EP 211 - Ask OV 14: Keeping an Ultralight Mindset in Hunting and Family Trips

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to the Live Ultralight Podcast powered by Outdoor Vitals. Today we are back with another episode of the Ask OV Podcast. So that means that we are going to take listener questions and answer them live on the podcast. These can be questions about gear, they can be questions about backpacking in general. All questions are valuable for us to answer and we're just happy to do that. So I've got Brigham here, our lead designer on the podcast, and we've got some questions to go over today. So let's just jump right in.

[00:00:29] In this particular episode, we actually have a few questions that I've kind of grouped together that are a little more around hunting. And there's some others that are just more about just hiking in general, but I wanted to kind of segment these for those people that might be carrying heavier packs, that might be getting out there and doing some hunting out here in the West and just kind of group those together.

[00:00:55] So if that's something you're interested in specifically about getting into heavier packs, this episode will be for you. So let's start with a long time listener, David. So David's question is, as a fellow hunter and backpacker, what pack weight do you switch to carry a more sturdy pack?

[00:01:15] It says I have the XO K4 5000 pack, which I love, but it's very heavy. Without the top lid, it's 5.78 pounds. This pack handles weight very well, but I've wanted to get a lighter pack just for backpacking trips. However, the majority of my trips I'm carrying for my wife or my kids gear. And I tend to have heavier packs usually 30 to 40 pounds. For example, it was April May trip down in Paria Canyon. She didn't carry a pack at all.

[00:01:44] So he had the gear and food for two adults for four days in his K4 pack. He weighed about 32 pounds, 42 pounds with water. I know you guys have K4s. And if your pack was going to be 40 pounds, would you opt to take the K4 or one of our packs? That's a long question, but more or less he's saying at what point do you switch from one of our more ultralight backpacks to a bigger, sturdier hunting style backpack?

[00:02:14] Yeah. I mean, definitely in the 40 pounds, it might be more like mid 40s to upper 40s. I mean, I guess, you know, if that's without food or water, that obviously is a big different thing. A lot of it for me is weight slash volume or the combination of weight and volume.

[00:02:41] So, I mean, a lot of times, especially if you're carrying gear or food for other people, that just takes up a lot of space. For sure. Like I would probably go to like my K4 pack. Like if it's 45 pounds or more, for sure, it just is going to be and it's most likely more appropriate for the volume of things that I need to carry.

[00:03:10] Just, I mean, most trips, like we did the Colorado Trail and I probably had about a 10 pound base weight, but my food weighed more than all of my other gear combined. So, like food can really stack up. Now, if you're starting to pack food for two people, you're just doubling that and, but that's double the volume. So, it's, for me, it's kind of the combination of the two.

[00:03:34] And yeah, upper, mid to upper 40s is probably a good threshold that I, I don't like necessarily weigh it and then make the decision. But for the most part, I would say it's probably in that mid to upper 40 pounds that I'm choosing to use my XO pack. Um, but it's also a higher, much higher volume pack too. And now I'm packing food and maybe other gear for family. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good way to address it.

[00:04:04] Honestly. I mean, our packs are right now are we, we rate them, you know, on the site, you'll see a rating of 40 pounds. Um, so that, that kind of tells you something in and of itself. Um, if you're going over 40 pounds in one of our packs, you're really stretching the limit. And it's not, not even so much the limit of like what it can do. It's the limit of what we're happy telling you can, can remain comfortable. Um, so, so take that into consideration. And then just like Brigham said, volume.

[00:04:33] So I did do, I went on a family backpacking trip this year and I took a K four for that one because I was taking my two kids and a significant other all out on the trip. Right. So I've got, and then, and then my gear, right. And inherently I ended up being the hauling machine. You know, I put my kids in, in the Skyline fast packs. Um, I usually put lighter stuff in there, like dehydrated food, a sleeping bag, like bulky stuff.

[00:04:58] But at the end, I still needed the volume that I had in some of these other, you know, 5,000 cubic inch packs, which leader wise. Gee, I don't know. That'd be like an 80 plus leader equivalent. Equivalent. I actually don't know that on the top of my head. So, so obviously going from like a 60 liter shadow to an 80 plus liter backpack, you're getting quite a bit more volume. So for me, sometimes it's, it's as much the volume as it is the weight when I'm backpacking specifically. But yeah, I agree.

[00:05:27] I mean, when I went and did a pack rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, I took, you know, my pack was basically 40 pounds. And I still took our shadow light backpack and it was the right choice for that pack or for that trip. I was glad I had it. It saved me pounds of weight off of just the backpack weight. And it was, it was an acceptable, you know, it was tight, but I was able to make that work.

[00:05:52] So, um, yeah, I think, I think right where you're talking about like 35 to 45 pounds, you're right at the switch point. You really are. Um, I do think, you know, trying to get your pack lighter in general is you will really enjoy that. But we're advocates for going as light as you can for the, for the mission and the purpose of your trip. Um, I think you're going to, you're going to just gain comfort outside of that.

[00:06:21] But yeah, for me, I'm, I'm with you somewhere in that 40 to 45 pound mark. I'm switching to a hunting pack, a K4, uh, specifically. And that's because their frames are, you know, more than twice as thick. I would imagine their foams are a lot denser, but the problem is if you take one of those packs and put 10 pounds in it, it's a very stiff and harsh ride, much more stiff and harsh ride than what our backpacks are built in and tuned for. So, um, good question.

[00:06:49] Um, hopefully that, that answers it, but unfortunately there's, you know, some of these trip weights that you kind of threw out there right on that cusp anyways. So, um, yeah, I think 40 pounds probably right around that cutoff mark for me. Okay. Um, this is really quick and easy. Justin asked, uh, you know, what do we use? Um, so outside of our OV packs for hunting and hauling meat, what do we use?

[00:07:17] We use the XO pack line, um, have for years. And I mean, I have experimented with other packs, really, really like those packs. I think that the design of them and the comfort of them is incredible. So, um, that's, that's what we're using. Yep. Me as well. Um, okay. Here we go. How do you, sorry, this, I need to balance some text here. So bear with me. Um, the little small text.

[00:07:43] How do you apply your ultralight backpacking mentality towards backcountry hunting? What principles do you feel best lend themselves to getting as light as possible? And where do you draw the line on lightweight versus durable when you're looking to hunt for extended trips?

[00:08:02] Uh, um, I mean, me personally, I apply as much of the same mentality as I can in a backcountry hunting scenario. So on the gear side, I'm still trying to use the lightest gear that I can that will be adequate for what I'm doing. There's a lot of overlap.

[00:08:29] When I go backpacking, I'm sleeping in a tent in the top quilt on a pad in the mountains. When I go backpack hunting, it's the exact same thing. There's some seasonal or conditional differences that can occur, but I'm always trying to minimize, uh, the quantity and the weight of everything that I take.

[00:08:51] So, um, I'd say 80 to 90% of everything is all the same in terms of like the main gear items. So my tent, most of the time, it's still the same tent that I would take or that I took on the Colorado trail two weeks ago. Um, it's like a one and a half pound tent, uh, trekking pole tent. Uh, I take a top quilt and I've taken, you know, that top quilts 18, 19 ounces.

[00:09:19] And I've taken that into like late October in Colorado, Idaho, Utah, um, in cold conditions. So, I mean, there's, there's no differences there. Sleeping pad, um, a Thermarest Neo Air X-Therm. I'll use that in July on a backpacking trip and I'll use that in January, not on a hunting trip, but November hunting trip. You know what I mean?

[00:09:45] Like the main gear items that affect your weight the most are pretty much the same. Um, the clothing is going to differ a little bit, but that's mostly because of just the seasonal conditions of kind of the shoulder seasons, late October, early November, there's some longer periods of stagnation, just sitting still like glassing on a hillside where I need more insulating layers. So I'll have puffy pants.

[00:10:14] Um, really quick glassing on a hillside. What do you mean by that? Sorry. Looking through binoculars and just sitting still for hours at a time, you know, just, just looking through binoculars. Looking for, looking for animals through binoculars or, or a tripod or a spotting scope on a tripod, something like that. So that's a period of just sitting still creating no body heat. So clothing, there's, there's some, some differences, but still tons of overlap and similarity.

[00:10:42] Um, I mean, let's talk a little bit more about the mentality here. Cause I'm, I'm the same as you, like my setup is hardly changed. One of the main key differences for me is I will, because like you're saying, when you're sitting there glassing on a hillside for a long time, you get a lot colder than when you're actively walking, right? If you're actively hiking all day, it's a very different temperature level than when you're sitting stagnantly, maybe on a cold rock, you know what I mean? For, for hours.

[00:11:11] And so we typically will bring a puffy layer. We're going to bring a bigger puffy jacket and typically puffy pants. Now, the nice thing is the mentality side of that though, is with, with ultra mentality, it's you want to use everything you have and use it in as many ways as you can. So both me and Brigham will use a 30 degree sleeping bag or, or top quilt well into what would be maybe after what people would consider using those in, but we're totally fine using our puffy layers to sleep in.

[00:11:41] And that's one of the ways that we shed a little bit of weight in and help ourselves out in that sense. Some of the other mentality points that I think hunters overlook is if you're someone who's focused on weight and being ultra light, apply that to everything. Apply that to your tripod, finding the lightest weight tripod, finding the lightest weight bino harness, finding, you know, a light, you know, weapon of choice. You know, your backpack, like all these things add up in the same way that ounce counters

[00:12:10] in the ultra light world, you can kind of take the mentality and apply it over. I would say as well. And so I get really focused on, on some of those things. I've, you know, tripods is one that I've like, I have multiple tripods as I've slowly gotten lighter and as new stuff comes out and I'm like, man, that one's even lighter. I'm going to go for that one. And with optics as well, um, both me and Brigham, we don't really use big spotting scopes and things.

[00:12:36] We, we opt for smaller spotting scopes and that's like a strategy level too, because some people want to glass extreme far distances and have massive optics. And for, for me, the choice that I make there is if I've got a smaller lighter setup, that also means that I can be more mobile. So if I don't have a big heavy pack and I have a lighter pack, if I see something that's of interest to me, I can, I can close the gap and get closer.

[00:13:04] And my, you know, lighter spotting scope is so adequate because I plan on getting closer versus sitting, you know, completely stagnant in a one specific spot. So there's a lot of strategy that comes in here, but in terms of the mindset itself, very much the same. Very similar. I mean, and, and with say like the ultralight, just ultralight backpacking to like, to, to

[00:13:29] maximize effectiveness, it requires an awareness of the trade-offs of what you, what the give and take of what you are putting into practice. So like, but that same mentality, just apply that same thing with, with backpack hunting. Like that's, that's how I look at it. Meaning. So as you were talking about some of those things, like, like optics for me, I'm recognizing the trade-off.

[00:13:54] So the trade-off by going to a 55 millimeter sub two pound spotting scope, the trade-off that I'm aware of is that I save a lot of weight and I give up a low light capability. I give up long range glassing ability. And for me, I'm willing to accept that trade-off because of what the cumulative, the accumulation

[00:14:21] of all the other weight savings that I make through that same process of what I take and don't take or all that, that ultralight mentality of minimizing, taking just the minimal, the minimal, like viable, whatever to be effective the way that I like to do things in the mountains. And so I like to be, I like to feel like unlimited in physical ability in the mountains.

[00:14:50] I don't like to feel like I don't want to get up and go fit wherever because my pack is just so heavy. Like I just want to eliminate that variable as much as possible. So for me, I prioritize using really lightweight optics setups, tripods, um, and just, just even things like what I don't pack.

[00:15:15] Like again, like that mentality of like, don't, don't pack like what ifs or fears and all that is just. Yeah. Like even how many, how many, you know, game meat bags do you really need? You know, just, just look, you know, you could grab the pack that comes with four bags or whatever, but you can also be like, how much do I actually need? And okay, I'm gonna leave two of these at home, you know, just, just all the little cumulative things. And that comes back to like some of the principles of just like have a gear list, you know, like know what your stuff weighs.

[00:15:46] Um, and you can see that yourself as you're working down your own, your own list. Um, last part of this question is kind of lightweight versus durability. Um, that was just kind of funny cause I, I don't think about this a lot. I don't know if you think about this a lot in terms of, of specifically durability and lightweight. Yeah. I mean, the, the, the types of conditions that I've, that come to mind when I think of

[00:16:12] where that would matter, um, would potentially be shelters and sleep systems, but mostly just shelters. Um, that shelter is the, it's the fallback location when the weather is bad, right? It is what keeps our bodies protected from the elements. Um, clothing can, can be thought of that way, but I will say I care way more about my

[00:16:42] shelter holding up than I care about my clothing holding up. And the reason that is, is because I don't care how many snags or pilling or little whatever is on my pair of pants until that pair of pants ceases being a pair of pants. It's fine. Same thing with a shirt. You know what I mean? Like, but a shelter can stop being a shelter and you are in a bad way.

[00:17:11] Like as soon as your shelter is unable to protect you from the elements, that's bad. And so I care way more about that. Um, but this is all in context, right? Like I'm not saying that I'm carrying a four season, um, you know, eight pound tent because I'm so worried about it blowing, you know, blowing over.

[00:17:34] I'm just weighing what the conditions I reasonably expect with some buffer. Um, you know, and so I'm also putting into practice good decision making. Um, if I can avoid setting up a tent on an exposed ridge line where it's blowing 30 miles an hour, then I'm going to do that. I was just going to say that actually me and you were on a hunt in Montana last November and we were experiencing 50 plus mile an hour gusts.

[00:18:04] In fact, in one area, I swear they were 70 plus. I couldn't, I could not stand up. I had to crawl. And, um, we had to, we were up on this exposed ridge. And if we had been like, Hey, this is where, like, this is where we planned to camp. But when we were there, we're like, there's no way, there's no way that like a shelter is going to, to work up here. And so we hiked essentially off until we found a, an area within some trees and protection.

[00:18:32] And then we pitched our tent and there's kind of two trains of thought here. One is like, no, I need a shelter that I can pitch anywhere. And it's durable enough to handle anything. Or if you're in the ultralight mindset, you pack light enough that if you need to hike and push and move somewhere else and be adaptable to the country, you just can because your pack isn't 70, 80 pounds war on around. So there's, there's, there's different things like that that come into when you're aspects

[00:18:59] of when you're in the field and you have a lighter pack, you can make slightly different decisions around that too. And I think there's, there's the potential mind trap of thinking that you can out gear the conditions. You can, you can out, essentially out purchase or out gear what the weather can do. And that's, that's a fallacy. Like there do not think that, um, I think the danger is in overconfidence or complacency

[00:19:29] because I don't care what tent you have or somebody has, I could find a mountain to put that on that would obliterate that tent. Right. So do we, I don't want to be in that position, you know? So I avoid that position. So I just am aware again of the trade-offs. Like there's a trade-off to being in the mountains, like there the trade-off to just being in the mountains means there are conditions that I cannot withstand.

[00:19:53] Um, so, uh, durability, I want to make sure, you know, that I, that I do have a tent and a gear setup that can handle the conditions that I reasonably would expect, um, with some buffer. Um, uh, I do care about the durability of my sleeping pad, especially in cold conditions, because that is the difference between hiking out and, um, getting a good night's sleep.

[00:20:21] Um, so I take extra precautions to make sure, um, that I'm setting my pad down in a safe location that I'm pitching my tent in a location that's not going to compromise my pad. Um, so I take some extra care there. Um, but I just, I'm trying to, again, I want to carry the lightest stuff possible that I can remain effective and stay in the mountains as long as I want. Yeah.

[00:20:48] I think kind of the last thing that I'm thinking about is just clothing in particular. I think sometimes people end up buying a lot heavier clothing, um, for hunting in the name of durability. Um, and I think you can get really good durability out of still really lightweight options. And sometimes like, I don't know, I'm just kind of looking at a puffy jacket that's hanging up over here. And like people might want like, Oh, I want a more durable puffy jacket.

[00:21:16] Well, there's a level of durability that needs to be in existence for, in our opinion, any high mountain pursuit, any ultralight mountain pursuit. But to go from like, let's say one of our jackets to a heavier, you know, more durable jacket. The reality is a puffy jacket's not meant to be durable and not meant to be bushwhacked, you know, through bushes, regardless of whether it's a 20 denier fabric or a 30 denier fabric or a 40 denier fabric.

[00:21:42] Like, you know, like, like, so also just being aware of like, okay, I'm in the mountains and I'm hunting and I want my stuff to last and be durable, but like, I've got a puffy jacket on. I don't need to go bust down this mountain right now through all this stuff. And so when you start to realize like the true application of all the stuff we already do with, with, with our gear, um, the crossover and the amount of gear that overlaps perfectly into the, the hunting and sportsman world is, is really, really high.

[00:22:11] I mean, truthfully, like we've hunted in our gear for as long as we've made our gear. Yeah. And it's been great. Like I've never had durability or failure or issues like that in the mountains. Yeah. Again, it's just like, yeah, I, I, I, when I, the one question about the, or maybe it's the same question about the gear. It's like, take my ultralight backpacking setup, throw some optics and weapon and some other

[00:22:39] things in there that you need for a hunt. And that's, that's it. Like there's very little difference. Yep. Okay. Um, all right, let's tackle this last question from Daniel. When you're, and this is unrelated to hunting now, we're going to shift gears just a little bit, but when you're hiking and things start to get difficult, how do you decide to keep pushing and fighting through or stop and take a break and regroup?

[00:23:07] The mental side of hiking can sometimes be more of a challenge than the physical side. Um, I love this question. Um, because it's, it's, it's of my opinion that more people can hike farther and do more things physically than they can mentally. I think more people tap out mentally than they do physically when it comes to backpacking.

[00:23:35] Um, I'm actually looking at this right now. I, I have an injury. I can't train. Like I usually want to train. Um, I have some upcoming big, um, hikes and hunts that I'm going to be doing. And I'm like, I know that my physical capabilities are shrinking, but I can still rely on the mental fortitude that I've developed and just realized like, okay, so maybe I can't hike that mountain as fast still can do it.

[00:24:03] Like I said, it might hurt more, it might hurt meaning like it might be harder, but it's still totally within the realm. And I think developing a bit of a muscle of like, um, I don't want to say like the don't quit muscle, you know, but like, but like that mental fortitude, um, I think it's, it's huge and, and people don't talk about it enough. Most of the time, people that have, like I'll say, she's talking like about people that have hiked 20 miles and people that haven't hiked 20 miles.

[00:24:31] Maybe people that have only hiked 10 miles in a day. Um, I think a lot of people can hike 20 miles in a day. They just don't know that they can yet. And they don't know what that looks like. And they don't know what that feels like. And once they've pushed themselves to hike 20 miles in a day, they realize that they can do it. There's a rewarding benefit of that, but also, um, they now have experienced it once. And so when they feel this way at some point in the day, or they start to drag, or they have these different feelings, they already know that they can do it.

[00:24:58] Um, and it's not a physical limitation as much as them getting comfortable with the mental side of it and that limitation. Yeah. Um, this isn't all inclusive, but I mean, a lot of like human, the emotion and the psychological psychology of like humans experiencing fear or inhibition about something is from a lack of familiarity with that thing. They have not experienced that thing.

[00:25:26] Um, so there's a lot of different directions to take this. Uh, I agree with what you, with what you just said. Um, but, um, you know, it's like the most simple thing that I, my advice is go hiking. Um, like the more you go hiking, the more your brain is going to recall on that experience of I've been here before I've done this. Every hiking trip is going to be different.

[00:25:54] Um, and then if you gradually increase the difficulty or something, or just the more you do things, the more you're going to encounter new things of that thing that you're doing and your, your brain is going to adapt. Um, so that's like number one to me is the more experience anybody has with something, the more confidence they have and the less fear or inhibition they have, because you have been there before.

[00:26:19] Now I will take that a step farther and say, just do hard things in general, not like flip a switch and tomorrow think I need to go hike a hundred miles in a day. No, but, uh, whatever, wherever you are at or wherever a person is at, don't, don't just let that be enough. Like constantly try to put yourself in new or more challenging, more difficult situations

[00:26:47] or experiences, because in my opinion, that is how a person overcomes that, that almost overwhelming feeling of the, that they have to fight or push through. Um, and once you do push through something, uh, the next time you have to push through something new, the, the mind recognizes that, Hey, I have, I've done hard things before. It sucked. It was difficult.

[00:27:16] It wasn't pleasant, but here I am, I'm alive. Uh, you know, and that, that, that is very powerful. Um, because like, like you said, like people can do way more than they think they can. Um, unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity is, is a real thing that, that generates a lot of anxiety

[00:27:39] and fear keeps a lot of people from doing what more than from doing what they could. Um, yeah, I, I kind of view it as almost anchoring too. When you've done something really hard, push through it and, and got to the other side, that's like a new high mark. And so anything underneath that becomes easier. Like if like, Oh, I'm not in as bad a condition as that, or this is not as hard as that. Everything underneath that you gain a lot of confidence in, but to, to back up here a

[00:28:08] little bit, he specifically did ask, um, how do you know when to push through versus stopping and taking a break and regrouping? Um, that that's a little bit more specific here. So how do I know when to stop versus pushing through? Um, that's a really good question for me. I think for everyone, there's, there's different ways that your body reacts.

[00:28:36] So first I talk to people a lot about, um, sometimes your body will throw things out there that are like, this, this has been my experience. This has been stuff I've read about. It almost throws out like fictitious things to try to get you to slow down at times or to like stop or, or things it's like, Oh man, this is really hard. Like I'm going to throw like, whatever. My calf is starting to tighten up or something like that. I need to stop.

[00:29:01] And, um, my experience with a lot of those is if you just continue through it, it just disappears. And then like, you'll totally forget that ever even happened sometimes. Now, if it persists longer term, like you start to develop something else and then that's good to know. And so sometimes figuring out like, Hey, is this my body like lying to me, trying to slow me down? Or is this like a real pain? The other thing that the body does is if you get into the world of like cramping, cramping is a really interesting one.

[00:29:28] And the science behind cramping is it's not concrete. There's a lot of reasons that the body can decide to cramp. But one of the things that, that I've also read about and also experienced is the body will sometimes cramp specifically as like a, like a governor, like on a vehicle, like if like a lot of times vehicles, you, you, your car will accelerate crazy fast. It's like 95 miles an hour. And then it just stops accelerating. That's called a governor. It's like, it's programmed to not exceed this mile per hour for safety reasons.

[00:29:57] Your body sometimes throws things out there. And sometimes cramping can actually be one of those where your body's saying, all right, you're hitting the governor. We're going to try to limit you and you need to slow it down. You need to dehydrate more, slow down, take it easier and whatnot. And a lot of times with cramping, it's not even so much that you have to just fully stop. Sometimes it's just like, okay, I was hitting this exertion level. I need to back it down from an eight exertion level to a six exertion level. And then I don't cramp anymore.

[00:30:24] So there are some built-in things that the body will, will try to tell you and show you and stuff like that. From there, I think it becomes experience. Like you really just start to learn like, oh no, I am actually dehydrated and I'm actually doing this climb and it got really hot and really exposed and I'm hitting a limit and me stopping for a minute and hydrating and, and putting some, some gummy bears into my mouth right now is, is actually going to be a really solid regroup. Yeah.

[00:30:53] But that can become a crutch and sometimes you start to get into a habit of doing that and then you're just not getting the mileage on the trail. Yeah. I think like there's a difference between taking a break and quitting. I mean, taking breaks, taking a break. It's not, it's not final. Um, like you quit once, you're a quitter. You have now quit. Um, that's final. Taking a break is not quitting.

[00:31:21] Uh, but, but, but there's so much in between that, right? Like, um, taking a break is a very practical logistical choice at times. Um, because like you just mentioned, sometimes it's just appropriate to take a break. Like exertion compounds. So taking a break can, can separate that compounding period.

[00:31:44] It's just like we've talked about before hiking, you know, continually uphill for 10 miles straight is way more difficult than, and, and taxing on the body than if you spread out that same elevation gain, uh, you know, and break that up with some, some descent, you know what I mean? Uh, it's, it's compound. So exertion compounds. So taking a break is totally appropriate at times.

[00:32:13] And like it becomes a logistical calculation, uh, or can be a logistical calculation of, okay, I know I have to get from here to here today. Uh, so just add up the amount of minutes that however many breaks might take, like there's some calculation there that it's just very, it's very objective and practical speaking. Uh, so, but in terms of like the mental side of taking a break that gives you a physical

[00:32:42] respite and that should maybe give you like kind of a mental break. Um, but yeah, that, that, that's different than, than quitting and, and, and the decision to stop and take a break. Yeah. Everybody's different. Again, you have to listen to your body. Um, we, people in general can do more than they think they can. Um, but I, I would never recommend just constantly pushing through every signal your body is giving you.

[00:33:11] Um, you, you can wreck yourself and then you can put yourself in a worse position than is, than if you just took a two minute break, uh, you know, every 45 minutes or take a five minute break every hour. Um, oftentimes those little creating, you're creating little milestones for yourself actually gives your brain some energy, some chemicals, things that happen to where you're like, all right, it's been an hour. There's a five minute break.

[00:33:41] Now I just need to hike another hour. You get another five minute break. Little mental tools like that can be, can be helpful. I think the best way that I can answer this question is don't just take a break to take a break, take a break with a purpose. So if you build a habit of stopping whenever you feel like stopping, you will end up stopping a lot. Your body will get in the habit of saying, ah, it's break time. It's break time. It's break time and you'll get off of whatever schedule you're trying to be on.

[00:34:12] And so to me, I'm kind of like, when I start to feel like I need to take a break, I start to calculate out like, okay, where should I take the break? Is there, you know, is there strategic benefit to going a little further or stopping now? Is there shade? Is there water? Is there, and why am I taking the break? Am I taking the break to eat? Am I taking a break to hydrate? Am I taking the break to take my shoe off and fix something? Am I taking the break? And so like, like, but if you get in the habit of just like, I just want to take a break,

[00:34:38] like that's a little bit different than like, than putting in more foresight to why am, why do I feel like I need to take a break and addressing the reason that I feel like I'm going to take a break. Now I'm, I'm saying that I still, like I calculate out. Typically we try to stop every so often anyways to take like standard breaks, you know, every two hours or so we will stop to take more of a standard break. Every water filter will take a little bit more of a standard break, but if inside of

[00:35:02] that, I would say I'm trying not to stop to take any breaks unless I feel like I have a, like a reason to take a break. If I'm hitting a calorie wall, Hey, I'm going to stop and take a little bit of a break and eat a little bit of food, or I'm hitting a hydration wall or Hey, I've got a hotspot on my foot. I'm taking a break for a reason. And I think that's one way to help you decide if you should push through something versus not.

[00:35:28] And I think as you do that more often, you, you'd come back to this concept of building your mental fortitude and training yourself not to stop on any whim that comes across your mind to stop. And the last thing I just want to say on this, and I think I've said this before, but I remember reading something once that, that came from like an, an ultra running, um, organization or like one that puts on events.

[00:35:52] And they said something like 80 or 90% of people that quit an ultra marathon within one hour have regrets that they quit, that they actually wish that they had just stopped at an aid station and took a substantial break to reset and then continue. So one thing that I also tell people and that I also believe in is if you think that, um, you're like, Oh my goodness, like I need to get off the trail.

[00:36:21] Don't make that decision impulsively. Like get to the nighttime and sleep on it. See how you feel the next day. Like give it time or take a substantial break, you know, and then make a decision, but don't make the decision in the heat of the moment when you're feeling at your lowest on a hot exposed climb and things aren't going right. Like there's, there's, there's a lot of value to just slowing down.

[00:36:45] And like, sometimes you can have crazy big resets in a 15 minute stop, you know, like crazy big resets. So something to think about, but I love that question. I think the mental side is crazy important. And I think the mental side is a muscle to be developed. Just like you can develop physical capabilities. You can develop mental fortitude capabilities. So great question, Daniel. Hopefully that's helpful and something to think about as you're out on the trail next time hiking.

[00:37:14] So, all right, that's it for questions today. Thank you guys for tuning in. If you have more questions for us, make sure to drop them in the comments on YouTube, uh, click the link down below and you can record a question on speak pipe for us, or as always, you can reach out to support@outdoorvitals.com and shoot a question over there. Just tag it as a podcast question. And we'll be able to look at that and answer it on a future ask Ovi episode. Thanks for tuning in guys, like, and subscribe, and we'll talk to you guys on the next episode.