How to Choose & Use a Backpack for a Day Hike

by Expert Village

Summary: Learn how to choose and use a pack for a day hike to stay safe and found while spending the day hiking in this free hiking safety video series.

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Transcript for: How to Choose & Use a Backpack for a Day Hike

"Hi, I'm Kate I'm here with Zoar Outdoor on behalf of Expert Village and we're going to talk about hiking today. We're going to discuss day packs right now. When you're going out for your hike depending on how much stuff you want to bring, how cold it is, how warm it is, you're going to have to find the appropriate pack. It can be a small backpack, it can be a hip pack or it can be a bigger day pack. I like to use my day pack, this gives me a couple options. I pack it up with all my warm gear, my food, whatever, I have plenty of spots to attach stuff if I need to. This backpack has a nice ventilated back area so if it gets warm it allows the air to come up behind my back and cool me down. No matter how or what backpack you fit, the first thing you do to put it on is you're going to put the hip belt on first and tighten it down, then you're going to play with your shoulder straps and get it nice and comfortable. You want most of the weight to be on your hips, even if it is just a backpack like this. The way it should be on the bottom and once you adjust the hip belt, you'll feel it on your hips and it should make for a pretty comfortable bag. If you have just the hip pack, you can't adjust your shoulder straps, you're going to have all your weight right here, it's going to probably go on your back and this will be pretty comfortable also. These are good for if it's warm out, if you only need a little bit of food, you're doing a five hour hike and you pretty much want to run, these are really good. Bigger backpacks don't allow for good running on the trail but do allow you to have all your nice warm clothes in it and this is a great option for day hikes, if you're just having lunch out on the trail, anything else like that."

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