Backpacking Rain Gear: Jackets

Series Summary

Backpacking combines hiking and camping in a single trip. A backpacker hikes into the back-country to spend one or more nights there, and carries supplies and equipment to satisfy sleeping and eating needs. A backpacker packs all of his or her gear into a backpack. This gear must include food, water, and shelter, or the means to obtain them, but very little else, and often in a more compact and simpler form than one would use for stationary camping. Most backpackers' food criteria are roughly the same, including high energy content, particularly protein, with long shelf life and low mass and volume. Backpackers will often come face-to-face with all kinds of weather, including rain. In this free video series, you'll learn how to stay dry when backpacking by bringing proper rain gear. You'll learn about rain jackets, waterproof boots, and rain pants. You'll also learn how to keep clothes, sleeping bags, and backpacks dry, as well as how to waterproof boots once they get worn out. With these tips and techniques, you'll stay dry and happy on the hiking trails.

Video Transcript

"When you're backpacking one of the most important things is to remember to try to keep dry because if you get cold and wet, it's much, much more difficult to get warm so one of the most important things is to look at rain gear. No matter where you're going, what time of the year, it's really important to bring at least a rain jacket. There's lots of different types of rain jackets you can get. A lot of them have like created a new kind of material that's both a breathable and waterproof so that's actually helpful because a lot of the rain jackets like the cheaper ones, it feels like you're wearing like a plastic bag around you, it's sweaty and really, really gross. Important, make sure that your jacket has a hood. I know that it may sound silly but some of them don't and if you're out there and you're backpacking and it's raining like crazy and there's water just pouring in the top of your jacket, you're going to be cold and you're going to be wet. Also it helps if your rain jacket has a draw string on the bottom cause it can be windy and so if your rain jacket is flying up in the air and there's water coming at you, you're going to be cold and wet so make sure that you have a drawstring around the bottom, make sure that you have a hood, make sure you get some waterproof with rain gear."