Camping and Hiking in the Washington Backcountry | What I Pack

Hey, I'm Christian. I'm an outdoor adventure photographer and I've been living on the road for two plus years. Okay, so I know I mentioned in my last video that this video would be about how I make money and earn a remote income while living on the road, but for the past month I've mostly just been in the mountains doing what I love most. I've been hiking, camping, and taking photos. It's so beautiful this time of year, so I figured I'd share what I've been up to and some behind the scenes of a few recent photography trips in the Washington backcountry. In this episode, I'll give you a glimpse into what I pack for these overnights and what kind of camera gear I take into the mountains, just so you have an idea of what I actually do as an adventure photographer before I dive into how I've turned it into a career. Thanks for sticking around. Excited to show you guys a little bit of my current backyard. We are hiking in the Mount Baker Wilderness, passing a lot of people on the trail. I've got my face mask and that's Nathaniel. what I pack in the van, but kind of ran out of time, so I'm just going to unpack my bag here at camp and show you guys what I typically take out into the backcountry. All right, so here it is fully packed. It's the Osprey 65 10 liter, and I'm going to unpack it for you guys and show you what I have in there. Okay, so this isn't going to be super detailed because actually I'm going to lose the sun pretty soon, but I just wanted to show you guys a little bit of my setup while I am out here in the backcountry. So this is my sleeping bag, Eddie Bauer 850 fill. It's a 20 degree sleeping bag. Super comfortable. And then this is my blow up Nemo pillow. Super soft. This is a new pad that I just got. I'm trying it out. Comfortable so far. This is my second time using it. This is a little pad that I use whenever I go camping. It's super great to just like sit on or even just have outside your tent. Camp stove fuel. This is an insulated thermos that I use in the morning for coffee. Here is my camera with 16-35 lens. And then I also always bring this wandered camera cube. This is a little bare right now, but this is where I keep my 5D camera body, 16-35 lens, and then also my 100-400, which is my favorite lens. It's great for capturing layers, especially mountain layers. This little guy right here is actually the brain of my big backpacking backpack and it turns into a little backpack, which I can then use to go explore out on the hills and the various tarns. There's so much land to explore around here, so this is cool. It's got tons of different pockets. Here I have a medical first aid kit and then snacks. I always love to bring something fresh, so I brought cucumber, gourmet cheese, jalapeno of course, nuts, and some crackers. And then I'm also here with Nate who's off in the mountains and he brought the other half of dinner, so we're going to make like a little gourmet snack platter. And then baby wipes, essential. Here I have some camera gear. I have the DJI Osmo Action and this is a built-in tripod and it's also kind of like a selfie stick that I use. And this is a phone charger which I can use, but it's usually good for like one good charge out in the backcountry, which is perfect. It's super, super slim. And then I always bring a backup card and a backup battery. These batteries, I mean they last so long. I typically only go through one battery a trip, but I bring a second one just in case. And then this might be a little bougie, but I always bring earplugs and also this bear silk eye mask, just because sometimes when the moon is out it can be really bright and you never know like you might be sleeping next to you. If someone decides to camp next to you, it's always good to have earplugs just in case. And of course I have headlamp, micro spikes. Maybe I should show you how these work. Most of you are probably familiar with them, but you just strap them onto your boots on the bottom here and then you can traverse over any kind of like difficult slippery terrain, especially snow and ice, which thankfully it's mostly melted out right now. It's like nice beautiful summer weather. Here is another little contraption that I've started using. I used to always use a bear canister to store my food when I'm out camping, but unless I'm doing a really long through hike, I just typically stick to this and then I'll hang it in a tree pretty high up. But it helps with rodents because sometimes mice can get into your food if you just leave food in your tent or in your backpack. Definitely want to like store it in a safe way and I find this works pretty well. It is armored outdoor gear, but it's called a rat sack. Here's another piece of gear that I always take with me. This is a waterproof stuff sack by Sea to Summit and I put my sleeping bag in here and it compresses to like a really small bag. And then I do the same with my clothes, so just in case I get stuck in like a rainstorm or downpour. It's gonna keep all of my clothes nice and dry. Over there I have some super cheap flip flops, but I typically wear those around camp. It's always good to have camp shoes if you want to go like just kind of give your feet a break and go chill down by the water or something. So just a really quick overview of what I typically pack clothing wise. These pants are like super baggy, but I love them because they keep the mosquitoes away. Like it's really hard for them to bite through here. And then I have these leggings, which I'm typically wearing for photos. They're just a lot more photogenic and also they keep me warmer at night. I can wear them under these pants and I always bring down mittens because my hands tend to get really cold. And I also have little hand warmers that I keep inside of here. I always bring a down jacket, shorts right now because it's summer, and then super soft like comfortable pants to sleep in, another shirt to sleep in, and then I typically just hike out in this the next day. Same with socks. I'll wear a clean pair of dry socks at night and then I'll just hike out with them in the morning. And then here's a long sleeve base layer. It's super warm, smart wool, and yeah I love that piece. I'll sleep in that if I get super cold or I'll put it on as a base layer when I'm hiking in the morning if it's cold. And then just the beanie and yeah that's about it for clothing. Oh and I'm also wearing a windshell slash rain jacket. This is the Big Agnes two-person tiger wall. It only weighs two pounds and yes leaves two people and I love the color. It's really nice in landscapes. Look at all this produce that we hauled up into the mountains. I'm gonna cut this up and make a little charcuterie board. Oh yeah and hummus. This whole tub we have to eat it because we don't want to hike it down. This is dinner for the evening so we've got cucumbers, jalapenos, we've got crackers, nuts, green pepper, avocado. We have a peach and an apple for dessert and yeah we're gonna dig in. So we're gonna shoot sunrise but it literally just started raining. It just sucks because look at this cloud. So pretty. Hopefully the rain will stop soon. All right we're gonna check it out again. Stunning pink. Definitely gonna go shoot some sunrise. Coffee inside the tent. So this is not the glamorous sunrise coffee shot I was hoping for but this is reality right now. It's raining again. Everything is wet. We're making a second cup of coffee and yeah life is good. Packing up camp. It's a little rainy out. We're gonna head back on the trail and we're almost done. We got all of our trash. Leave no trace guys. Always make sure that you pack out all of your trash, especially toilet paper, everything. Leave it just the way you found it if not better. All right we're ready to go. All right started the hike back up and here's an overview of the valley. See that lake? We were camping right down the lake behind that ridge there and now going up. I forgot to mention camera clip here. This is where my camera usually hangs where I'm shooting. I have a trekking pole. I have no idea what happened to the other one but this one comes in really handy. Then I have a hat which I use with my mosquito net and also just to keep off the sun and my water. So I have a three liter water bladder in my backpack. Makes me hydrated on the go.