Ep. 89: Pack Dump
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And we're back with another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm Dirk Durham and my co-host, Jason Phelps. Hey. We're in beautiful Idaho bear hunting. And, you know, when we get together, we like to talk turkey. Well, we're talking bears, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. We just went from turkey camp to Idaho bear camp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dirk's leading this episode, but I'm going to bring up a point that it's been bothering me all day. Okay, let's hear it. So we're close to the Washington border. And Dirk has a nickname for us Washington folks that come over to Idaho and invade their forests. And I'm just curious. Let us know. His nickname for us is Apple Maggots.

Wait, wait, but pump the brakes. It's not necessarily my nickname. I didn't coin the phrase. That's just a common term among Idaho natives who are resentful of some of the folks from Washington.

And I kind of like to stick a knife in your ribs with it every now and then just to be funny because I know I can get some debate out of you. Oh, yeah. No, it's all good. I just wanted to, you know, us hardworking Washingtonians are over here spending our money to keep Idaho's fishing game rolling and everything.

and we get rewarded with being called apple maggots. So I just, it really hurt my feelings today, Dirk, and wanted to bring that up. No, I'm just kidding. I even found it up here where we were hunting somewhere. There's a rock that's painted, go back to Washington. We've seen that. So that was, that was a nice little touch. Yeah. It's a real thing. There's the, the natives are restless here. They do not, they're not appreciative of, there's some, you know, there's some bad actors in every group, right? And, uh,

some of your brothers from your state must have made some people mad, I guess, if you will. No, it's all right. Sorry, I hijacked your episode. The whole intro, I just had to get that off my chest. It was really, it's been eating at me all day. Oh, that's fine. That's good. I like it. I'm about to sneeze, so I hope I can hold it together here, but...

Today, we want to talk about what's in our packs, a pack dump, if you will. So we get this question a lot, what's in your packs? And I've get, you know, it seems like it's on people's minds a lot. Everything from just the little nitty gritty details to like food and everything else. And, you know, we kind of take it for granted sometimes that, well,

Well, shoot, everybody knows what goes in a pack. But I think everybody's a little bit different. And I've listened to other people's pack dumps and it's like, huh, that's interesting. So we thought we'd talk about ours tonight. Anyway, I think we kind of kick things off with day packs. I do a lot of day hunting, day tripping. That's where you hunt from a base camp. You throw all your gear in your pack that you think you're going to need for the day. And I want to be self-sufficient. That way, whenever I go hunting,

off chasing bugles somewhere, I have enough gear to get me through the day and possibly all night. So I want to have all the little things. So we'll kind of go into it here. That way I have a good safe day and a comfortable trip. One of the first things, first and foremost in my mind, in my pack is my kill kit, right? Which...

Everybody has a little bit of different opinion on. I've got four different things in mind most of the time. Sometimes there's a little bit more, but most of the time it's the same stuff. A sharp fixed blade knife.

As much as I love those like Havlons or Outdoor Edge, the replaceable blades, which a lot of times, and I didn't put this on here, but I usually have one of those in there too for cutting around the skull. But that heavy duty sharp fixed blade knife, that's going to get you through that elk. You know, you're going to be able, if you want to cut the skull off, if you want to

in the hip socket or if you're trying to do some stuff around bone, it's really easy to snap one of those replaceable blade knives. Do you carry a fixed blade or are you a replaceable blade? So I went through the cycle, right, of, you know, have lawns become unpopular, outdoor edges become unpopular. And I always grew up with a fixed blade or like a folding locking, you know, single fixed. I would consider that a fixed blade even though it's not a folding pocket knife. You know, we...

Growing up with a buck knife or an old timer, you know, we ran those. And then I went from there into the replaceable blades, which were awesome. They were sharper than you could get the other ones. And then now the last 10 years, I've went back to just a good solid, you know, drop point fixed blade with a very sturdy handle. And I just found I can work faster. I only need if, you know, if that knife is sharp going into the day, I can get an entire elk out of it without having to touch it up.

and you know, you touch it up and you're ready to go on elk number two. So yeah, I'm a, I'm a fixed blade guy now. Yeah. Yeah. And that was one of my second things you, you mentioned a sharpener to sharpen your knife. I keep a work sharp pocket knife sharpener in my, in my pack. And that way, if I need to touch up my blade a little bit as I work through there, um, and a little hint, hint or a tip, if you can keep your blade off the bones and out of the hair as much as possible, which is really hard, um, it'll stay sharper longer, but,

But yeah, those replaceable blades, as awesome as they are, they got pretty trendy when those things kind of came out to post the picture of your finger that you almost cut off. Yeah. During hunting season, there was a lot of those pictures. And every year during hunting season, we see a lot of those. So you got to be careful with them. Yeah. I have them. I have Havilands that,

I keep and I've got the actual, the scalpel blade with the scalpel handles now, but I usually keep those back at camp. They're like in my camp tote. If I got to get back and work on a head or cape the head out or do something, you know, that's, I've just reserved those for working in intricate places and messing with the head when I get back. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Because a lot of times, like after you've broke down the elk and everything's in bags and you've got it skinned out and the last thing you cut the head off and

and now you have to cut all that

hide off that, off that skull. Um, whether you want to, well, maybe you're going to leave the cape and stuff attached to the head and then you can do that back at camp. But if you're going to do like a Euro or if you're just going to saw the horns off, I guess you could, you know, want to cut off some of that hair there too. But, but, uh, it sure is nice to have one of those, um, have laws to, to do that because man, all you want to do is sharpen your knife, start sharpening your knife again. At that point, you're like kind of tired and you just like want to be done. Yeah.

Yeah. And with CWD kind of sweeping across the country and all these new rules and transport across. So a lot of times, you know, Euro's the new, you know, skull plate. You know, when I grew up, everything was hacked off at the skull plate and you put it on a plaque if you wanted to keep it. Now, I would say 90% of animals we bring home come home on a Euro. You can do what you want with later. You can, you know, use it for decorations or whatever. But in the process of us, you know,

dealing with the brain matter and get you, you clean the head up. And so that's where that have long comes in and the scalpel, um, you know, from their parent company, have all's come in where I'm just using a little teeny inch and a half long scalpel blade. I can get in the eye sockets. I can get 99% of that meat off before we boil the head. And it just makes that whole process of getting these things, you know, so I don't get a ticket for, you know, transporting the headache, you know, across, um, just get them really cleaned up. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And a little, and one more little takeaway from cutting your hide and meat off your skull. If you're going to do a gyro, leave the jawbone in the woods. It's quite a bit of weight once you separate the jawbone and the, you know, of course the hide and then the tongue as well. You got six, eight pounds of meat and bone there that you're going to lighten that load with. So definitely. Yeah.

Another thing is paracord, 50 feet of paracord. Now, I know for a fact Jason Phelps does not carry paracord because he always has to borrow mine. And I think that's his game. He's like, well, why would I carry it? Because Dirk has it. I agree. It's, I think, smarter and not work harder. So you got to carry that half a pound of paracord around. Half a pound. It's just a few ounces. Minimal. Yeah. But I'll tell you, I've –

especially being a solo hunter, man, paracord is so handy. I've killed a couple bulls in some really, really steep places where I had to tie the horns off to keep them from sliding down the hill any further. Well, as I worked them up, it was really, really helpful. And then as you get your quarters cut off, it sure is nice to have that paracord to hang it. I mean, you can make kind of a wigwam type setup with old logs and sticks and branches and lay your meat on top of that. But

um, to keep it cool and just get it off the ground. But a lot of times you'll poke a hole in your bag when you do that. Cause there's a lot of little sharp stobs. Yeah.

So it's nice to tie your quarter up into a tree. Now, some people will make a meat pole, right? Are you a meat pole guy or are you a tie it right to the tree guy? Only time we've ever made a meat pole is when we couldn't pack the entire animal out right away and we were in grizzly country. So we'll go up, you know, up high and get that, that pole made as high as we can. But, you know, we found leaning logs that you can walk out or, you know, get the, get the meat up fairly high and,

You know, there is always a chance of getting a predator on it. If it's too low, you know, a bear typically or a black bear. But in grizzly country, we typically go black.

and build a meat pole, but very rarely do we do it. Usually, you know, we've been fortunate as of late, we've had enough people around. We usually, you know, three or four guys, we can typically one trip that thing out and just be done with it. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And you don't have to have a large tree to tie your quarter to yet. You know, you get an eight or 10 foot sapling. You can put that, you

you can put that quarter right on there and it'll hang up there just fine. Or if you have one good, good solid tree, you can hang them things around though. Be mindful where you hang them. Cause as the sun goes, goes through its course of the day, you'll want to try to put the meat on the shady side of the tree. That way you don't have the quarter sitting on the blaring sun.

Um, and then last but not least meat bags. Yep. Um, there's a lot of good, really high quality meat bags out there, whether you're using the black Ovis meat sacks or you're using the Argali or you're using the caribou. I mean, the list goes on, you know, it seems like five, six years ago, there was like maybe one or two options out there, but now there's, there's tons, but get the high quality ones. Don't, don't get those, um,

cheesecloth style yeah yeah I don't want to list a brand but like I know growing up we always grabbed like the Allen or like the they're all rolled up like a sock from Cabela's the Alaskan fly bags and they'll rip and tear and then you got a whole big enough for flies to blow through and in fact I've had flies blow right through those cheesecloth bags before you think oh yeah my meats good and then no the flies will get through those things so and you buy the high quality ones you as soon as you get them home take them out

Take them things, hose them off, throw them in the washing machine with a little bit of soap, some bleach, some OxyClean. Wash them a couple times, hang them. You're good to go. I mean, you can use those things two, three, four times if you take care of them. Yep. To add on to the kill kit, one thing that I would recommend, and maybe you have it in a different place, is you could attach your garbage bags at this point.

oh yeah whether you are a garbage bag packer or not um you know a lot of times you use them to you know if you're going to carry a hideout or pack a hideout or keep your bag clean um you know i there's two routes uh you can go the garbage bag route and you know we always talk about the little luxuries that we pack or maybe we're willing to pack extra weight i pack a a 65 liter sea to summit um i believe it's like the big river dry bag so it's basically a garbage sack but

100 times stronger. Heavy duty. Yeah, heavy duty. And that's my one thing because I'm... Not to get too much into how we pack, but I'm a bag packer. I don't... I got a load shelf on my pack. I can go between my bag and my frame. But I'm a guy that's always just found... Open the bag up, throw your meat in there in that 65 liter dry bag. And then since you're packed down and it seems to ride a little bit better for me. So I would recommend most people... There's always a...

you know, if you're packing a couple of garbage bags, you're probably four to six ounces max in bags. And this is a little bit of a luxury item. The 65 liter, you know, Sea to Summit dry bag is like 13 or 14 ounces, I believe. But it's nice because I can put the meat in there. It can be on top of my puffy. It can be on top of my clothes. You know, if we're spiking out, it could be on top of my sleeping bag and I know it's not going to get like everything bloody. It's

It's been bomb-proof, waterproof. So in my kill kit, and usually...

I'm the most unorganized guy when it comes to packs, but I'll usually take like my game bags, put it in the Sea to Summit dry bag. I'll put all my stuff in there. If I do pack paracord occasionally, it's when I remember to put it in and then I'll use it once and forget. But I'll try to roll everything up in that, you know, the same work sharp sharpener and then everything's kind of self-contained in that one bag. Oh yeah, that's an awesome, awesome tip. And as far as the garbage bags, get the contractor bags. Yeah.

We've been around those wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, wimpy, not the hefty bags, but the wimpy ones. And man, almost anything will make, put a hole in those things. Now you got blood getting all over your pack. Now we're not saying you want to leave the meat in that sack. It's just for the transport from the kill site back

to where you're going to hang it while you're packing the rest of the animal out. And then when you get there, you want to pull it out and let it air out. Don't leave it in there. Yeah. Even when we're breaking the animal down, like don't put it in the garbage bag until you're like absolutely ready to leave and, you know, transport. And then as soon as you get to the vehicle or to your end destination, take it back out so it can, you know, moisture, you know, let nothing dry out as well as cool down are the two most important things. So,

Yeah, get it out as quick as you can, but it is nice for the transport. I have a question about your Sea to Summit. Is it...

Can you fit a full quarter in there or is it a bone quarter? It's a full bone-in quarter. Matter of fact, if you don't have a bone-in, you'd probably be able to fit about a half of an elk in. It does stack pretty vertical. So, you know, you have to, you can't just put a big glob of meat. You almost kind of have to force it into its shape, but you can eventually shake down about a half of an elk into that 165 liter bag. Okay. That's awesome. Some miscellaneous stuff I like to keep in my pack. Yeah.

three extra Mavericks, you know, elk diaphragms. Um, I keep those in a little, in a little box inside my, inside my pack. Now I also keep three around my neck or on my bino harness. That way I can get to them, you know, readily available. But who knows? I mean, I'm, I'm a little bit forgetful sometimes. What if I forget my diaphragms at

back of the truck or what if i lose them and when i'm taking a nap or who knows i mean i've lost all sorts of stuff in the woods so having those three extras in your in your pack is is great and i've gone a long time without using them but man when you need them you really need them yeah if you happen to lose your your carrying case or you know you something happened you'd at least still be in the game because you'd have to you know be able to dig into your pack and find one so

And then a battery charger to charge any of my devices, whether it's my inReach or it's my phone, which I'm using my OnX map all the time to navigate and chase bugles. So having that Anker battery charger, that thing works great. And there's a bazillion different brands. That's just the ones I got off Amazon or something. I think Anker, and then some people will say,

It depends on how long I'm going. And this is where you have to make the decision because I've got some 10,000 and I don't remember the measurement. It's like 10,000 milliamp hours or something. Gigawatts. Yeah. So there's like the 10,000, like the 25,600 is like the big block. But I usually just tend to throw that in, you know, because you're going to be able to charge your phone five or six times. And it just, yeah, it might be another little weight penalty, but it's not too bad. And I know that it's going to get me a bunch of charges, especially on a spike out trip. Yeah. Now, yeah.

headlamps. I carry two. One is none, two is one, right? Because, I mean, anything can happen. These headlamps are sometimes not built the best. I mean, you can spend a lot of money for one and have it malfunction.

And then extra batteries for those headlamps just to make sure. I've got stuck in the woods without a light before, and it sucks. And one time it cost me. I had to stay the whole night in the woods. Another time I got out, but it wasn't real fun. Yeah, I mean, simple. I don't want to, you know, it seems very obvious, but make sure you don't have a headlamp that's AA and AAA. Like you want to, you know, if you can get your devices to share AAAs,

AAA batteries. That way you have to, you know, you carry one extra set. Hopefully each headlamp's got fresh batteries. Another tip is these things can, yeah, there's locks on them, right? You hold the two buttons down and you'll get the blue blah, blah, you know, beep, beep, beep. One thing that I'll do is just turn a battery backwards in your headlamps. You can't, like you need to have, yeah, you need to have your lights when you need them. And one thing I do is I do have two, but I carry a little, like basically it's a, the little teeny one I think is a Petzl. It takes,

one or two batteries i think yeah and then my black diamond um i've used that and then i've used like a lead lenser but those typically take like four triple a little brighter light a little heavier light that's like my primary and then i've got this little emergency one as my backup and in a pinch now we always have our cell phones that that light is a light but it's not gonna like let you navigate ahead or you know miss cliffs it will get you by in a pinch but i always kind of consider that as like worst case scenario i could use my my phone light to navigate my way out a

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I also, I'll have a little small LED handheld light too. Just because, so I hunt a lot of real brushy country. And a lot of times the brush can be chest to waist high. And with a headlamp, your headlamp illuminates that brush, but it doesn't show what's underneath the brush. So you can stumble around a lot. So having that little handheld, I can hold it at waist level or a little lower and it'll penetrate under that first layer

uh, illuminated brush and I can actually see the forest floor. So here, here's another pro tip. Um, a lot of people like to wear their headlamps on top of their bills, which is great until you're looking for blood until you're hiking out. And so pro tip is that either put your headlamp on below your hat. So now you get full use of the light as you look down and look up or turn your hat backwards and be extra cool. Um,

while you're hiking around the woods. Yeah, rally style. I mean, it seems dumb, but like you got big black spots as you're walking around with that thing's on top of your bill. So it's like, I feel like an idiot, but my headlamp's always below my bill. I know, I look so dumb. But it's functional. I can look down and actually see my feet and I can look up, especially when you're blood trailing and you'll figure it out because you can't see very well. But this way, you're not always putting your head straight down and be able to see. You can actually use all the light. Or if you have a hard hike out, then a lot of times I'll pull my hat off from time to time.

Wiped the sweat off my head. And you're constantly messing with your light then. So yeah, it's good to have it underneath there. Matches and then some kind of a fire start, like a fire accelerant.

Um, I like the trioxane fire starter bars. Yep. Those things are awesome. Those saved my bacon that night that I didn't have a light. It rained all night, snowed. And I had some of those trioxane, everything was soaking wet, but those things, they got a fire going and it was amazing. Yeah. Yeah. And there's,

Lots of different ones. These are like military surplus grade stuff, probably. To heat your MREs up is what they're originally designed for, right? Yeah. I don't think you want to breathe the dust. No, you don't really want to touch the dust. You don't want to breathe it later. You don't want to get it to blow around. But yeah, it will light instantly, wet or dry. Yeah, it's amazing. First aid kit. Now,

This doesn't have ibuprofen and band-aids, Barbie band-aids for your boo-boos. You want to have some serious stuff. You want to have some good bandages, some stuff to wrap the bandages with. You want to have a tourniquet.

That could be a complete entire podcast in itself, which we should do one of these days. But you want a very capable first aid kit, and you want it readily available. You don't want it in the bottom of your pack. You want that thing right, maybe even having it attached on a bag on the outside of your pack. Because let's say if you ram your...

your fixed blade knife through your your thigh well you're gonna have to stop the bleeding with one hand and your other hand is going to try to have to get your um tourniquet out so if it's in the bottom of your pack you're going to really struggle and maybe even bleed out so have that thing easily let your partners know where it's at that way if there's a problem and you're incoherent they'll know right where to go in case they don't have one i probably shouldn't talk about first aid kits

you don't even have one. It's like the paracord. My first aid kit is a Ziploc baggie. It's got like two Vicodin in it from 13 years ago to kill some pain. It's got some duct tape in it so I can close any wounds that I need to. And that's about it. That's, and some ibuprofen and Tylenol that I can, that's about my skills. And I'm like, I know accidents happen, but I try to be like very cautious. I don't, you know,

like go into the crazy exposure and you know, broken arms, broken legs, like try to keep everything very controlled. Um, you know, when we're breaking down an animal, like very cautious with the knife and where it's going. And if I make this cut and so I try to overthink it, but I know accidents still happen. So I am taking risks and I don't advise that anyone does what I, what I do, but, um,

But I feel like my level of first aid capability is like I can fix everything with a Band-Aid and a Vicodin. And then this isn't a good option, but anything that's life-threatening, like even if you were putting the tourniquet on, you may be able to prolong it, but I'm still hitting the SOS button on my Garmin at that point. It's like that's my... But it may not be fast enough. You may need to be able to stop it in a different way. Right.

Not great advice. Do not follow my recommendations for first aid kits. I would definitely not follow that recommendation. Phelps, you're better than that. You need to take a first aid class. I'm first aid and CPR certified, concussion certified, and cardiac arrest certified. Was that the kit that they issued you? Well, nowadays you have to have all these certifications to coach basketball. And so it's like, I just, yeah. But no, I should do better. But yeah.

That's where I'm at right now in my life. All right. Something else. Leuko tape. That's for your blisters and for taping bandages and works great for just about anything. Awesome. Um,

I keep mine. There's a little, my pack has this little like bag that's made for extra buckles and stuff that sits actually above your bladder. So you can always get to it very easily. And my Leuco tapes in there because what I found is I'm too lazy if it's in the bottom of my bag or I don't know where it's at or I got to. So it's like very easy to get to and you need not to, it's in our bag, but as soon as you feel a hotspot, you need to stop at that exact moment and take care of that. And so it needs to be easy to get to and it's a lifesaver. It can be used to

Fix your feet, fix, you know, whatever, you know, cover wounds. It's very sticky. Um, repair coats, you know, puffy coats get ripped. It does all kinds of great stuff. Um, repair a mountain goat horn when it breaks off after a fall, it does all kinds of good stuff. Yeah. Um, SteriPEN or some kind of a water purifier. Um,

If you don't want to carry a lot of water with you, I usually carry like a three letter, three liter bladder, but there are some times where I think I may run out of water. So I'll throw the SteriPin in and I've got a Nalgene or something, but, uh,

Um, some people that just have their Sawyer water filter in their thing and they'll dip out of the, every little Creek they come to and whether they're day tripping or multi-day hunting or not. So, yeah, I, I'm a, I'm a Sawyer squeeze guy. I love that because I'm very impatient and if we're hunting elk, I want to be hunting elk. And so if we're crossing the Creek, we'll dip our dirty bags real quick, throw it in and we're gone. Like I'll, I'll filter it later. So, um, I'm a,

you know, multiple bags. Like we might have some little one liters, might have some three liters and we'll just throw it in the top of our bag, carry the extra water and then filter it at a later point. Um, I hate a SteriPEN if I know I'm in country with flowing water, like Washington or somewhere, you know, it's got good flowing water. I'll bring a SteriPEN, but if I've got to start getting into puddles and stuff, the SteriPEN does me no good because I can't stand to look at the dirty buggy water and then

deal with it. Yeah. You don't want a stereo pin in New Mexico. No, you want to go filter. And so it's, I use, I've got them both. Um, I've even got an old Katadyn pump filter, you know, worst case, I've got multiple options, but I tend to go with the Sawyer squeeze most time. Okay. So then, uh, trekking poles, I made fun of trekking poles forever. Like who's this hippie in their trekking poles. And then I actually use some, I'm like,

It would change my life. Man, you can be on some gnarly, steep, rugged stuff and it just gives you that extra little bit of contact with the ground and maybe keep you from slipping and sliding. I killed a bull elk one time. If I wouldn't have had trekking poles, it was snowy. And if I wouldn't have had trekking poles, I could have never made it down the hill because every time I take a step, I just start sliding, free sliding.

But I could sink those trekking poles in step by step and work my way down and got down in there and killed this big bull. So definitely a believer in those things. I've always got a rain jacket with me.

It may look beautiful and blue outside when you leave camp, but I don't know how many times I've left and within an hour or two, things cloud up, especially like spring bear hunt in Wyoming. It can be a beautiful day. And within a couple hours, within the hour, big clouds will roll in and you're getting rained on. So that kind of stuff will save your life. And with that, I'll also have a puffy jacket. That way, you know, if it gets cold, I can keep that puffy jacket on. I can put my raincoat over it.

I'm going to be, I'm going to be good. I don't want to get hypothermia. Yep. Last but not least. And the miscellaneous is the mini in reach mini. Um, these things are great. It's a, it's a good, it's like a safety, safety harness or a safety rope, if you will. Um,

And also it's nice to be able to keep in touch with home. Let's say you're gone multiple days from home. It's nice to be able to keep in touch with your family and let them know you're safe and find out how things are going there. And it just gives you that little peace of mind. And sometimes that's the extra little thing you need to have that staying power. It's like, okay, everybody's fine at home. I checked in. I don't feel bad for being gone or whatever. It'll keep you in the field longer and make you feel a little safer too. For sure.

All right, food. What are you eating? Are you eating like Snickers? Are you packing sandwiches? What do you got for food? It just depends on, I'm so all over the place with what I'm eating on any given certain year. Okay, let me ask this. How do you start your day?

with what do you start your day with? So start my day, like when I wake up. Food and drink. In the mountain, like at home or in the mountains? Day trip. Day trip, I'm probably not going to eat anything right off the bat. I don't like to start on any food. So I won't eat anything in the morning. I live my life like that anyways. I usually don't try to eat until 10 or 11. So I usually not eat anything in the morning, which is easy for me.

And then I'll go into, in the last couple of years I've been doing it, more of that keto carnivore type stuff. It's tough. It's a very tough diet. But when you're burning so much energy, I will throw more carbs in. So it might be like peanut M&Ms, something that's that way. I love Sour Patch Kids, but those are probably the worst thing for me as I'm hiking around. Blood sugar is up and down and all over the place. So I try to eat nuts regularly.

you know, mixed nuts, salty mixed nuts, because you need to have, you know, the world's trained you to salt bad, like salt's great while you're up there hiking around the mountains. Um, you know, pepperoni sticks, lawn Jaeger, you know, like air dried meats, um, you know, hard cheeses, Parmesan cheese, um,

Um, you know, whether it's like, you know, nut butters on a, on a whole wheat bagel, you know, for, for lunch. Um, for me, I, I'm not that big into it. So I'll just literally before I leave the trailhead, like smash my pack of six bagels, right? Make it about a third the size that it just was throw that in the pack, you know, throw a bunch of individual serving, you know, nut butters, whether it's like Justin's nut butter, whatever you can get.

Um, you know, I will look at like last year I ate a lot of those like fit crunch protein bars. I'm like, well, maybe it's a healthy option compared to a candy bar. Um, and then at night we, we, you know, if you're back at camp, we try to cook a warm meal. It's just one of those pick me ups, you know, burgers or steak or, you know, whatever it may be, um, something that's a pretty hearty meal and kind of gets you ready for the next day. Now, if I'm, if I'm spiking out, um,

you know, it's typically, you know, a mountain house or a peak type meal, but, um, you know, this year I'm going to, you know, there's, there's some companies that are making some different stuff. Um, I'm going to try to try to come up with something I can do there. That's a little, a little different, a little more of that keto carnivore style and try to try to stay a little bit more on pace. Just so my energy levels aren't all, you know, aren't all over the place, but

When I am eating carb, like I just shoot, I'll make this easier rather than say exact. Like I'm shooting for somewhere around 3000 calories. I've did this enough. I've, I've been there enough. Like you can go through all these different foods, but if I could eat 3000 calories and mix nuts and jerky and, you know, lawn Jaeger and, and some hard cheeses, like I'd be fine. So as long as I'm getting about that 3000 calories, I can just mix and match however I need to, to get there. Yeah.

I, um, no, do you drink any like supplements or anything in the morning? Are you a coffee drinker? What do you drink at first? I, I love coffee, but I'm also like very lazy. I'd rather get that extra 15 minutes of sleep. Um, so I usually roll out and, and if I'm doing like taking any supplements, it's usually like, um,

I believe it's, and it's companies called element, but it's LMNT on the, and it's a, it's, it's similar to like liquid IV, but I feel it's saltier. It's maybe a little more healthy. It doesn't have as much sugar in it. Um, so I'm using a lot of that element, um,

just supplement. Um, I use a lot of that just in my normal daily, um, you know, the non flavored or these other, you know, citrus salts or raspberry salts, what is what they call their flavors. And, um, that's really the only supplement I go to, um, you know, in, in the woods, just make sure I got electrolytes way up. Um, our good buddy, Ryan Lampers, like, you know, I love, I love his stuff when I'm at home, um, his electrolytes, um, I believe it's e-charge, um,

I believe is what it is. But I need single serving packets and I need to check in. And maybe he has them now, but at home I take the big scoop. We're out in the mountains, like there's a little element coming pre-packaged. So that's kind of really the only supplementation I'm doing. Yeah. I'll start out my morning with like a 32 ounce Nalgene full of Wilderness Athlete. I'll make a Superman, if you will. That's the energy focus and hydrate and recover. Yeah.

And I feel like when I do that, I kind of set a good, I put the best foot forward for the day. I'm getting hydrated. It's got lots of vitamins. It's got a little bit of caffeine to give you a little boost. That way I don't need my coffee. If I'm kind of a coffee addict, if I don't have it, I get a headache. So that kind of gets me through that, the withdrawals and not having coffee because I'm like you, I'm kind of lazy. I don't want to get up early and sit around sipping coffee. So I started out with that. And usually,

I don't usually eat any breakfast at camp. Usually it's something for on the go, you know, some kind of a power bar, not a power bar per se, but some kind of a bar or a, um, I've even packed, um, uh, boiled eggs before. Um, just, you know, for the morning, you know, get, get a few hours into the hunt and I'll eat, feel like eating, then I'll eat something. And then for lunchtime, you know, I'll have like, like you say, nuts and dried fruit and, and pepperonis and, and, um, jerky. But a lot of times, um,

depending on where I'm at a lot of times if I'm hunting by myself seems like when I'm hunting with other people I don't take this time to do this it seems like I don't know I feel too selfish to take the time to do it but a lot of times I'll take it I'll make a bagel sandwich and it'll have meat and cream cheese and and and cheese and and a bagel I'll make two of them one for eating at lunchtime and one's for when I kill my elk and I'll eat that after I kill my elk and

And I've recovered it and I sit there, you know, eating that, settle down, get ready to start doing a bunch of work. Or if I didn't kill one, I'll eat it for the hike out, you know, and sometimes it's a long grueling hike out, but it's always nice to have a little bit of something that's, that's delicious and, and nutritious packs a little bit of punch too. So we talked about water leaders are, are,

water leaders are, are, uh, can't like a camelback or a water bladder or something. I'd like a three liter one. Um, some people don't like those. They like water bottles. Um,

whatever is convenient for you. I don't like stopping and pulling my pack off and digging around and getting a water bottle. If I'm hustling to a bowl and I'm getting caught in mouth and it's like I've just hiked a whole bunch and if I can take just a couple little sips to refresh my mouth so I can call again, that's worth everything for me. And three liters is a lot of weight, but I'll pack that all day every day.

So here's a question. Do you carry a pistol? And if you did or if you don't, if you do carry one or did carry one, when would you carry it? So I carry when I'm in grizzly country. Okay. Is when a pistol and I all, depending on how nervous I am or what area I think I'm going into, whether it's bear spray and a pistol, I

Um, but that's really grizzly country. I'm not as worried, even if I've got a bow or, you know, if I'm rifle hunting or muzzleloader hunting, I'm not worried about black bears as much. Um, even though I think they still maybe kill more people or have more attacks on than grizzlies, but grizzly bear countries just got to me, you know, has me on edge a little bit. And so that's typically when I will, um, pack the pistol and, uh, also bear spray.

Yeah. Yeah. Me too. A lot of times I, yeah, I won't pack a pistol at all or bear spray unless it's bonafide grizzly country. Yep.

I'm not too worried about the black bears, not too worried about wolves, mountain lions a little bit, but still I think they're more curious than anything. So now I will say that's if I'm hunting with another person. If I'm by myself, a lot of times I will carry a pistol just because if I get injured and I have to sit out there for a day or two before help arrives from my in-reach message, I want to be able to fend off predators or come along and find some wounded guy that's covered in blood and

ready to eat. Right. So I will carry one if I'm by myself a lot of times. And it kind of gives you a little peace of mind too. And you hear, start hearing weird noises. You think, is that Sam's watch? Yeah. I'm going to, nobody think I'm going to go crazy on this. I, our good buddy, John Davis, I think when we were in, you know, we were in the Bob Marshall deep and, you know, he packed a, just a 40s, um,

you know, not what people would say, you know, could have issues or whatever. And he said he packs more for crazy people he might encounter than the bears. Oh, you know, so there's like that, you know, that's another thing like, you know, crazy things happen up in the mountains. People go to the mountains for weird thing. You know, it's like, he's like, I'm, you know, and he's a, I think he's the, he's pretty high up in the sheriff department there, you know, in his area. And it's like, he,

He's like, I'm more worried of dealing with whack jobs out there than it is the bears. Yeah. There's been several times you're reading the paper or the news where some person on drugs or some murder or something turns up in a national forest somewhere and causes problems there. So yeah, you never know. You want to keep a pistol close by. So that way it makes you feel a little better out there. Yeah.

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For you and for me, it's going to be about the same kind of stuff. Plus all your sleep systems, cook systems, stuff like that. How big of a backpack do you normally, would you normally use? Are you going in for like three or four days per trip? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we've went anywhere from three days to I've been 10 days on one, one trip, like 10 days of Ziploc bags worth of food, like get loaded up. I don't plan on coming out unless I absolutely have to, or it's just not as good as it was at a different time. Um, yeah, everything stays exactly the same besides the number of bags of, you know, the one gallon Ziploc bags is how I set my days of food up. Um, and then I'm adding a sleep pad. I'm adding a shelter and I'm adding a, uh,

My, uh, shell ground pad, sleeping bag shelter. Something to cook with. Yeah. I mean, jet boil. Um, as I mentioned earlier, it depends on what kind of crazy year I'm doing. And if I need to, to warm up water, it is nice to have a pick me up, you know, here, there, you know,

It just depends. But yeah, I carry an MSR reactor now. You know, everybody calls the style jet boil and that's where we all kind of started. But those MSR reactors seem to be a little bit faster, a little more efficient and can really just kind of get cranking. So yeah, for tents, it just depends. I've got, I've got a,

uh, Kofaro sawtooth, which is more of a teepee style with like a titanium stove. I've got a seek outside, um, that uses Cuban fiber that weighs under two pounds with a center carbon fiber pole that sleeps for people. I've got a single man, big agonies. Um, I've got a three man Hilleberg. So it really just depends on weather wetness, you know, cold who's all going, um,

you know, how much vestibule space. And so I try to make my decision based on, on that shelter. Um, I have a Marmot 15 degree helium and now, and I've got a, I've got a new stone glacier 15 degree down. Um, I typically just grab that stone glacier at

It's a little warmer now. You know, the Marmot's 15 years old. That Stone Glacier is brand new. They both kind of meet that EN rating. And for those that don't know, it's a rating that actually, it's not just that you're going to survive. So I don't want a sleeping bag that says I'm going to be comfortable or that I'm going to survive at 15. I want a sleeping bag rating that says I'm going to be comfortable. So both those are EN rated to 15 degrees. It means if it's 15 degrees, I'm still very warm and I'm not waking up freezing to death versus some people's 15 degrees means you can survive there and you're colder than heck at 30 degrees.

Um, so those are the two sleeping bags I'll grab. Um, I do have a Kefaru sleeping bag, but that's typically my base camp. Um, it's got synthetic fiber, so I don't worry as much as if I get wet around the truck or, you know, if I'm in my, um, you know, if I'm in my canvas cutter sleeping at a trailhead or whatever, and then a sleeping pad, I've kind of all over the place. I was a big Agnes Q-Core guy forever because I

three or four inches off the ground. You know, they're a big puffy pad, but I had too many of them leak. And so now I'm back to a Therm-O-Rest X something, something, something.

It's bulletproof. It is a little bit louder. It's crinkly. It's got the weird little pockets. Yeah, it's got the reinforcement. It almost reminds you like the packing material with the little air bubbles that you almost... A little bit. But they're like across the hexes. No, no, no, no. I believe that's a different brand. This one's a solid pad, but it does have weird reinforcements. And it's almost like the air is chambered and routed in a certain way. Okay, gotcha.

At first, I didn't know if I'd like it because it does crunch like a potato chip bag at times. It's a little noisier, but I sleep great on it. It's got good R-value. And so that's really my system. It's pretty simple. I went ultra lightweight on everything that I've got. And so I can literally go from, you know, aside from adding about a pound and a half to two pounds of food per day, I can literally add those three items and within about six pounds be ready to go overnight. Yeah. Nice. Do you carry a pillow?

I do. That's one of my other luxury items is a little Sea to Summit blow-up pillow. And another pro tip on those is do not blow them up until they're completely blown up. You go about five-eighths full, and that's a perfect spot. Yeah. Yeah. Test it. Okay. Let's see what else here.

And you're just going to eat probably the same kind of foods throughout the day, the same old, like a bagel or your nuts and berries and twigs. Yeah, nuts and berries. And your pepperonis and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I don't change it up too much. Right on.

How big of a bag are you using for your multi-day trips? What would you recommend if somebody's like, I want to get into that, and I don't know how big of a bag to buy? Because there's a lot of options, whether it's a 3,500, a 5,500, a 7,500, all these different numbers of cubic inches. Yeah, I mean, this is my recommendation. If you're going to just have one, if you've got the luxury to have two, then I would go like 3,000.

7,000. If you're going to get one, I would definitely go 5,000 plus. That gives you the ability to overnight put all of your extra clothing, all of your sleep gear, all of your food, all of these things we've been talking about. So I'm a big pack guy. Some people like organization, as I mentioned earlier. I'm the most unorganized pack guy. I literally shove everything into the bottom. Light stuff goes in the bottom. Mid to heavyweight stuff goes in the middle. Food goes on top. I really just stuff my stuff. And so I'm a guy that wants a big

single cylinder bag. Um, I run, I believe it's the cavern by Kefaro. I think it's like 7,000 cubic inch plus. Um, it's real tall. It's got like a snow collar that comes up so I can keep going vertical. Um, it's got a spotting scope pocket on one side and that's all, that's literally the only pocket I've got on the thing. Um, I don't even run a lid. I roll the snow collar down. Um, so I

For me, that 7,000 cubic inch pack is my day pack. That 7,000 cubic inch pack is my 10-day expedition pack. So I don't switch bags depending on the pursuit or the amount of time. In my opinion, you might save 10 to 15 ounces maybe, a half a pound, a pound on going to a smaller bag. But with the way the compression straps on that, I can literally make that pack perfectly flat for a day trip and it doesn't cost me hardly anything. Yeah. I use like a...

it's a 44 mag by Kefaru. And I think, what is that thing? Is it like 4,400 cubic inches? I feel like it's bigger than that, but, but man, when I get that thing loaded for three or four days, it's tight. It's really tight. So I would, I would always recommend go on the high side. I've had a 5,500 pack before and it was, it was good. I could fit stuff in there really well, a lot more comfortably. It doesn't feel like the thing's going to pop at any second. Yeah.

But, and then my day pack, you know, a lot of times I'll run a separate pack for that. And I've used that Striker XL by Kefaru quite a lot in the last couple of years. And it's about $2,000, $22,000, $23,000.

it's packed to the gills though. It's packed tight with all that stuff I listed. It's a tight pack. So I think that $2,500 to $3,000 would be a good one for a day pack. But like Jason said, if you don't have the luxury to have two different packs, I would definitely get a big pack. And then you can always just crunch them down for your day trips. And they're really versatile that way.

So, all right. Well, anything else you'd like to go over? Tools, real quick. Oh, tools. Archery season, I've got an Allen wrench set with my thumb release. So I shoot a thumb release. So like my chest harness, which is something I also carry, I'll keep my Allen wrenches and my...

my release on my left side and i'm more nervous about my equipment not functioning than i am my health so i will pack like floss if i need to do any like string repairs or bow repairs or like get a serving to stop running or whatever you would call that um i will carry like the real floss not that stupid ribbon stuff that you get nowadays um carry carry some real floss and then um

So that's kind of my archery tools, my ability to fix or tighten anything that's loose, you know, along with pitch and some floss you can usually get by or maintain. And then rifle season, you know, if I'm changing my kit out, usually I just got my Allen wrench, the one Allen wrench to mess with my scope. I've usually got like a dime in case I need to turn something, you know, for God forbid I needed to do something, you know, I wouldn't shoot at an animal, but I'd have the ability to change or take my scope apart if I need to or my knobs, etc.

Um, I do carry a little teeny flat head, like a little multi-tool, and then it's got a reversible, um, Phillips on one side. And that was more to help with taking care of camera gear. Like if I need to get something undone or, you know, something on my headlamp is, you know, goofy. Like I had one of my black diamonds had like a flathead screwdriver that would sometimes get too tight and I couldn't like get the neural to, so I grabbed that little, I have a little teeny, um,

you know, screwdriver that goes in my, my waist pocket. Um, chapstick for me. Um, I'm, I'm a Western Washington high humidity guy. As soon as I get over the top of the pass, like my lips fall apart. So I've always got like chapstick for me in my pocket.

yeah i think rangefinder binoculars you know stuff that we not necessarily in your pack but on me at all times when i'm hunting um rangefinder and i switch back and forth whether i'm rifle hunting or archery hunting whether i'm going with like the rx5 full draw or going with you know something like the loopholes new um what is it tbr 5000 i don't know the exact model number but they're new the new rangefinders are tbr 5000 yep which

Which is pretty badass. It's awesome. So I know we weren't talking exactly about pack dump, but those are the things that are also like, I just move those to my chest, my chest harness as I'm hunting and, and you know, the tools are,

Like I said, I probably focus more on the effectiveness of me being successful in my gear functioning than I do about my own health. So I do spend a little extra space and time on making sure I've got tools available. Yeah. Yeah, I run one of those chest rigs too, like an FHF chest rig. And in my left pocket, I'll have Carmex in the tube because –

Hot weather the chapstick stuff the stuff that you can a little you can turn the little wheel and it comes out more Those things get hot and sometimes melt and I don't like that gooey stuff all over my stuff So the little car max tube that things that stuff works really good. It's good for chapped lips and

I also keep one of those headlamps I referenced earlier. I keep one of those in my chest pocket. That way I don't have to dig for it. You know, there ain't nothing worse than when you're trying to hike out in the evening and have to stop and dig through your pack and find your headlamp. If it's right there readily available on your chest, it's just like, yep, right here. Yeah, I guess the other thing with my rifle, I just found this out because I was switching my pack around because we're archery hunting here in Idaho right now.

um i have a couple i just throw a couple um those little cardboard squeezes of like your 3m ear protection is it goes in my left chest pocket when i'm rifle hunting just in case somebody needs hearing protection or i lose my you know i usually wear one of those i don't know i call them timber cutter earplugs you know they just kind of strap around your neck and got the hard orange you know so you can quickly put them in but if i happen to lose them or didn't bring them on that hunt i've got a couple sets of earplugs i can hand out to people before we shoot

Yeah, that's a good idea. I can't think of anything else that's in or on my pack. Like I said, I usually take and replace extra buckles or extra straps. You carry a paracord. My pack does have... I have two extra cinch straps that I can compress from different angles with different buckles. So I do have a couple buckles and straps in there. I think that's really everything in my pack for most situations. I can't think... If...

If I know, you know, the Idaho deer hunt me and Tyson went on in, what was it, 2021? Knew we were going to need to be building fires and we knew there were like beetle killed timber in the area and needed to make firewood. So we brought like the Wyoming saw, the little, you know, so like there are times depending on the hunt, we usually keep this sort of stuff at the truck or in our possibles tote. But you may reach in there as you're grabbing your cold weather tent and you're switching that out, you're grabbing the Wyoming saw so you have the ability to

to, you know, adapt on a, on a hunt where you know you're going to be in 12 to 18 inches of snow. Yeah. So there's things like that where, well, you know, you may grab a Wyoming saw or whatever to, to deal with the situation. Um,

Yeah. That's, that's a great idea too. Or to cut horns off, you know, some people don't want to pack out the skull. They're just, they don't want to skull cap it. So, um, I don't typically carry the Wyoming saw with me, uh, that I go back on the last trip with, with the Wyoming saw to cut the rack off if I were to do that. Um,

But yeah, just more than anything, just refine, you know, go through your stuff, refine. You can put a lot of unnecessary crap in there. And if you've been carrying it for a while and you haven't used it, maybe it needs to go. Of course, not the first aid stuff.

but if there's stuff that you just haven't seen the utility out of then i'd pull it out and you can get pretty bare bones with having some good quality stuff in there that that'll make your day comfortable so yeah and do not forget your wind checker oh wind checkers yeah that's that's sitting on the side of my bino harness and it's probably the most important i use that wind checker more than any other thing i've got on me at all times so that's one thing i missed i a lot of times i'll have a second one in the pack because they weigh nothing and i'll have the one i'm using actively

I don't know how many of them stupid things I've lost, though. It's easy to lose them, especially the ones that aren't white, the ones that are darker color. Or camo, the camo option, yeah. Where the heck did that thing go? So, but yeah. Anyway, well, thanks for chatting about that tonight. If any of our listeners have any questions about this kind of stuff, go ahead and email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com.

And if you want to call in with your question, I'll play your question on the air and we'll answer it best of our ability. And the number is 208-219-7701. You get about three minutes to put that message on there before it cuts you off. So keep your message or your question quick. So thanks, everybody. And we'll catch you on the next one. Yep.

Hey, we're going to take a little break here and talk about interstate batteries. Now, if you're like me, enjoying the great outdoors, you need gear that is as reliable as it gets. That's why I power my adventures with interstate batteries. I use interstate batteries in my boats. I use interstate batteries in my camper. Great for your truck, too. From Alaska to Montana, they're outrageously dependable.

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