5+ pieces of hiking gear I love
BioLite 330 Lumen headlamp. Putting the battery in the back makes the headlamp way more balanced, and the light doesn’t “bounce around” as you move. The angle is adjustable and will stay pointed at whatever angle you set.
Here are some items that I think are truly awesome, underappreciated pieces of outdoor gear. I had two criteria for including the items here. First, every item here is generally useful. They come with me on every overnight backpacking trip I take, and most day-hikes longer than 10 miles. And second, these items are uniquely great. By that I mean that I have never found a comparable product from a different brand. This will get more clear as I list the items, so let’s jump into it!
The REI Co-op Insulated Waterproof Hat
Sadly, it seems like REI might not sell this anymore? Or maybe they just don’t sell it in the summer. Hopefully they bring it back, because I haven’t found any other hat that works as well as for warmth. It has three important characteristics:
Ear flaps that fully cover the ears, even wrapping around them, to the extent that wind will not blow directly against the ear.
Waterproof (and windproof) exterior. I wouldn’t want to wear these as my only hat in a cold downpour, but for heavy snow or light rain, they are excellent. In a cold downpour, I’ll have a fully waterproof shell jacket.
Real synthetic insulation, specifically primaloft. A lot of “warm” hats are just fleece. This hat is crazy warm as a result, it’s often the only hat I need in freezing temps. Since it’s synthetic, it’s okay if they get a little wet, either from environmental precipitation or your body’s own moisture (which is super important if you wear the hat sleeping in freezing temps, as I have).
Me wearing the REI Co-op Insulated Waterproof hat. Note how the ear flaps fully cover the ears and wrap around them even. This hat is crazy warm!
There are down beanies that are warmer, but they almost never have good earflaps, and they don’t work well with any precipitation. There are hats with great earflaps, but they’re all fleece/wool, so they’re actually not very insulating. This hat is, IMO, in a tier of its own. And it’s quite lightweight and moderately compressible for how warm it is.
BioLite 330 Lumen Headlamp
Holy cow this headlamp is awesome. In my opinion it crushes headlamps from Petzl and Black Diamond, of which I’ve own many, for backpacking and hiking and night photography.
The #1 big highlight of these BioLite lamps is that they put the battery in the back of the headlamp. This means that the headlamp is way more balanced and the light doesn’t “bounce around” as you move, it’s like it’s glued to your forehead and it’s super comfortable. You can angle it down and it will stay at exactly that angle relative to your eyes. You can even run with it! One of my concerns was using it with hooded jackets, but I honestly don’t notice the battery out of the back even when putting a hood over it.
It has a bunch of other features that make it awesome:
I think it has the brightest red-only LED of any headlamp of this size. For me, this is a great feature for night photography and generally doing things late at night while camping. Red light doesn’t mess with your night vision that much (this is only kind of true: as I understand it, the real explanation is that our eyes are better at making sense of low amounts of red light, so you can get away with less total light). But in my experience, most red lights in normal headlamps are still too dim, and I can’t see well. Not true for this headlamp! And the red light is dimmable, if you don’t need it so bright.
The battery is rechargeable with a micro-USB. It’s pretty common for me to take a backup battery on a trip and use that to recharge all my stuff (camera batteries, cellphone if I need to), along with a 3-in-1 charging cable. This means I don’t need to bring any extra batteries or anything for my headlamp.
It has the most intuitive controls. One-tap of the button is on-or-off. Multiple taps changes modes (red light, wide beam, spot light, wide + spot). Holding down the button makes it brighter or dimmer, and when it reaches the brightest or dimmest setting, it stops and blinks to let you know.
GSI Microlite Waterbottle(s)
The opening of the GSI Microlite 720 is about as wide as a Nalgene.
I only own the linked bottle, the 720 flip, but GSI makes multiple sizes of this and has twist and flip lids.
Anyway, this is the best insulated water bottle I’ve found for backpacking. As anyone backpacking knows, having an insulated water bottle is great, both to keep hot water warm (for example, I would keep this in my tent when I go to sleep, so that if I’m cold in the middle of the night, I can quickly drink some incredibly hot water), and to keep cold water cold (like if you’re hiking in the desert and get water from a cold stream). But in general, insulated water bottles suck for backpacking for at least one of the following reasons:
Most insulated water bottles are just too heavy. This weights 17oz, which is not ultralight by any means, but it’s not really heavy either.
Some lightweight insulated water bottles aren’t very durable. I had one of these from Zojirushi, and after a one-week backpacking trip, it was wrecked. That being said, it’s 10oz lighter, so it might still be worth it depending on your trip.
More importantly, the opening diameter of the Zojirushi is way too small! It has a 1-5/8" inch opening. By comparison, the GSI is 2.9 inches, almost double!! This is such a huge deal because when you’re melting snow to make hot water, it requires a lot of fuel, and you really don’t want to waste that water by spilling.
REI Co-op Midweight Base Layer Crew
I should preface this by saying that I’ve never done hot weather backpacking trips. I’m sure I’ll do some, but I like getting high into the mountains or greater latitudes of the planet. The warmest backpacking trips I’ve done had highs around 20C or 72F.
That being said, this is my perfect base layer for multi-day backpacking trips, and also a great shirt for travel, for three reasons:
Most importantly, it’s 100% Merino wool. I’m not a snob about this. For day hikes I generally prefer a little synthetic mixed into the fabric, which breathes and wicks better and is more durable. But, for some reason, nothing comes close to 100% Merino for reducing odors for multiple days of wear without washing. I can wear this shirt for about 3-4 days on a backpacking trip, and if I take it off, I can’t smell any odor even when smelling the armpits directly. Sorry if that’s TMI, but it’s really crazy for me how true that is. So on a one-week trip, I only need two of these to avoid smelling bad. If I go with a shirt that’s 93% Merino wool or whatever, it usually smells bad after one day of intense usage. It’s crazy how different it is!
The fit is pretty tight around the waist and chest. Very easy to layer over, or tuck in to your pants for a little extra warmth.
But, the fit is looser around the sleeves and armpits, so it breathes a little better when you’re really working. For me that’s the ideal fit for a backpacking shirt.
Klymit (Quilted) Pillow X
To me, the “X” design of this inflatable pillow sets it apart from every other lightweight camping pillow I’ve tried. In general, I found that down backpacking pillows aren’t supportive enough and lose too much loft during the night, so the back of my head ends up touching the hard ground after an hour or two. But inflatable pillows that are a more consistent shape cause my head to “jut out” too much, and they’re unstable, my head quickly falls to one side or the other. This pillow cradles my head in a stable position just above the ground, and I can pretty much sleep with my head in a perfectly neutral position for the whole night.
Unlike other camping pillows, the shape of the Pillow X cradles your head in a neutral position while you sleep.
The quilted cover is also fantastic. Sometimes I take it on backpacking trips, sometimes not, depending on how much I’m optimizing for weight.
Honorable Mentions
There are a few more things that I totally love, but they don’t quite make that list, either because they’re not so versatile, or because they’re not so unique. But I thought they might be worth mentioning.
Rab Resolution Waterproof Down Jacket
It can be a little hard to find this jacket at times in the US. It’s not on Amazon or REI, but I’ve often seen it in stock on Backcountry, Moosejaw, or Campsaver. Anyway, this is THE BEST jacket for extreme cold weather conditions, whether or not you’re backpacking. Maybe not if you’re going to Antarctica or doing high-altitude mountaineering (like, over 15k feet), but other than that. This was my main photography jacket in the Yukon trip, where we would spend hours standing still on a frozen lake at 0F/-18C real temperature, with wind chill 10-20F below that. Here’s why this jacket is bananas:
330g of 800FP down. That’s a wild amount of insulation. As a super quick summary: don’t trust any jacket that only tells you the “fill power”, and not the actual fill amount. The amount of insulation is (very) approximately the fill amount x the fill power.
Waterproof and windproof. With a huge puffy jacket, it sucks to need to put on a shell on top.
Pretty lightweight for that amount of warmth in a waterproof jacket.
Hydrophobic down. Doesn’t mean you’d want to get it soaked, but a little sweat should not be a problem.
Box-wall construction. The best parkas have this, see here.
Surprisingly cheap for its crazy level of performance.
Let’s compare it to the Arc’teryx Ceres SV Parka, which apparently is basically their warmest jacket. I’m a huge fan of Arc’teryx stuff, FWIW, despite the really high prices. Arc’teryx doesn’t advertise this, but the fill weight/amount is about 240g of 850FP down. 240x850 = 204K, compared to 330x800=264K. In other words, the Rab Resolution Parka is gonna have about 30% more insulation. The Rab Resolution Parka is about 50 grams heavier, hardly a difference, but… not only is it more insulated, the Ceres SV isn’t even waterproof! If you got stuck in crazy freezing rains or a blizzard or high-winds blowing snow in the mountains, to me this wouldn’t even be close. I’d rather take the Resolution. And, on top of that, it’s about half the price!
Other “top” parkas, like the Mountain Hardwear Absolute Zero, it’s hard to even find information about their fill weight. But for its price and weight, the Resolution seems to be the best in terms of warmth and functionality.
The Heat Company Smart Mittens
Similar to the Rab Resolution, I’d say that if you want a really warm mitten or glove, these are the best. I went through a long process of trying out different mittens and gloves for use in cold weather photography, including those by Vallerret, and these were far and away the best. Although, I actually didn’t use them almost at all, instead I favored using only thin liners but keeping hand warmers in my pockets to reheat my fingers. Still, I’ll tell you why these stood out:
Obviously they’re really really warm. I felt that with these and with thin liners, I was comfortable in the same Yukon conditions.
They’re shockingly dextrous and flexible for how warm they are. They don’t feel restrictive in the way that many other comparable gloves or mittens feel. I can actually feel and operate small camera buttons with them on.
They have zip-open fingers with magnetic latches. Really easy to get your fingers out if you need to operate a camera, or a phone, or whatever. I highly recommend wearing liners underneath the mitten.
They have a waterproof exterior. The zippers aren’t waterproof, so you can’t dunk them in water, but they will protect well against serious conditions.
Jetboil
Not gonna write a ton about this because Jetboil is so widely known amongst backpackers. But for boiling water, there’s no better solution for a backpacking trip. A lot of times, the only “meals” I cook on a backpacking trip are add-boiling-water freeze dried meals, so this is the stove I bring.
Peak Design Travel Tripod (Carbon Fiber)
Obviously, this is for photography, but so far my PD tripod has seemed to be far and away the best tripod for backpacking-photography trips. I can’t truly attest to durability since I’ve used it only on one short trip, but in terms of functionality and design I think it knocks out the other lightweight carbon-fiber tripods I’ve used. Its unique aspect is how there’s no dead space in between the legs. This is obviously great for packability - it’s really small when packed - but I think it’s also great for durability. It doesn’t wiggle around when it’s strapped to my backpack, and I feel like I can throw it on the ground without any serious damage, because it feels like a single solid “chunk” and not a bunch of separate pieces.
There are also four pieces of functionality that are important to me, and it’s hard to find another tripod that gets all four:
It uses levers to lock the legs, not twists. Levers are much faster and easier, which is important with fast changing light. I believe they’re also better long-term, since twists get sand and dirt inside the threading. AFAIK the only reason to use twist locks is that they’re lighter and more compact, but this tripod is just about the lightest and most compact there is.
It’s really easy and fast to break apart the center column and put the tripod into a “low” mode, with the camera practically right on the ground. Really important for landscape photography with an ultra wide-angle lens.
The ballhead seems quite secure and is also really fast to adjust. I can dial in a precise composition quickly and it won’t “slip” out of place. Certain composition actually require the camera position to be incredibly precise, where even a centimeter breaks the composition. And so many ballheads I’ve used have “drift”, where you tighten the ballhead, but once you let go of the camera it still moves slightly. My PD tripod does not have that.
Arca-swiss mounting. This is pretty critical since I use an arca-swiss L-bracket with my camera.
Jottnar Asmund Jacket
I’m not linking this because if I were buying a new shell jacket right now, I would go for the Jottnar Jormun Jacket instead, because I prefer the hand pockets to the chest pockets. Unlike the previous honorable mentions, I don’t think Jottnar’s shells are necessarily unique. I think that Arc’teryx probably makes comparably good shell jackets, and plenty of companies do too. I’m also really interested in The North Face’s Summit L5 LT Futurelight jacket. But there’s one thing I want to emphasize: get yourself a really good, possibly expensive, hard shell jacket. Not one of those wimpy ultralight packable waterproof jackets, but a true hard shell. Those ultralight packable jackets, like the Outdoor Research Helium jackets, are good for some hot trips with a really really low chance of cold wind or rain, but almost always I prefer a good hard shell.
The main reason is that a good hard shell stops wind so much better. There are many situations where a hard shell jacket is actually going to be warmer than a big heavy puffy jacket, because it just stops airflow from sucking out your heat. I’ve had times where I bundled up with so many insulating layers and couldn’t get warm, but then I got rid of most of the layers, threw on my hard shell, and was completely comfortable.
I have a particular love for my Asmund jacket for a few reasons:
First and foremost, when it’s fully zipped up, the hood actually covers the face (mouth). I’m not sure of other jacket brands that do this, but when it’s windy out, this is just an incredible feature for warmth.
The fabric feels really soft and smooth. It’s not loud and crinkly like some other waterproof jackets.
It seems really durable and even stain resistant. I’ve worn it on so many hiking and backpacking trips, scrambling and sliding along rocks and so on, and there isn’t even a scuff on it. It looks new.
Jottnar Asmund jacket. The hood covers the mouth! I probably use this jacket more than any other single jacket on backpacking trips. Even without rain or snow, for any mild wind it adds so much warmth.
That being said, my jacket is their older version with Polartec Neoshell fabric. I don’t know about their Skjoldr fabric. And I will say that the jacket doesn’t do well to retain its DWR coating. I get maybe one trip where it rains, and then after that the jackets “wets out” fast. Meaning that the outer layer absorbs water, and therefore it can get swampy inside the jacket from my own perspiration.
That’s all I’ve been able to think of! I have plenty of other products I like or appreciate, but the ones I’ve listed here I absolutely love.