There are quite a few things that I want to have handy when hiking, several times per day, without having to take my pack off. I'm a bit undecided what to do about it and I was wondering what other do.
I found the belt pouches I bought to go with my pack were too small, and even the small size tended to interfere with my arm swing because they are on the side of the belt, right on the hip. Located on the hip made things a little hard to reach. So on the day before my hike, I swapped those belt pouches out for an old fanny pack which rides right in front. In that I kept my pack "towel" (more like a microfiber wash cloth), qt sized zip lock back with maps and trail data/mileage, small hand sanitizer, snack sized zip lock with the day's rations of trail mix, a granola bar, cell phone (old flip phone) and camera. Sometimes my knife and fork ('cause they kept getting lost in my food bag). It worked pretty well for me. Since the fanny pack rests on top of the backpack buckle, putting them on took a bit of practice, but I eventually figured it out, although I though about making some modification so that the fanny pack attaches to the pack buckle rather than having one of its own. I strap two water bottles to my pack straps with bungies. That also worked well. For all these other things, it seems that the only other option might be use pants or shirt pockets, but it was nice not having to load up my pockets with too much stuff. In my pockets I had a small SAK on a key ring with an emergency whistle, wallet, eye glass cleaning cloth, and a pen.
Does using a fanny pack make me too much of a dork to be a real hiker? What do you do with all the stuff you want to have on hand while walking?
I found the belt pouches I bought to go with my pack were too small, and even the small size tended to interfere with my arm swing because they are on the side of the belt, right on the hip. Located on the hip made things a little hard to reach. So on the day before my hike, I swapped those belt pouches out for an old fanny pack which rides right in front. In that I kept my pack "towel" (more like a microfiber wash cloth), qt sized zip lock back with maps and trail data/mileage, small hand sanitizer, snack sized zip lock with the day's rations of trail mix, a granola bar, cell phone (old flip phone) and camera. Sometimes my knife and fork ('cause they kept getting lost in my food bag). It worked pretty well for me. Since the fanny pack rests on top of the backpack buckle, putting them on took a bit of practice, but I eventually figured it out, although I though about making some modification so that the fanny pack attaches to the pack buckle rather than having one of its own. I strap two water bottles to my pack straps with bungies. That also worked well. For all these other things, it seems that the only other option might be use pants or shirt pockets, but it was nice not having to load up my pockets with too much stuff. In my pockets I had a small SAK on a key ring with an emergency whistle, wallet, eye glass cleaning cloth, and a pen.
Does using a fanny pack make me too much of a dork to be a real hiker? What do you do with all the stuff you want to have on hand while walking?
