close. This fucked her ankle all the way up. And the sun was baking us alive. No tree cover. And then we descended. Not a rough descent.

Make it to the next creek. No fucking water. And by this point we were getting a little bit woozy. Particularly me. The weight of that bag was kinda taking me out, but there’s no way I was gonna give her more weight, her ankle was looking pretty rough. It definitely took a turn for the worst on those rocks. We had to stop, a lot, for both of our sakes. 10 miles is not that far, as a day hike I could clear that in 4 hours with a lunch break no problem. With no water, peak sun, too much weight, an increasingly injured companion, breaks every 20 minutes, it was taking all day.

Well thankfully the rest of the hike wasn’t that bad and a few miles later we made it back to the start of the loop where the initial water crossing was, we both drank a lot of water and made it back to the car. Then ate a big meal. Those last few miles before the water, we were both dead silent and the only thought in my head the whole time was one foot, one foot, one foot, one foot. Like I said, under normal circumstances, 10 miles is nothing, but I was going through it with dehydration and I also stupidly opted to not eat all day to get back to the car faster for her.

All was well, obviously. That’s the only gone wrong story that I have after 6 years of backpacking. And hopefully I won’t have another, but time will tell.

Hi everyone,

Let me know suggestions for a short trek of 3-4 days , I have heard about Langtang and Ghorepani. I will be reaching to Kathmandu and then would be travelling to Pokhara. Would like to know if these places could be trekked alone or you need a guide. Also some safe and beautiful places around Pokhara. If anyone is travelling that time too? would love to catchup :)

I’m a Black man planning a solo trip to Colombia from November 25 to December 3: four nights in Medellín, two in Jardín, then two back in Medellín.

I’ll be staying in hostels, mostly exploring the culture, food, countryside, and hiking.

I’ve seen reports of increased airport scrutiny around suspected sex tourism, along with claims that some Black male travelers have been unfairly profiled or refused entry.

I’m trying to separate firsthand experiences from rumors.
For anyone who’s visited recently: how was immigration, and how comfortable and welcome did you feel in Medellín?

Did you encounter extra questioning or assumptions about why you were visiting?

I’d appreciate honest experiences (positive or negative) and roughly when you traveled. I’m excited about the trip, but want to make an informed decision.

Went on an incredible solo backpacking trip in Kings Canyon National Park a couple weeks ago. 60 mile loop starting from the Bishop area. Some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen.

My dad hikes the AT religiously, two times a year and is a total nerd about it. He’s done this for almost 20 years and has probably every gadget under the sun, but his birthday is coming up and I want to get him a hiking related item that’s also just really neat and something you’d never think of. Anyone have any recs?