Welcome to episode 175 of the first 40 miles.

If you're new to backpacking or if you're hopelessly in love with someone who wants you to love backpacking,

then this podcast is for you. We'll talk about the essentials, how to lighten your load,

and how to make the most of your time on the trail. I'm your host, Heather Legler.

And I'm Josh Legler. And this is the first 40 miles.

Today on the first 40 miles, hockey may be better with Wayne Gratsky,

but who are the people that you want to backpack with?

Then on today's summit gear review, a gear repair that takes less than 15 minutes

and leaves your gear looking cooler by far than your friend's gear.

And we're sharing a hack today from one of our listeners that will give you many data points

along the trail. All this and that's about it today on the first 40 miles.

Our new backpacking hacks book is out. It's volume three, tried and true,

tricks of the trail. And if you want to check that out, you can go to thefirst40miles.com

slash shop or to Amazon or iTunes. But I started thinking about what is it that makes backpacking

hacks so much fun. It's not that they're inexpensive or that they save you time, they save you

money, they solve a problem. I think what it really boils down to is that a backpacking hack

is like a friend offering you a little piece of advice of something that they learned on the trail.

It's like having a friend in your back pocket, a really tiny square friend in your back pocket.

So when I wrote the intro to backpacking hacks volume three, I really focused on the benefit of

friends on the trail. The fact that backpacking is better with friends. Neither Josh or I have

ever tried solo backpacking so we really can't say if backpacking is better by yourself. But there

really are a lot of great benefits to backpacking with people who all have the same goal.

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