What influencers do you trust?

The collective wisdom of certain forum members that have proven reliable over years.  Gear Swap for the wrong answers.

I don’t need to see Darwin in a bikini.  And yes, I have watched his YouTube channel.  I liked his PCT videos.  I agree with him about filming and photographing hikes.

And I read pmags blog.  He’s really good about finding bargain gear, but I really like his trip pictures more.

But from a social media consumption stand point, I really like the Trail Show the best.  It makes me laugh and gives me a bunch of ideas for trips.

I haven’t disagreed with any of youtuber Darwin On The Trail’s gear assessment.  I have trouble accepting him as a ULer due to that incredibly ratty bread he sports rather than shearing off an easy half pound.

Dixie of Homemade Wanderlust always has good gear reviews and isn’t as prescriptive or dogmatic as most (“here’s what worked for me”).

There is just one influencer I “trust”, and he is in an adjacent space. Influencers let me know what’s available. (products, places), but I am unlikely to trust their conclusions because they typically haven’t spent enough time on one thing. They help me trim out the garbage, but not select the destination / gear item / technique I want to adopt.

The one exception to this is ray maker dcrainmaker.com for sports tech.  He is incredibly detailed. Has a comprehensive knowledge which allows him to do very effective comparisons.  The only place I have found I would disagree with him is optical heart rate monitors that he is slightly more bullish on than me.

What I trust are people who have deep experience and share the details.

–mark

I distrust you merely for using the word “influencer”.  Does that answer the question?

+ 1 to what Ken says above “The collective wisdom of certain forum members that have proven reliable over years. ”

For stoves, I have read articles on Hikin’ Jim’s site and re-read the cogent, fact-based, and well-written BPL articles by Roger Caffin. I do not find myself influenced much by the other editorial reviews on BPL these days. I am not interested in buying the latest hybrid jacket from Patagonia since I am still using and amortizing DeadBird and Patagonia gear I bought 10 years ago.

When I bought my last backpacking camera, I read the photography articles by Adventure Alan.

For fire building, shelters, knives, and bushcraft, there is Dave Canterbury and Les Stroud.

Recently, I have been more focused on leveraging previous investments, namely, the maintenance and repair of gear I already own. I would really like to see more editorial emphasis on this topic.
Cheers!

leveraging previous investments, namely, the maintenance and repair of gear I already own. I would really like to see more editorial emphasis on this topic

Hum ….

Cheers

None.  We used to call them shills, but suppose that is a little too harsh.  BTW, do you believe everything Google tells you.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

I do not use Google. Not a problem!

Cheers

I agree with the poster that would like to see more info on repairs. Most of my gear is 5-10 years old with a few exceptions such as shoes and rain gear. I also tend to break headlamps a lot. And tent flies do go bad too. I’d love repair tips, especially in the field.

I think it ironic this discussion is in the Gear Forum rather than Chaff, but yeah, anyone who publishes hiking content that focuses on daily or weekly gear “reviews” to the almost total neglect of outdoor adventures and/or advise for a good adventure is pretty much an equipment salesman. Not that there is nothing wrong with that, provided the advise is honestly helpful. But the shear quantity of gear reviews some sites publish certainly causes one to wonder what actually hiking experience supports the review.

“Trusted” content producers should offer something like a 75/25 ratio of IRREGULAR adventure/gear content. And if a site goes without new content updates for weeks or months, I’d like to think they were actually out hiking. Then they will follow up with a burst of online/book/video content publishing and reviews while planning for the next adventure. Chris Townsend, Alan Dixon, Cam Honan, Michael Lanza, and PMags are some examples of trusted content producers I feel. And of course, I think BPLs own Ryan Jordan deserves special kudos for recent efforts to expand the scope and depth of BPL beyond the discussion forums, with his deep dive reviews and videos.

I took some GreenBelly meals with me on my backpacking trip this summer, explicitly because Zach on Backpacker Radio was pushing them so much.

The mud meals were TERRIBLE, and the bars weren’t much better than an average Clif bar.

That has to be the worst “promoted back country item” experience I’ve ever had.

Okay, so it’s not “Gear”.  I’ll assert that bad food can make a hiker just as miserable as bad gear.

The mud meals were TERRIBLE, and the bars weren’t much better than an average Clif bar.

I tested some out in the summer of 2018. I, too, became dumbfounded that people claimed these bars tasted good.

Egads.

As typical for products of this type, it engendered a discussion with my partner and about the outdoors in general.   I won’t link to my review, but if you Google “green belly bars review”  the review is within the top 5. :)

I can sum it all up with one sentence:

But, and I ate two different flavors, I could not tell the difference in taste. I thought they were bland and unsatisfying.

If you give a person who grew up in a vibrant culture of food  (me!) bland tasting crap, well, what do you expect? ;)

RX Bars are also not that great.

Picked up a box at Costco to try. The good news is that you can actually return food you don’t like, so I took the rest of the box back. So I recommend Costco as a good place to get snack food for hikes. Their return policy makes experimentation less expensive.

On my AT thru hike this year there was a group handing out Greenbelly meals2go and mud meals at a shelter.  The meals had been donated for use by some folks doing a charity hike; those hikers could not stand the taste of the meals, and did not like the nutritional profiles.  They hoped that we hungry hikers would help them get rid of the meals.  Most of the 15 folks in the shelter tried a little bit of the food, and nobody wanted more than a taste.  They were truly horrible.  The charity hikers were carrying out all the thru hiker trash for us; they put the rest of the meals in the trash without even trying to give them to anyone else.

Renais

What’s up with CNOC?  I’m seeing their gear showing up a lot now on social media. Never heard of them before.

They’ve been out for a while. Tried their hand at trekking poles, working on new versions now. The vecto containers are popular with some. They also seem pretty open on their blog about problems and challenges.

re: food.  Decided long ago to only eat “real food” on the trail.  No more Mountain House and the like, no power/clif/whatever bars and such…just normal food like tortillas, cheese, sausage, fruit, grains, my own dehydrated meals, and yes…Reece’s PB cups.

I’m much happier at meal time, feel better and am spending about 1/3 money.

C’mon, Man… the bars are good! I’m not crazy about he nutritional profile but the flavor’s at least as good as anything Clif makes (IMHO), and importantly, they’re palatable on the trail. Now, about those Mud Meals… I thin you’re being way too generous. Total crap.

Disclaimer: I’ve bought everything I ever got from GreenBelly with my own money and am not being paid for my glowing review of their crappy Mud meals ; – )

Decided long ago to only eat “real food” on the trail.

Fettucini al fungi, from raw ingredients. With Jahlsberg cheese.

Cheers

That looks great but those are rotelle ai funghi, not fettuccine ;)

That looks great but those are rotelle ai funghi, not fettuccine ;)

What can he be trusted with if he can’t even get his pasta names right? ;)

It bugged me too…..thanks for pointing that out.

Niggle niggle niggle …
It’s all Durum Wheat pasta (well, mostly).

OK, Fettucini is flat and longer. But the pics of Rotelle on the web seem to show ‘cartwheels’ rather than curly bits. Mind you, a few of the photos do show spirals for Rotelle. So who is right????

Sue tells me that they are called ‘Spirals’ at the local supermarket. One web site called the spirals ‘Rotini’ – which is more or less the same thing but in Italian. Another web site calls the spirals ‘Fusilli’. Could the naming be regional?

All I am concerned about is how long they take to cook: 6 minutes or 15 minutes. That translates directly into gas consumption. Cooking time seems to vary more by brand than shape. What comes out of Sue’s cupboard is what I get each time. It varies.

Anyhow, ‘Fettucini al Fungi’ has a good ring to it. Incidentally, we use fresh mushrooms rather than Chinese Dried ones. Dunno what’s in the latter.

Cheers

Roger, Actually almost all of our pasta here is mostly Semolina wheat with Durham making most of the remainder. It tends to cook up better with a dash or two of salt holding it’s shape and not being so sticky. Spirals, Rotini, Rotelle, Fusili are all different in shape. Shape effects the surface area and cooking qualities. Most of what we get is imported from Italy, soo, I sort of doubt it is regional. Fettuccine is long flat spaghetti-style where linguini is oval in shape. Both come in different sizes. Bucatini is largish but hollow spaghetti-style strands. Again, this all effects the cooking, sauce holding, etc.

So called Angel Hair pasta cooks about the quickest (3-5 minutes depending on brand and altitude.) Olive oil, fried with fresh garlic and red pepper flakes makes a good sauce all for about 10 minutes cook time. Frying the red pepper takes much of the heat out of it. This is the base for about a hundred different pasta dishes. Popular with anchovies, too. Relatively high in carbs and proteins compared to bread.

There are different names for the rotelle but those are not even remotely “fettuccine” ( correct spelling ;). Also it’s either “ai funghi”, plural, or “al fungo”, singular.
I am channeling my inner Bob Gross.

ps there is someone at my work that calls herself a fluent/near native speaker of Italian and she cannot even put together a 7 word sentence without two mistakes. My inner critic has been activated beyond the usual…