BRING ON THE ADVENTURE
A few weeks ago, we visited Utah for our fourth time. Since we usually only go for a long weekend, we aren’t able to see everything we’d like to. Because of this we always find ourselves going back for more. Two years ago we hit all the National Parks. In the fall, we made it back Zion to do the Angel’s Landing hike (a must if in Zion), and in the winter we drove up from Arizona to see Monument Valley. With each trip we learn more and more about what to bring with us. For our trip to Grand Staircase Escalante a few weeks ago, we were more prepared than we had ever been.
One of our most recent purchases was an Osprey Farpoint 40L Backpack. We wanted a backpack that was large enough to carry all our gear, but small enough to bring on the plane as a carry on. After researching for hours on end, we decided the Osprey Farpoint was the one. With the Osprey and a regular sized backpack we were able to fit everything we needed for our trip to Grand Staircase Escalante.
So what did we fit in our two bags?
Besides clothing we brought our SlingFin Tent, TRONO chairs, Aleader watershoes, Que Bottles, Klymit sleeping bag & pad, our hiking shoes, flashlight, snacks, camera, tripod, drone, hats & first aid kit.
Our SlingFin tent the CrossBow 2 Mesh is perfect for backpacking (+ packing it in a carry on) it is light weight and packs up small (14in x 6in). With this tent we have an option to sleep with or without the Flysheet over the tent, on hot nights like it was in Utah it’s nice to keep the Flysheet off.
We recently got two awesome new camping chairs, TRONO. They are super light weight and don’t take up much room. We can easily fit them in our carry on/ hiking backpacks. Take it out of the bag it comes in, un-clip it, and either let the wind blow it up, spin or run to inflate the chairs. They are super comfy and make us love camping even more!
We recently got some new water shoes for the trip knowing that we’d be walking hiking through Coyote Gulch. After a lot of research, we found a brand named Aleader. These aren’t the stereotypical ugly water shoe. They are stylish, but also inexpensive as well. Our Aleader water shoes really impressed us, we hiked 10 miles with these on and didn’t slip on any rocks, get a single blister or find the shoes uncomfortable. They are the comfiest water shoes we’ve ever had, not to mention they have super good grip, are flexible and can be folded up small to fit in almost any free space in your bag.
The Que Bottles we brought are an accordion like water bottle. Meaning these are perfect for hiking, they can hold 20 oz of water but can be closed up to be a few inches high.
The Klymit sleeping bag and pad kept us warm and comfy all night, we had a great night sleep! The sleeping pad folds up to be the size of my iPhone 8+ while the sleeping bag is a bit bigger but very needed for those colder nights.