EP 55 - Backpacking Olympic With Just A Travel Bag!

Tayson: Here's the big question, how do we lighten our gear and build our confidence. So we can start living a life full of Outdoor Adventures and memories without having unlimited amounts of time, money and previous experience. That's the big question and we are here to help you find the answers. This is the Live Ultralight podcast power, bi Outdoor Vitals. That's up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Live Ultralight podcast. Today, on this episode, we're going to be talking about doing

Tayson: some research and development on a trip that we just got back from literally like 3 a.m. last night. So we're hot off the trip, and on the mic and ready to just break down. What it is, we were doing why we were doing it and just the good times that we did have maybe speaking for the group, but I've been a little bit sad. I guess to be back in the office as good to get home but little sad to be

Tayson: in the office because I had some time on the trip and just kind of wished that there was just more time to to spend there and Just a really enjoyable time. So everyone that went on the trip is going to be here on the podcast. So we'll go around the room. Do a quick intros, let everyone know who you are, what you do, and Little dive into a little bit more of the trip specifically. So I guess we'll start Brigham.

Brigham: And Brigham and I do product design.

Maddie: I'm Maddie and I am Derek's wife. And

Tayson: I'm Derek Ivy marketing. I thought we gotta do better intros at some point. I'm getting like sad and somber almost or just repetitive. So we'll have to ask some goofy questions on the next one. Okay, so a while back, you guys might have to jog my memory. We were, I think on a different trip company trip, doing some more testing and whatnot. And we had the thought of like we really need to take this backpack that we're that we're developing the

Tayson: coda UL Travel and Adventure Backpack and we need to do a trip on it or with it to Just round out a lot of the research and development that we've done on it. How far, how long ago was that? I mean, we threw this together pretty quick with it was not our April trip We were talking about it in April and then

Derek: we had already, another plan, scheduled for, for May for a different trip. We wanted to do, I believe so.

Derek: Pretty much we just turn around and made it happen as soon as we could. Yeah, I think that sounds about, right?

Tayson: And I think at first, it was like, yeah, we'll do it. And then I mean it seemed like last second we started really pulling it together and getting serious about it and that's what happens. Anytime you. Leave me to book anything like plane tickets or anyways. So we got thinking about different options and what we could do and we decided that a fantastic trip would be to Fly up to Seattle, rent a car and go over to Olympic National Park and

Tayson: spend some time backpacking and just traveling around the park, this we thought would be just a fantastic test for the Cody UL backpack. As far as what we envisioned people using this backpack for. And yes, it was just a great, great use case. So I guess I don't know. Guys into more the backpack side here and explain. What the heck? It is or more of the Travel Center. I guess we could start by defining, what Adventure travel is? Well, yeah,

Brigham: we probably describe it a little bit too and in terms of like, if we back up a little bit more on the purpose of the trip was, it was yes, it was R&D, but it was almost like Proving or in like more of a proving process of the concept that we want to portray to the customer. And so a lot of the goals on top of like the R&D were to like get content that will help us communicate the concept of

Brigham: the backpack itself. As opposed to what we normally do is just go back backing. So I was kind of like a proof of concept. R&D. trip that we I think we really were Able to get a lot of, a lot of accomplished in kind of the goals of

Tayson: the trip. Yeah, I mean, it's not like, we're just starting the R&D on this product. This product is basically, at the Finish Line, it's an idea that I've had for, I don't know. Basically, since our first big Kickstarter optic jacket had wanted to look at something like this and So, we've been kicking around ideas for years. And then got serious about the development over the last 12 months. I'd say. But and then now, yeah, it is kind of like that proof

Tayson: of concept more is what we were definitely going for for those of you that

Derek: Follow our YouTube channel. We actually put out a video where we teased it out and this is the same backpack that we're talking about the YouTube video that we released about it, where we started, teasing this pack was when Maddie and I actually talked about when we almost got trapped in Guatemala and we escaped at midnight. So, if you haven't seen the video, go look it up on YouTube and it'll give you a good background for, you know, some of the

Derek: other testing and different things, we don't with this. Back on that trip, we were literally backpacking with it instead of a normal hiking backpack and it worked really well but like I said, you can go learn more about that watching that video, but this trip was really great experience for, really taking it straight from the terminal to the trailhead seamlessly and really proving the concept like Brigham said of one bag Adventure travel and making it work for everything. Really embracing that

Derek: idea of living ultralight. And honestly, I have a blast coming excited to kind of dive into that trip went with you guys. I think this will be a lot of fun.

Tayson: Yeah. Yeah. I I totally agree. I think that let's start here, though. Let's define what Adventure travel is. Like what we've done in this realm ourselves and some of the problems that were kind of hoping to overcome and then we'll kind of dive into more of the pack in the trip itself and proving that so might have to get a couple definitions of this from different people, but what is Adventure travel? I guess. I'll let you Derek give your definition of

Tayson: what Adventure travel is. Okay. So for me, and for Maddie,

Derek: I mean, so correct me if I'm wrong here with her thoughts, but for me, Adventure travel is not just like traveling to do business transactions. It's not just traveling to do, you know, sightseeing, that's kind of low-key. Whether they're just, you know, you stay around town and hang out and go to Museum and visit family that kind of stuff. That's where you're. You're really doing everything in it and

Derek: it doesn't include for me. You know, some of that stuff like exploring new cities but it also involves things like you want to go climb a volcano and Rose. Marshals at the top done, you can do that, you know, all that kind of stuff you want to go paragliding and hop from Village to Village every night. Exploring a new part of a new country maybe or you're going to a new state and you're trying to figure out, you know, which is

Derek: the best national park. You know, any of those things, I would consider Adventure travel you travel with the intent to have an adventure, not just Get away or visit family or do business. It's just you're traveling for the adventure.

Tayson: Yeah, Maddie, anything to add or correct, I guess.

Maddie: Um, I think just traveling with the goal to do things instead of traveling with the goal to stay at a resort and relax and and those kinds of things. Like if you're gonna get off the resort, I think that's more Adventure travel.

Brigham: Yeah. Very good, I think. Yeah, I would agree with all of that for sure. I don't, it's like what is? What is Adventure? It's a good. It's a good question. I mean, we focus very heavily on like the outdoor adventure and I that can I I relate to that pretty strongly as well. yeah, I guess I think it just like kind of like Derek alluded to and not just going someplace and just being there and kind of staying to that one

Brigham: area, or Like I don't consider like going to shopping malls or like, going shopping in a big city. I don't consider that like much of an adventure but maybe to some it is. But I there's an element of like going and seeing and doing as much as you can or getting out and just getting a white. Variety of like whether it's the culture or the architecture was kind of they're connected, but like or it's the natural environment but really kind of

Brigham: like not having many boundaries in terms of what you do or where you go. But having like the flexibility to really kind of cram in a lot of different. activities, whether they're you know, even if they're more like Urban, there is some element of like moving and being dynamic or going from place to place and So, like, just really quick, give me an example,

Tayson: Brigham. I mean, I think you're the only one here that's traveled specifically, to Europe of like, Adventure travel in Europe per se like

Brigham: sure. So I okay. So a really easy example is like kind of a trip that I did with my wife where I was in for school. I was in Germany and then when I got done with that term or whatever, She flew out to Germany and then we got in a van. And drove to Switzerland and went camping in Switzerland for a couple nights and then. While there it's very touristy. So there's a lot of like shuttles and trams and things

Brigham: like that, but then like we would take a tram up to a mountain pass and then go for like a hike up to a couple lakes and then go back down the tram back to the village and then walk over to the campground. So if that was kind of like a couple days there, and then, from there we got back in the van and drove around and checked out some castles went and walked down by one of the, the big rivers

Brigham: that the river barges and the river like tour boats, go up and down and just kind of in the countryside of Switzerland and Germany and then and then we drove back to Germany hopped on a plane flew to Italy in the middle of the night and got on like a float. Water Taxi bus, you know, and then Now, what they took us through the water streets to you know, where we got off and walked through the Alleyways until we found our

Brigham: bed and breakfasts and you know, the next couple days we just walked around and explored Venice and did lots of stuff like that. A lot of touristy stuff, a lot of walking and And then we slip back to Germany. So that's kind of like Something like that is. Adventure travel Adventure travel. Yeah,

Tayson: yeah. I feel like the common theme I'm hearing in all of it is just Movement. Like, like you're not going to one location to sit and stay. It's, it's you're moving from place to place. You're being very active,

Brigham: would be another goodness, setting up like a central home base, where you're going back to every day of the trip. Yeah,

Derek: yeah. Like if you've got

Tayson: a week that you're traveling you're not staying in the same bed in the same location, seven of those seven days, but instead you might be two days here, two days here or just just an element of being active and navigating. During it for me, I'll tell you my my definition, I guess. And I wouldn't even I guess go to definition as much as kind of the use case like Brigham did. For me, when we actually set out to develop this pack,

Tayson: it was I kind of had this Benchmark in my mind of like I could do this trip with this pack that would be, then I would count as we've. We've met our goals and that would be, you know, fairly

Tayson: often where we having to travel over to Asia and walk back trees, and and work with relationships and QC and stuff. And so, the ability to stay fly over to say Vietnam, To walk our factories and spend time there and then literally for like a 40/50 dollar plane ticket fly down to Malaysia where I live for a while. And take the same bag and the same gear and then go hike Mount Kodak and evalu and that's kind of how the backpack.

Tayson: Got its name Coda. The coda UL is after this this mountain and this city I guess as well but Kota Kinabalu, it's like a, I'm gonna

Tayson: quote it wrong with like a 13 or more 1,000 foot, peak in the in the middle of the Jungle, it just Rises up and, you know, able to take the same packed to go and do something like that is the idea first. It's very versatile customizable and comfortable I guess. So that's Adventure travel. I guess now, let's talk for a quick second about some of the problems with some of the adventure travel that we've done and what we're hoping to solve

Tayson: with this, and then again, we'll then we'll bring it kind of Full Circle back into this particular trip. So, Just kind of goal in the same Circle as far as what we started with and just talked about like maybe Adventure travel, you've done and things that just did not go well or why you like it. Now now, I guess one other thing I want to add to this is a big element of Adventure travel to us, is the ability to be

Tayson: active, which means typically single bag. Travel means you're not checking a bag. You're not going through the hassle of checking and dragging around rolling luggage. You've got to be able to basically wear it for hours on end or or transport it for hours on end, you know, public transit or just different ways. So, that's a huge element of it and having rolling luggage and checked baggage and things like that. Just kind of ruins that experience and it, frankly, it's some, in

Tayson: some cases, it's just not really possible, you know, jumping on and off of water, taxi in the middle of the night and walking around Alleyways, like you don't want to be dragging around. 50 pound bag of luggage. You know what I mean? You just want to have your backpack and be able to go or hopping on and off buses and Terminals, and rails and all sorts of things. So single bag travel is all a big element of this. So all right,

Tayson: with that preface. Now turn it back over to you. Derek to talk about some of the things that just That we felt like were problems in this industry that the weren't being met. I mean, we really feel like we're kind of pioneering a new element here. We do feel like it connects very centrally to our purpose of helping people Live Ultralight. Because really, what happens is, once you are ultralight with backpacking, it starts to compound and every part of your life.

Tayson: Next thing, you know, you're trying to apply it to your apparel and then so on and so forth to the point where anytime you're, you know, if you were to go backpacking with a 10 pound base weight backpack, and then, turn around, and go travel the next week with two rolling luggages, like it's completely different thing. Like, like if you get the ultralight backpacking side. It's very seamless to apply it to every other part. And for most people that we know

Tayson: of that are Backpackers Call and pull to backpacking is just exploring and adventure and seeing things. So there's a huge element that connects everyone in our office, not only backpacks, but they love to travel and see things. And so that's kind of where the, the premise of bringing in something like this into Outdoor Vitals came to be. So, all right, Derek, I'll find out for the third time. I'll turn it back over to you.

Derek: Let you attempt to talk. Well, I think you kind of started covering it. One of the biggest problems is the ability to move or ability to go where you want to go. That's the biggest problem. Yeah. Rolling luggage or too much of anything. You just really can't experience things and going back to that definition of Adventure. It's to its to go and see and experience. New, you know, new things and you can't do that. You really cannot have Adventure, if you

Derek: can't go, The word adventure and the word go, or really like always say, let's go on an adventure

Derek: is very common, you know, sentence. You literally cannot have those two words separate in my mind. And so, With that, if you're uncomfortable, that's one of the number one problems that will stop you from going, that could be having rolling luggage that's just hard to move around, but I could also be an uncomfortable backpack. Like, even if you do have one backpack or one set of luggage or something that you have to worry about or duffel bag, you have to carry

Derek: around if it's uncomfortable. Like, if you're just dragging that duffel bag by, you know, a handle, and you have to carry it in your arm the whole time. The arms gonna be really tired, you really not going to want to go very far, so you're really probably not going to have very many Adventures. being able to get around, man, you just reminded

Tayson: me of One of the people we encountered on the trail, that was carrying a few set items, we'll cover that later in the podcast, but it is. It's an epic one. Yeah,

Derek: so to me, that's the biggest problem is the comfort and right now, there is a lot of travel packs. Anybody can go on Amazon or Google and Search travel pack and find something that looks good. It looks sleek like, oh yeah, I'll walk around with that. I could carry around that pack in the city or anywhere and, and feel cool, or whatever. But, when you actually put a lot of those packs on, they're really uncomfortable and they're not built to distribute

Derek: weight very well and they're not built for comfort. And especially you feel that when you're standing in line for an airport, if you're, you know, having to wait for, you know, a seat on a bus like a lot of places I've been. There's just, you know, it's very normal the cram people, you know, back to chest and the aisles of buses. Just to try to get people around cities, you don't get sit down, you don't get to take off your backpack

Derek: and if you're pack is uncomfortable, like you really just gonna be Not able to go. And so, I think that to me is one of the biggest problems that there have been when it comes to Adventure travel. Okay, I like it.

Maddie: Um, kind of building off of Derek, I'll try not to repeat so much what he said, but I think a big problem with a lot of the backpacks or bags. I, I don't have a long history of one bag, travel. I'll just throw that out there. That's been a new thing since I've Met Derek and become. Kind of more involved with Outdoor Vitals. And for instance, on my first international trip, I went to Fiji and Tonga on a study abroad. And

Maddie: I had a larger checked bag, a carry-on and a day pack backpack. And I think a lot of it was just, I was so nervous that I would get there and not have what I needed. Like going to the third world country where I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't really like know if I would be able to like, go to the store and get what I needed. And so I just like packed and packed. Just so that I

Maddie: could have ease of mine. and I think through one pack Travel, you find that being more simple, allows you to have more Comfort because you, You plan and you know what you need, and I think one back travel kind of solve some of that for me, but a big part of what the specific code of UL saws, out of the other travel packs that I've tried is just the organization, the customization, the freedom, that it allows you to pack how you

Maddie: want to pack. Is huge. Because if you have bags with a million different compartments, I find myself losing things. I don't know where they are. I don't know where I put them, but with the coda UL I feel like it's the perfect. Balance of organization and customization where you can have your, your packing, cubes that go in the bag. So, you can like, pull out the one item that you need when you're running around, you know, place to place. But there's

Maddie: like built-in storage and compartments that make that easier, so that if you don't like to use packing cubes or things like that, you still can with the Cody UL. I think that's a big. Problem Solver, though is for me, and the travels, I've done, even just all of the US. I don't think Venture travel has to be like International. I think that's the Kind of the the big idea. You know the Instagram idea that everyone? Yeah yeah. everyone

Maddie: wants it to be that but I think that Derek and I, we've gone way more places within the US that we've taken this bag, and it's just been way more convenient to go from, you know, City to City Within State and be able to experience more and get like the full use out of our plane ticket. Yeah. I like it.

Brigham: Yeah, as I listen to kind of people's thoughts, like a theme that keeps coming to my mind is limitations like it's I feel like less limitations somebody has the more Adventure, they're able to have like, Limitations are what holds back from having an adventure or having fun or doing lots of things. But like everybody and everything has a limitation but to me, it's like the limitations. We look at like existing options out there. Things like what are the limitations if they're,

Brigham: if they're not comfortable, that's a limitation because You as you become uncomfortable, people tend to be less willing to do or try things or go farther or you know I mean it's just it's kind of demoralizing. or if a, Bag, or pack doesn't have. you know, a good logical or intuitive way, to organize things or pack, or contain things or adjust things then like then the person that has that pack like is going to be limited in that they they just

Brigham: don't want to even mess with the pack. They like want to stuff it full and not even ever ever get into it or open it up because it's such a hassle. Because it's just this big cavern in there, or it's it's loaded. It's not getting unloaded until you are there,

Brigham: right? So those are all like limitations to like that really, I think hold people back from enjoying, what they're out like what they're actually. Trying to do, or what they're setting out to do wherever it is they go. So I think, it's not necessarily like a specific problem, but it's kind of like an overarching theme of like Some of the problems I think they're all like, limitation based. if you could go into like Comfort, there's limitations in certain bags that Limit

Brigham: the comfort. Yeah. So Yeah, that's my thoughts. yeah, I

Tayson: I would kind of second all of that and as I listened to you guys explain your thoughts, I I thought back to literally the last time we were flying internationally, Brigham. And again not that this needs to be focused around that, but I just remember this feeling and it's and it's one. That's really ingrained with me. For other reasons is I've talked about this a lot where I've heard of people that go backpacking. and they get done or whatever in their

Tayson: like oh my gosh, I froze to death at night, I'm never gonna do that again or like my backpack was so uncomfortable. I'm never gonna go backpacking again. We

Tayson: literally heard someone at the trailhead on this trip. Say those exact words. I'm never putting that backpack on again and they just kind of run a bell to me because on our last trip coming home from Vietnam. You know, we had packed for essentially a week in one bag, you know, each of us had a bag and then when we were there, we were getting loaded up with samples and all sorts of things as much as we can shove into our

Tayson: bags. And the book coming back and catalog,

Tayson: looks catalogs foam samples. You know, actual samples, samples of Dragon Ball and all sorts of things. And, and my pack was his full, as it possibly could get all, like, 45

Tayson: liters of it was full. And I remember walking around the airport at a layover in Japan and thinking, I hate this backpack, I do not want to put it on ever again, like, passionate to the core. Like, this could not be more uncomfortable. And that that to me kind of encompasses. The big one of the biggest problems with it is the Comfort, any Time. Excuse me. Anytime you're traveling. Things start to add up your adding in a laptop. You're adding in

Tayson: a book, you're adding in clothes changes the clothes or whatever it is and it honestly just starts to add up and that weight becomes incredibly uncomfortable which is where I felt like we had an opportunity ourselves being a backpack company, someone who is focus on weight distribution and load carry and all these different things. Like, let's take what we know from doing that and apply it into the travel sector, as well as that versatility component, or taking away those limitations. There's

Tayson: other packs that I've used that. You know, the second it's not completely full, it just falls apart like it's got so much forced organization in it that you can only do one thing with the bag before it just doesn't really work anymore and so those were just some major problems that I felt that. It we could do something about I guess and we hope to do something about as we stopped to design the coda backpack. So those are my thoughts. Okay,

Tayson: so now you know, I guess what Adventure travel is some of the problems around it. We've teased a bunch about the coda. This was supposed to be about the trip itself. Do we want to just dive now into the trip? Or do we want to introduce the coda and talk about? It in, in general. I mean, I feel like we're gonna have other podcasts that are very deep dived about the features of the coda ul and, and all of that, but

Tayson: let's say, let's go into the trip. I think,

Derek: I think we can definitely share a lot more about the coda by saying, if you're listening, you want to learn more about the pack itself. Well, it's not even available yet. So we're actually going to be starting to send out the different things, different teasers, that'll give you a little bit more information. But the reality of it is like just stay tuned. We're going to be releasing this later this summer, maybe beginning early fall but it's coming up really soon and

Derek: so, just get excited. Keep your eyes open. if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, or to some of our other, Descriptions like our email list. Get on there and we'll make sure you're one of the first to know like when when you can learn more about this pack.

Tayson: Yeah. yeah, and I think as we go through this, I guess the thought For us, is we hope that this kind of inspires you to do something. Maybe you've never done before. Which is this adventure travel aspect? I mean it it was an amazing trip. It's something that I feel like should be on your guys's radar. Is this type of travel because it's yes, it's different than the backpacking. And yes, it's different than vacationing literally. Yesterday we were standing at the

Tayson: top of you know the Olympic mountain ranges during a glaciers and Peaks and all this, you know? And now we're back in the office and just it's very, very free. It's very, very inspiring and the variety of things we did triple was just really, really cool. So okay, so let's let's dive straight into the trip. I'll start off by just saying. Derek, you get to plan all the trips in the future because it worked out flawlessly. Essentially, we woke up super

Tayson: early on Monday morning, we drove down to Good Old, Las Vegas where we have kind of the biggest airport around for us. And we flew to Seattle From there. We actually rented a car. It's kind of a cool thing. I'll jump onto this because it's gonna come up at some point, but we actually rented a car through a service kind of like Airbnb called turo. Cheaper option and we actually were able to rent a Tesla, which is kind of a dream

Tayson: of mine. I'm patiently waiting for for mine someday, but and that was a lot of fun. So we got our rental car and Quickly, just started driving over to. Olympic National Park. And with the first goal, the first part of this trip was going to be focused on backpacking. We want we wanted this backpack to be able to not just travel, not just me you know, most carry on standards and be Sleek enough to kind of take in and out of

Tayson: cars and Terminals and everything like that. But we wanted to be able to take it, not only from the terminal but to the trail directly to the trail. And so that's what we did. We drove we went out, kind of the south side of the park we stopped in at a ranger station and picked up some bear canisters. That we needed for staying in the park in the, in the background of the park. And then we drove North from there. And

Tayson: started hiking where's a few more stops and bumps and things along the way. But overall, we were just Beautiful. A country was seen some amazing trees. Heights of the trees, the Lakes, the ocean. And then essentially started hiking later in the evening, I think it's probably closer to six o'clock when we really got hiking for it, but it's a little bit later than we wanted, but it ended up being just amazing. We had all of our gear there, all, we're all

Tayson: using the same pack, you know, loaded with tents and pads and quilts, and everything that we needed for backpacking food. I don't know fill in the blank just everything that you're going to be needing and then we hiked in ended up being actually closer to six miles to where we were staying the night. But yeah, let's I guess let's talk about maybe Any elements that I that I missed leading

Brigham: up to that point in getting started on the trail? Well, if people want to, like, get a kind of visual reference, we were, we went to the whole river trail started like at the. That was the visitor center right at the whole river. Yeah. so, it's So it was kind. It's like a low elevation gain. You're kind of hiking along the whole river for six miles.

Derek: Yeah, it was really cool. The The whole rainforest is the this area of the national park that we were in, is called the whole rainforest area. And it's like the only temperate rainforest well, for sure in the United States and I know in the world, there's really not that many temperate rainforests. And so, being out here in southern Utah, where is just a dry, we literally asked the park ranger.

Tayson: If we have a fire,

Derek: We've been in a fire band for a long time. It's dry as Dusty. There's huge fire danger with. Actually a lot of fires going on right now or they're has been in the last week or two. And, and going from that to this temperate rainforest, there's Ferns and everything is green. There's

Maddie: park ranger literally when we asked just kind of like blinked at us and I was like, Well, we had 120% rainfall or whatever. I don't even know what to call it because we don't have that ring. But

Tayson: I think she was like you can try to burn down this Forest. You can't get this forced to burn. It's so green. Yeah,

Derek: it was incredible and I love that kind of stuff. I love, I love seeing green trees and plants all around. So the hike in it was awesome, but I think for me on that first day, the most exciting thing was and actually throughout the whole the whole trip was the comfort of the coda UL pack that we were all using. You know, I already harped on the discomfort problem of Adventure travel, in general, to me like this pack to felt so

Derek: comfortable and that he actually also made a comment on that. She was talking to me about it and I asked her. Hey, so I was packed feeling. Are you comfortable? And she's like, actually, this is probably even more comfortable than some of our other packs that I've used and specifically for hiking. and so while we were backpacking with a travel, Hybrid pack, I guess if you will more or less like an adventure travel pack, is what we're calling it. It wasn't

Derek: built specifically for for hiking. But while hiking Maddie said, is one of the most comfortable packs that she'd worn and we were loaded up with all the backpacking gear, like taste and said, but to add on top of that, I know Maddie. And I at least we didn't take out our changes of clothes or other items actually.

Tayson: Oh, me and me, and Maddie packed, and easily

Tayson: pulled out our extra pairs of clothes that we didn't need that night, and but

Derek: that's not comfortable. I was,

Tayson: yeah, because me and her both had laptops actually,

Maddie: I had a bear canister so like, I chose to put my bear canister in my pack on the way in and then I strapped it to the outside. The package was a cool feature of the coda UL is that I could just drop it to the outside for kind of extra storage.

Derek: But like, either way, like Brigham and I, we didn't take extra stuff out. Because it was that comfortable. I felt no need even with backpacking stuff and expirations was close to me. That was also proof of concept.

Derek: Like, I literally, if I have no car, yeah. If you're coming off of a bus, if I had no have the car to dump stuff in that, exactly, no place to leave stuff. This pack was absolutely comfortable enough for me to be able to do whatever I want and not have any kind of hindrance. Because of discomfort.

Brigham: Yeah, like to I mean to kind of further explain like the proof of concept. So if we take what we just kind of described, you know, we Go from the airport, we get in the car, load up, everything few stops recharge. The car, stop and eat somewhere. Go to the ranger station. Stop, take pictures, whatever. And then when we get to the trailhead, Essentially, for the most part we took what was left our packs alone. For the most part may have

Brigham: taken out some changes of clothes for a couple of you. But but then describing what we did, then we hiked six miles. And to on R&D or proof of Concepts side. Like what does that mean for like the user? So yes, this was a backpacking trip, but this could have easily been being dropped off at a train terminal somewhere in Europe where it just made sense.

Tayson: Just I got one last time I was in Seattle. The last time I was in Seattle, I got off of a cruise ship and we had to get to the airport and we walked I don't know. Three miles two miles, three miles through the, through the town. Yeah. And I have a pack that was so loaded down right again because we're on a cruise ship for, I don't know, seven days or something. We've got, we've got our Electronics in their books,

Tayson: in there, so many changes of clothes and swimsuits and stuff is and I, I was so uncomfortable, like, I hated that pack by the end of it. I totally forgot about that. But like literally same city,

Tayson: same scenario, but I was walking through the city and was up to my, you know, I just had with that. I

Brigham: think a lot of people that travel can relate to, to that. And so that's kind of, I'm trying to relate, like, yeah, we were backpacking but If you break it down to, to that experience, like I bet tons of people have experienced that where they end up actually having to walk a distance where they have to have that backpack or whatever luggage they have. It's either on their back or their carrying it in their hands for A couple hours at least,

Brigham: you know, where they're on their feet, just now getting wherever they're going. And so, what does that mean for R&D and like proof of concept? Well, if we want to deal with to do the backpacking, but we also want somebody to be able to have, you know, Traverse a city for five miles, if the need arises, so back to that limitations. So, if we took this backpack and tried to go for the six, mile hike, If we weren't able to comfortably,

Brigham: do that. There's something wrong with the pack. Then there's something deficient in what we're trying to accomplish with the pack. So, That's kind of the proof of concept but that just as easily could have been the city. Whereas if we had to walk from an airport and go five miles across the town and we were uncomfortable at halfway through that walk, like then again that would have told me there's something wrong that we this isn't ready yet. You know what there's

Brigham: this needs Big Time Improvement because it has to be comfortable for for all of it. So that was kind of one of those things that I wanted was kind of just paying attention to everybody and wanting to just keep an eye on and get that feedback. So,

Tayson: I want to I want to keep talking about the trip itself, but sure I feel like there's one other really important aspect to that that fits in really well right here. And that is the weight aspect of the backpack. now obviously world for like Backpackers and we're used to packing, super, super light, which is incredibly important and that's A massively important aspect of all of this for sure with this pack or with any other pack out there. With the coda. You

Tayson: always specifically focused also a lot on weight. So in general the code of UL is about 50% lighter than most travel packs out there but that's like kind of looking at an average. Really You know, and that's kind of what we want to make claims on but like there's a lot of them that it's literally half the weight. It's literally half the weight of these other travel packs. And that really adds up that's three pounds which is basically the weight of

Tayson: my tent and quilt, you know and then I have my path that's you know a pound. And so like literally my tent in quilt would weigh as much as it like adding those into my backpack would weigh the same as a completely empty other travel backpack so that aspect that's a big portion of what can also help make it comfortable. Obviously the frame, the harness, everything that we've tried to optimize is that is a massive piece, but I just want to

Tayson: throw in the weight aspect as well right here. Okay. So this part of the trip may have been my favorite part. I don't know. I have many favorite Parts but that evening walking in on that trail to me was, was just like, how to say it any other way, but just felt pretty almost magical. You're walking through, we had we the Sun is setting on the ocean behind us. We can't see it because it's just so thick and I gave us

Tayson: a super long sunset. Somewhere the entire time we were hiking. It just felt like it was dusk or just the sun was setting. The light was amazing and you're walking through and Mario. Correct me here. When I'm wrong, you know, 200 foot trees, my anywhere near right? Yeah.

Tayson: He's good. He's 200 foot tall trees, with moss, covering them and hanging off of them or walking past waterfalls looking for Raptors and dinosaurs. And you know, you know what I mean? Like, it was like just this magical place where It was so cool. You see the, you see the river? Kind of looking for wildlife. We literally walked up on a deer Blacktail deer. And Just a really, really cool experience. Something that I just don't believe you could have seen or

Tayson: experienced if we'd stayed in the car, right? If we'd stayed on the main road, that just wouldn't have been an option. Yes. So we could have taken some a little hike here, a little hike there. Got some of it but like to just go back into the backcountry, see an experience that for a couple of hours walking into our camp. Was just amazing. To me at least and then, you know, and then like just like you guys mentioned staying comfortable so

Tayson: that you can just be present and enjoy. It was a big element of it, too. So, I think

Maddie: another element of that for me, I mean, you kind of just call that out that I would correct you but I really like to learning like I remember walking through I can see through and just being like wow, I have never seen anything like this before, like I haven't like, I haven't seen. those that big of a tree, that kind of moss, a little slugs that eat poop like, I've seen that before. So I was really excited to like I thought

Maddie: like a kid again. Like I felt like I could just. Wander and and find new things. And I really liked that I brought that side out of me and then to be able to go back and like have the desire to look up on my phone. Like, how tall was that tree that I saw, or, or what kind of tree or what kind of plant or to find out that those banana slugs ate poop, and have 27,000 teeth. Like just kind

Maddie: of crazy and I don't think like just doing the little mini walks off. The trail can always bring that out in a person.

Brigham: That was really fun. It was fun like Like having you feed us all that information as you learned, you know what I mean? Like because it was it's interesting, it was I enjoyed that as well.

Maddie: I'm glad I didn't annoy you.

Tayson: I think we all love. I think, I think what you're basically saying is that yearning to explore and, you know, an exper new things, and I think we all really love that and that's what calls us to go to do this kind of stuff. So

Maddie: it's way part of an adventure. So

Derek: I commented to Maddie when she was she was telling me one of the night said, oh man, she's telling me. She felt like a kid kind of like curiosity and things like well, I guess that's like one of the ways at least that, you know, how you're, you know, you're going on an adventure like, you know, you're doing it. Well, if you're getting that feeling and you're, you're having a great time, I mean, you're on a great adventure, totally. I think

Derek: that's one way. Check yourself if you're miserable and stress all the time, that Well,

Derek: I'll try something else.

Maddie: I really evaluate how your adventuring

Tayson: yeah. So we we get into camp. We find a place where we can set up camp. We were, we were so late that some of the campsites and stuff were taken. And so we kind of passed everyone up and found a cool spot. And literally pitched me and Brigham. At least put our tents right on the bank of the river. I could almost Reach Out And Touch it with my hand from where I was thinking. Set up our tents watched the

Tayson: sun, go down, and the moon come out. And this had a really Enjoyable evening. I feel like how to couple snacks and call them tonight. Got some amazing rest, one of the best nights of sleep. I had just period in like 10 days or so. Yeah, it

Tayson: was just a chaotic last little bit

Derek: the next night. We stayed in Airbnb and I will say, I slept way better that first night in the Airbnb it was it was such a good night of sleep.

Brigham: It was a great night, I think

Tayson: maybe it's the white noise like

Brigham: the night time bedtime experience that night was Pretty epic. I mean it was like with the moon and the water and the smell of the air and just like, there weren't hard. They were hardly any mosquitoes that night. And that's really good.

Brigham: It was it was really exceptional. I was really peaceful, it's good.

Maddie: The color of that water was kind of insane to

Tayson: That being like the typical glacial blue, it was more of a gray. It like a know, pretty right? It wasn't like a dirty silty look. It was just a I don't know. It was

Derek: like a definitely like this. It had a slight tinted blue, just just like, so, just like, This white-ish just slightly tinted blue. The water that you feel like oh, that looks like liquid ice kind of a thing it was, you know,

Maddie: pretty clear really. The banks and stuff is,

Derek: I know like I was just watered, but you know how he gets white that's frozen that, you know, it's just hard to describe other than that, way for me. Yeah,

Tayson: I just remembered something that Maddie never did look up. Oh,

Tayson: the The noise. The random something

Tayson: gotta know. There was some kind of a noise. I'm, I can't decide if it was a here in Utah. There's birds that like puff up their chest and make this dumping noise and kind of builds. I think, but I think also frogs can do without a big old frog or you know, so one of those two but at first, we all were kind of like what was that? Anyways, that was just a fun side note, but Maddie I'm sure we'll figure

Tayson: out what it was by the end of the podcast. So the next morning we we wake up So, I'm gets up early up there, but we were, we step in a little bit. I say slept in, but we I feel like we slept in and got up, I think Brigham started pacing circles around my tent at about 7:30 and letting me know and So I got up and and I ain't going, you know, another element of just having lightweight gear and

Tayson: being consistent with it. As I don't think we were the first ones up but we were still the first ones out of Camp. You know, we beat everyone else down the trail, you know, we were which is which is nice because you get to kind of pave the way and I don't

Derek: know, we had some, we had some people we stopped because we wanted to take some some pictures and and film something as we were, you know, proving the code of backpack. And as we stopped a few times to do that, there was some of that those other campers tasting, his father about catching up as they were headed out of the trail right now at the same time as well. And

Tayson: sinned, we caught them or We they caught us or we caught them right outside of camp, like we passed them. I don't know a quarter of a mile outside of camp for the first time. Right. Right.

Tayson: So I just wanted to throw that out there because that comes into play. Oh

Derek: yeah. But these guys, one one, one one pair of guys in particular they looked miserable.

Derek: They had giant giant packs on and their hands for both of them. They were just carrying these huge, one of them was carrying this huge stove. The other one had this big cooler and they're literally just kind of leaning back these things in the arms, while also trying to balance his giant packs on their on their backs. Looking absolutely miserable. now, so we kind of

Tayson: I mean, I would almost say they have like 70 to 80 liter packs. With stuff attached to the outside of them. So they're probably like 90 liters worth of gear on their backs. And then one of them was literally carrying a like a, like one of the stoves that you would hook up to like a green one pound propane tank. The like a disposal when you buy the store. Two burner. Yeah. Steel stove. Yeah, it

Maddie: wasn't even like the green.

Brigham: No, no, like, fold up Coleman. It was like

Maddie: a big one. It

Tayson: was a two-hand job to hold

Brigham: 20 inches by 10 inches. By like 12 inches. It was most

Maddie: bigger than the boxes, we ship things out of oh, Yeah. Two.

Tayson: And we was always, I think we passed them or they passed. I don't know. And they didn't look happy but they didn't look sad at that point. I guess you is how I would describe them. Just pretty neutral, just starting down the trail, whatever. Anyways, we buzzed up the trail and we stopped to film a video. And I mean, we are filming 20 30 minutes at least and they passed us back by, I believe and Then we walked out and we're

Tayson: stopping for different b-roll shots. Derek walk up to a waterfall. We took our sweet time. I felt like on the way out, but we still passed them even with all the extra time we're taking and 30 minutes of videoing. We still passed them. Get to our car. We're there for 10 or 15 minutes. back in, Derek stopped again to film more stuff just like

Maddie: 45 minutes before you

Tayson: yeah, so we get to our car and they happen to be the car like right behind us and they get their and like they just drop everything in the one kid just I mean his face is just read, he's like danger and tears, it looks like and he's like I am never putting that backpack on again, you know. And I mean I just like That's exactly. I was like one of those moments where I'm like, we need a card that I

Tayson: just walk over like we might be able to help you, you know what I mean? Like, we're all introverts here. We never really talked about outdoor. Vitals on the trail to anyone. We just do our thing and Basically look like a Boy Scout Troop all the time because we're usually prototyping the same gear. So we look like all matching and funny on the trail. Well

Maddie: and tasting and Brigham were quite literally matching.

Tayson: Are you backpacks? We, yeah, we accessorize the same and I feel like sometimes, you see people like that, right? We just need a card to be like Okay, he can help you so something but yeah I was it was sad because you know you never you see something like that. They may never go again. Meanwhile we get back from like man. We've never felt lighter. I was the easiest six miles. It felt like and Just a really good time. But another

Tayson: thing I did want to note though on the hike out is on the hike out. We changed things up a little bit. And we actually used. Part of a big part of the coda UL design is that we wanted to make it really custom and customizable. And so we've got some specific strapping systems that we've made that can be Used or completely gone. So the pack can stay super Sleek with no strapping whatsoever or you can add it on and on

Tayson: the second day we added it on and had Maddie actually strapped an entire bear canister. Big enough to carry all of our food inside of one canister and had her strap it on the outside of the pack. And it was cool to just play around with that and strap on tents, and and the bear canister and all these different things in different ways and it really could add volume to the pack if you needed it. But also just gave a lot

Tayson: of options. I don't know. So you have some wet clothes or something, you want to put them on the outside of your pack or whatever it might be. So I was definitely a cool part of the testing that was done that day and that morning. Anything else from that first initial morning. Or

Brigham: second morning, or whatever.

Derek: No, I think I think the next significant part I remember from that that second morning was actually leaving the trailhead. And the way Olympic National Park is set up and the Olympic Peninsula is that there's a ginormous big section that basically covers the entire Peninsula throughout the middle. And, and to most edges of This Blood towards the sea but there's some strips that are not National Parkland. And in between some of it and then a narrow strip. Along the beach along

Derek: with the Pacific. And so as we're leaving the national park going into this non-park area, you know towards some of the towns are at there's this line of cars we pass. And it is just. Ridiculously long. I don't know how long it was.

Maddie: How many corners and I was like thinking it would end and it just kept

Brigham: going up. I mean, it was probably like a couple miles oh

Tayson: guys, the last but

Brigham: they were all standing there.

Tayson: People were just getting out of their car and just standing there. We were leaving it at 2:00. And I bet the guys in the back. Maybe we're going to get into the park by five or six at night. No three to four hour week.

Maddie: And they probably had no clue if they had. Never been how long

Tayson: hey you're out of stuff on service. You have no idea how far it is to the entrance

Maddie: windy road. Like you can't really see around

Tayson: the Parks mall. So they were limiting the cars going in because there's no way to go. You know what I mean? Like they could they. Yeah. They know where to park.

Derek: so we we actually avoided traffic like that a number of times on this trip like this, is that it actually worked out pretty flawlessly with our schedule, how we kind of avoided the crowds, all three days, and I really don't know. There's really any tips to share on that particular aspect. It was just We got lucky. If you can know the busiest times. in the park or

Tayson: that's a week that was a

Brigham: Tuesday, it was a Tuesday, two day. We were pulling out of there, like around 1 p.m. We got there, the night before getting in there was no no traffic, not only no delay at all and that was funny. We started the hike at 7 so we were probably getting into the trailhead at like 6:30. Yeah so

Brigham: maybe that's a maybe maybe that's a tip like to get

Tayson: her later late or leave the park.

Derek: You know, by lunch time,

Derek: I mean specially during the summer time when you're that far, north the sun rises way earlier and sets way later, which is a lot of, a lot of people that live closer towards the equator. United States. They don't always realize that, but if you're going northwards Canada and the closer you get up there, here's gonna have a longer day. So you actually can go early or later like regular suggesting and you. Up quite a bit daylight. We Didn't Start the five

Derek: miles or six miles in, like he said until 7 and we honestly had enough light to set up our tents.

Tayson: It didn't get dark till 10 just fine. Yeah.

Tayson: yeah, I think definitely knowing that we live in a crazy time right now where everyone's getting outdoors and and you know the national park near us is basically a zoo and so being aware of some of those things just A pro tip to throughout there and and we we went to Olympic National Park, but I feel like just be aware, like, you don't have to go to a national park to do something this, like this either. It was just what we

Tayson: ended up playing. So all right, so we pull out of there. We head back into town or through town to go. Now over to the beach to do a different hike, So this is kind of where we're getting into more of the adventure travel and not just the travel and then backpack site too. So we cruise over there, we get to this beach and we've got a Three mile round trip hike to go see some really cool rock features and things

Tayson: that are on the beach. Big hole in the Rock and Some other really cool features. And so, at that point, some some of us dropped packs, others of us, kind of kept them. I compressed mine down which we won't get into the features of that, but it was really nice to be able to be like, all right, I still got my rain jacket in here. It was super foggy, Etc. Like the conditions, but you know, I compressed my pack down unloaded,

Tayson: a handful of things. Just got the water and food that I kind of wanted. And we were on our way in a completely different environment, completely different trip and the pack can just quickly adapt to Something like that. I feel like, which was another fun part about the, the testing of, of this, and the potential use cases of it. So let's talk a little bit about that. That other hike and what we like about it. And I loved I

Derek: that was another part for me was almost just as magical. This is cool. As you know the whole river trail. It was real beach and we went to hold in the wall from Rialto Beach. And it's just this black sand, this black sand and the beach itself was the trail wasn't really like a trail trail. Just you walked down the beach mall and a half or so to Wall. And the whole time you're looking out at the ocean, these big waves

Derek: are coming in in the setting of it was. It's just really foggy. All these super tall trees on the Washington coast were, you know, just silhouetted in this fog. Looking really at the real, I just was amazing, the whole mood, the whole bias were walking around, you're just kind of felt really unique.

Tayson: It's like I've never seen like you could literally walk from the ocean up to the trees and you'd see like big cobblestones and then you'd like take a few steps and get smaller and you take a few steps and get smaller and you take a few steps and they get smaller basically down to the point where rocks became sand and it was just such a cool like spread to see it from. Like that's probably what they were warriors. Those big, you

Tayson: know, six inch rocks up there and then they just break down all to the all the way to the point where they're just, they're saying now. And then, all I I was really fasting by these massive trees, you know, these like we just talked about these like 200 foot tall trees and stuff that had obviously gone out into the ocean and essentially been washed back up some of them and some of them had fallen in place and They just look like

Tayson: Driftwood. You're talking about these huge trees. It was just, it was just really cool, just really cool beach. And then the rocks in the fog, just To it. if you've never been on the on, The on the Pacific Northwest on that Coast you know through Portland and even Northern California and stuff. It's a it's a really really cool thing. I mean it's just different than almost any other Beach I've ever been to in my life and I I love it. I'm

Tayson: right there with you Derek. I thought it was super cool. Yeah there was bald eagles just hanging out right above us in the

Derek: trees. I, I'm pretty sure I saw Stihl. Token set up a couple times and out of the ways. Nobody else saw us, maybe that's fake news,

Tayson: but pretty sure it was locked myself. Yeah,

Derek: I saw something twice and

Derek: Then I couldn't see it anymore but it was a lot of fun. We got actually the title was down. So we actually got to walk through hole in the wall as like little Arch and these big rocks that you know, when Tides up they're like rocks that are out in the ocean on the ways and the water. Well, since it was low, we got to explore the tide pools and find it in enemies and and all the little hermit crabs and

Derek: walked through the Arts and I was pretty fun and And then just looking out at some of the other rocks and Islands poking up. You know, off the coast to me that was just really, just really beautiful. Is it really just Satisfying experience for me. Personally,

Maddie: it was so crazy how in an hour you could go from a rainforest to like Completely different ecosystem.

Derek: This cold foggy, Misty Beach

Maddie: yeah, I mean, I guess that could have been considered rainforest like I don't really know up on where all the trees were and stuff, but it was just so different and I had never seen. Like, the it was almost like black sand. From the Cobblestone. It was really dark. I never seen anything like that. I'm, I probably could say that about most parts of this trip is I don't really see very much is really cool new experience.

Tayson: Yeah. I mean a quick quick jump on the car and quick car ride and it was just a completely different trip all the sudden which is, which is A pretty cool part of of and it kind of goes on. That's kind of what we did on the last days as well, but it's just switching it up, but yeah, I feel like that was that was a lot of fun to do the tide pooling and to I don't know, just leisurely and

Tayson: just a totally different look and I don't know what else I guess to say about other than it was just really enjoyable. Yeah.

Brigham: And that was yeah, the scenery was totally different but also like the like think about the approachability of that versus the backpack. Like it was not, it was not a backpacking thing at all we drive up to a parking lot. There's it's Like, anybody could have come off the plane and done like that part, right? They could render the car and driven out there, just like it's exactly use case of trying to do on this trip is like kind of like

Brigham: cover all these different angles of Travel and Adventure

Maddie: and people working there like the

Brigham: worst, some people camping. Yeah, right on the Beach.

Brigham: If very close to, where did I am very come up to? I feel like,

Tayson: yeah, I don't know. Freaked me out when the Tide's up and you're looking at where the waves has thrown trees, you know, they're camping in the tree's that the ways of Crashed down before, you know, and there's would wanna be there in a storm per se, you know. but, They really cool aspect. If you did want to like we're trying our best to describe this stuff, but we did take a lot of videos. So make sure you are subscribed to our

Tayson: YouTube channel and have the Bell notification clicked so that you do get notified. I don't know when we'll start to publish some of this content but Within

Tayson: a few months it'll be showing up there and you'll be able to see exactly what we're describing and you can kind of live that experience with us. Super cool. So we we you know, you guys are off explore and I type pulled for a while and then I don't know where you guys went. I sat there and pulled out my lunch for my pack and had a had a little snack and enjoyed that and then and we Cruise back down the

Tayson: beach and told you guys all about Twilight and all sorts of things werewolves and vampires and now. So then we got back to the car and then we drove up support Angeles. And that drive was really, really cool. Again, just another out, important aspect of travel to me, as I quite enjoy, just even driving in the car and just seeing everything drove around, a massive Lake Crescent. That's where I was looking for the walk in this monster personally. It was just

Tayson: really big pine trees and different, you know, all these different types of trees that just grow right down to the water's edge and

Tayson: yeah, just just super, super enjoyable drive over their

Derek: Instagram pictures of the Kool-Aid. Blue, Glacier legs. The Crescent was one of them so it just had a whole different dynamic because not only was the trees is so big and You were covering everything and write down to the water, but then the water itself was just this Kool-Aid blue. And if

Brigham: it looked really nice,

Maddie: if any of you locals are listening, I want to know why there were no boats on the water. That's what I'm wondering.

Brigham: Well, I wonder because I think it's part of the national park. Yeah

Brigham: sure. It's like a motorized restricted. We

Tayson: didn't see some kayaks that. Yeah,

Tayson: look dangerous. But I don't know if they've blown there from the other end, but they had a long walk back if they had.

Derek: Yeah, it wasn't the natural part. So very well could be that.

Maddie: So cool. I'm just like the one that's just like. Why aren't you

Maddie: being or something? Yes,

Tayson: Yeah, it was, it was a really cool, really cool Lake really fun drive. We started to see a bunch of breaking up in the terrain where we could actually see farther distances for a lot of the other part of it. It was so dense. He couldn't see, couldn't see typography very well and so started to break up a little bit and And that was, that was fun to see. So going up, we're gonna do this, we take our sweet time getting

Tayson: dinner and then go to the Airbnb and And then the next day is our last day. So we basically have about half the day to spend in the park before we got to start, migrating our way over to the airport, back in in Seattle. And so, from there, we decided to drive. Probably the most traveled section of the park. Now that we've seen it for sure. It's definitely the most populated area around. The National Park is that Port Angeles area and

Tayson: that side and then there's a main Canyon Road per se that wins all the way up on top. I don't remember what elevation it takes you to, but it's probably four or five thousand feet in elevation and you get these huge vast. sweeping views of The glaciers and Mount Olympus Olympus Olympus. Yeah and and just these different all the taller section of Olympic National Park. And that was what are you looking at? What's 10,000 hurricane Ridge? No way. No way. I

Tayson: typed in the wrong one. Yeah this is like eight or seven. So Has to be more than that, but

Derek: well, you're right. What would you do?

Derek: What was cool about hurricane Ridge? You could look out across the park like taste and sing and see all the snow-covered Peaks and the glaciers and you could even read, you could even look over and see Blue Glacier, which was, which was a glacier right next to the whole river trail that we had hiked the first day on the opposite side of the park kind of. And so, that was way off in the distance but you could see it and like,

Derek: wow, we were over there, right, kind of at the foot of this big Glacier that we can kind of see from up here now and well. And remember too, when we started off the day

Tayson: driving in Port Angeles, we're like man, I hope that we're not completely fogged in because Port Angeles was all foggy. Like, how would I be to get up there and be able to see nothing but fog and We get driving. And ultimately, we're like, oh, the fog lifted and we turn around and behind us is just like this ocean of of clouds and fog down below us, which is also just super cool to see, like he just drove up and out

Tayson: of it. And I don't know that I thought that was really, really cool. So we kept driving up started seeing more Wildlife, get to the top and then just get that. You of so much of the park and so much of the High Country. So, from there, we had a couple hours that we could spend, so we we kind of picked a trail and when did that and then ended up. Finding a trail could go farther. And so, we, we basically

Tayson: walked this Ridge line for, I think I tracked it on my watch, but I think it was Round trip, you know, three plus miles. He was probably even close to four because I didn't start tracking right at the beginning. Where we just prayed three. We were just walked down this Ridge line and literally you could step off one side of the Ridge and of falling along ways or step off the other side of the Ridge and falling along ways. And just

Tayson: again, I I had brought the pack and had water and different things and Have a snacks. Me Maddie. Apparently like her snacks at hand, so necessity,

Tayson: but it would have been a lot of fun if we had more time too, I would have loved to just keep going out that trail. It just went for a long ways. I think we Was out there and just awesome amazing views and really enjoyed that aspect again of driving through the park and then all just getting off and and seeing it by foot as well. Yeah. Having the different perspective of being like

Brigham: down at the bottom level, you know, where you like a micro level of the forest and then going over to the coast and then going up high and kind of getting an expansive like 360 degree view of a lot of the places we had either driven around or walked through and like, then looking off to Like Vancouver Island and look like the Seattle Direction. It was really cool.

Maddie: I think it's weird. Cool. I don't know what word to use, um, but going up Hurricane Ridge. was like, Green and Lush and like not covered in ice and snow, but you had to go up and around that one, you wrote to be able to see the panoramic view of all the glaciers and all the other really tall mountains. And like, there's no way you could have fit that every single Ice kept him out in SoCal mountain with like one camera,

Maddie: I couldn't even do it with my eyes. Like, you had to turn your head to see one end to the other and it was just so I don't know how big. This reminds you so small,

Maddie: it makes you feel small. Yeah.

Tayson: Um, Anyway, so we we kind of did the hike came back, hung out just looking again at that Vista around the car for a while and then then it was kind of time to start packing up and heading back. So Hop back in the car and basically Cruise back to the airport repacked our bags. for those of us that kind of taking stuff out or been doing more of the day hikes and Lighter hiking with it and and then headed back

Tayson: home. But any kind of closing thoughts on the actual trips side of it. Or maybe. I don't know or any relation or correlation to the Packer or anything like that.

Maddie: Now, what is again?

Derek: the comfort of that thing which is just phenomenal being able to Wear that as much as I want within a day and never get tired of it. Really just, like, oh, I don't really care that. This is on my pack. That was, that was awesome.

Maddie: I think that it really reinforced the way that I like to do my packing. I like to use like the compression socks and the, the packing cubes, and those kinds of things because it was really nice for, like, the day hikes, like the coda UL is so light that it was like way more comfortable than your average day pack to just like, I'm just gonna take my extra clothes out and I'm just gonna take this out and just take my water,

Maddie: and my super easily accessible snacks. And

Tayson: yeah, I think the, the best thing in the as far as these accessory side, go as I was using the compression bag accessory to basically keep my camping gear in so I could just slide it in and out of my pack. In two seconds and it's just super easy to kind of pull it or add in if you want it. And I really enjoyed that as well getting to kind of test that out in, in the field. So, I'm going to

Tayson: switch things up. We're getting close to the end here of where I where we want this podcast to to be. We're actually a little bit over. So I want to kind of do a lightning round where I slept everyone quickly answer. Um, the question, we'll go on a circle and then we'll move on. So No, more than the two here. What are a couple? Good takeaways you learned from this trip. So like basically words of advice From this trip.

Derek: Good, takeaway oven from the trip. Probably is just the way you pack your bag. Make sure you pack your bag, right? Like Maddie was just saying So that you can, you know, make the most out of your trip. Not feel like you can't get to your stuff or don't want to ever get into your pack and draw this stuff or nothing. Just because it was so hard to get in there in the first place or Okay. Next one. Other takeaway

Tayson: forgot one. That's fine.

Derek: That's that's what I got for now. Okay.

Maddie: To not repeat that. I think being flexible is super good about this trip and having the flexibility of the pack was awesome. being able to, you know, like have that

Maddie: easy to grab into the Airbnb and have your your shower stuff just just easy to get to and yes, this is the same thing as their honestly but being able to be camping one night and then Airbnb the next and have like no shift in Like what you needed? It all was in the same bag. I think that was awesome. That's a pretty good takeaway and I only needed one pair of shoes. Yeah,

Maddie: that were on my feet. I didn't pack a pair of shoes which Is kind of monumental for me, so nice.

Brigham: When you could like say if you totally good

Maddie: to put my tacos in there and I thought about it would have been nicer the beach, maybe but I didn't need them. And my yeah, understood fine. So

Tayson: this is this is Tripp not necessarily pack specific. Yeah

Brigham: that's that's kind of what I'm going to try and focus on my responses like you know, being able to Take a trip like this. With this was like kind of a like a Bot like Drop in Dropout or like fly out thing, like pretty quick

Tayson: like two nights. We got a lot done and so three days two nights. So

Brigham: like a trip like this, you know, it requires. you know, people have to take time off work or or requires some Financial preparation, you know, to be able to afford the travel and the food and I guess my thoughts are a big takeaway is if if you're going to, Maximize the time. So like maximize the time. And Think about how you outfit yourself. Whether that's the clothes you wear or the things you pack, how you pack, what you use to pack.

Brigham: So that You're, you're committing yourself and like sacrificing resources to do this. This thing for fun. And don't let some of your however you outfit yourself like hold, you back. That's kind of like my big takeaway is it's not like the backpack, carried us up the mountain or you know drove us around or any piece of gear. Does any of that? I guess it's almost like the Tesla did drive us around right?

Tayson: Autopilot was but full effect.

Brigham: Yeah, I guess the idea is The goal is to Adventure, how fun, and get awesome memorable experiences. Try and Factor how you outfit yourself.

Tayson: so that it's like

Brigham: invisible like it's not something you think about like this, it's not going to hold you back like So here I think ahead of time, like you're still in mind what you use and choose to use or do like is that going to limit you? And oh, that's

Tayson: I'm gonna take it from there because you're dabbling into what I was gonna say. Which is I feel like my biggest takeaway is flexibility, so I did not plan the trip, Derek planned the trip and I was aware of most of what we were doing, but some of it, we honestly decided while we were there and we had kind of plans a bead and see at times and we chose what to do and to me, The thing that I feel like

Tayson: I learned to appreciate on that trip. And what I just advised to is, if you've got the right gear like saying, you can be flexible to whatever it is that we're doing. Obviously, you know, there's some features that I just really liked in the Cota liked the ability to strap on a bear canister, like, you don't always think about stuff like that. And a lot of times that would be a very hard thing in certain packs would have been pretty much

Tayson: impossible with any of the packs that I currently previously done Adventure travel with like this, but that We were able to be flexible. And just kind of throughout the whole trip like plans changed things, you know, like plans, don't always go according to plan. I think that planning is really, really important, but they're not always going to just fall in line and happen the way you want it to. And so whatever piece of gear it is, whether it's, you know, even

Tayson: even down to the clothing and being able to rinse it or wash it and have a dry quickly, or or piece of clothing, that's just really good at doing more than one thing that gives you flexibility, and it gives you the ability to adapt and just stay comfortable. No matter what it is that the adventures is throwing at you. So that's a big takeaway. I think that came from not personally planning the trip but just feeling like throwing anything my way

Tayson: and between all the different pieces of gear and stuff that I have. Like I just felt like we could handle it. Okay. That was probably the slowest fighting round I've ever seen. So let's pick it up for number two here. Hopefully, this doesn't overlap. But best advice for a first time single bag Adventure Travelers. Best advice, quick Punchy to the point. Do it. Amen.

Derek: Honestly like that is my best advice is just try it. Like force yourself to do it, force yourself. I know like Maddie said like she was really nervous her first time she went anywhere internationally and it might not be that you're going anywhere like out of the country but To do Adventure travel. You just kind of have to try it and just say, no, I am forcing myself to fit everything. In one pack. And and once you try it and you

Derek: figure out that this is the better way to go, you will not regret that. And

Tayson: I'm gonna let Maddie follow this up with you may forget something That you can get it there.

Maddie: Yeah, I've forgotten lots of things and so like toothpaste, you forget it? That's okay, just buy it there. I think that's a good piece of advice. I think just simplify And take less than if you end up really needing it then you just have to be willing to go get it, and you'll figure out that you didn't really need it. Most of the time.

Tayson: I'm going to jump in right here because my kind of goes hand in hand too, which is I've talked about this before on the podcast but build a checklist just build the checklist and that will eliminate so many fears by just seeing everything out on paper and thinking about everything through, you know, through and line by line, and pretty soon, you realize I don't need three pairs of pants, and four pairs of shoes and whatever it is or, or you don't

Tayson: have the fear of forgetting something. That might possibly need. I Brigham quickly. I mean, really

Brigham: just gonna be the same. I guess I would just say you don't need what you think you need. So if I'm speaking to a first time person doing for the first time, they're most likely going to think they need a lot of stuff that they aren't going to need. So just don't even pack it if you want to just have that first time. Comfort, you know, teddy bear, feeling pack, one change of clothes, one pair of pants, one pair of socks,

Brigham: one shirt extra. No one you'll still have plenty of time. Just go free know.

Brigham: If you really think you need extra then, just you'll see that. That one change of clothes is

Brigham: Totally adequate and it'll just get you thinking. Maybe I could do with even less

Maddie: and get home and look in your pack and look in the

Tayson: hey, that's coming. Don't jump ahead. Oh,

Tayson: don't jump ahead here, sorry I'll pause

Tayson: not right away. But um, okay really quick. Favorite part of the whole trip. Derek.

Derek: The whole thing. The,

Tayson: oh my goodness. All right. Derek, skipping you. Maddie

Maddie: likes learning. I learned a lot and that was magical. Okay,

Brigham: very good. That's a very good one. Thank you. The probably the morning Camp experience from waking up to getting up and joining the morning air and packing up. That was probably my favorite part of trip. Okay.

Tayson: I think my favorite part of the whole trip was. They'll hike in actually that evening. I kind of elaborated on that but I just really, really liked that part of it. The walk-in Derek will give you one more chance. Oh, we're chance. I just like the variety of it. I like. So we saw the rainforest,

Derek: the beach, and the Peaks, and it camping, and they're B&B and watched, you know, watch TV and Camp. It's like, okay. You gotta do that.

Tayson: Okay. I like that. That's a better explanation.

Brigham: Purpose of the trip.

Derek: Oh, I love that. We got to do it all. Yeah,

Tayson: for sure. Okay. Really quick. What is your favorite thing? I put the thing, but maybe feature of the coda UL, if you can only name one, No repeats either. So Derek you're going last because you're going to say comfort Maddie.

Maddie: Um, what I said the other day and I'm thinking about I still still sick and buy it. There's a zipper that's accessible from the top of the pack. So if it's like laying down or in the storage compartment, you can Reach in and grab your snacks out. Super easy. Okay.

Tayson: And maybe like maybe I should change it. To what's your favorite thing from the from this trip? Like what like was one thing you're like man I'm just Stood out on this trip. In particular. I'll go

Tayson: all. I'm not gonna overthink this one. I'm just gonna go quick. Mine was We designed a very cool hip belt that gives you adjustability. So actually on the walk in it was set up in the like the factory mode which is kind of like at the skinnier setting

Tayson: and so on when we were in Camp, I pulled it out Brigham's like hey why don't you make? Just make sure you've got to adjust it out. So I pulled it out. I'm sure if I hadn't. So I just set it out and it gives you another Two inches or something of circumference, of the padding. And that little tweak on the way out, I could just really, I could notice the difference hugged me a little bit better and I wasn't uncomfortable

Tayson: the night before, but it was it was just a cool thing. So I got to kind of experience that piece and test it. So, Very good. Derek,

Brigham: I'll just say the front front pocket. Organization

Tayson: the layout. Yeah, pocket. It's pretty useful in this one, for sure.

Derek: I really like the four zipper pulls on the main compartment zipper and how

Tayson: if you're if you're getting anything out of just the

Derek: top like using it like a top-loading backpack. Almost like it naturally will just open up to a certain point with the way that the pack curves. And then the zippers won't like open themselves the rest of the way or you could like lay it down on your bed and open it all the way like a suitcase, all one suit.

Tayson: Yeah, I definitely use the crap out of every zipper on it. Usually, I like to end a podcast, asking what your favorite item was and what you're, what, you could have left home, but I feel like we're just gonna get ski dancers there. So, I'm only gonna do what could you have left home? So really quick. Derek, lets you start with that. What could you have left home? On this trip? What was like, the least useful piece of gear, you brought

Derek: Um, I literally used everything I brought. So yeah. Checklist

Derek: nice. I I don't think I would leave anything home. Okay.

Maddie: I packed an extra shirt that I didn't need, but

Tayson: I'm extra sure, just

Maddie: a little bit. Still like my teddy bear, I guess.

Brigham: Okay. It's pretty good. Brigham. The dang, rain, jacket

Tayson: prototype. That who would think you're gonna go to?

Derek: It was a shoe in,

Brigham: who thinks you're gonna go to the Pacific Northwest for three days and not get experience rain. So I brought that didn't use. It didn't need it.

Maddie: I took mine out last second before we left.

Tayson: Yeah, you probably just looked at the weather me and bring him more. Still hoping that it would show up. Yeah,

Tayson: that was, that was interesting. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say my laptop. I brought my laptop. That was probably my teddy bear as far as I feel like, what if I need it? What if there's something I need to do for work? The business that I just have to have that lap top for you even though he still had a team back in the office and stuff. Like I didn't really need it, I knew that I thought

Tayson: maybe we have enough downtime at certain time to build some work done. I brought it and I never used it and it was just A heavy waste of space and and the charger, you know, so it's kind of two things at once. So I'm I think that is a huge area that's a topic for another day, but That's a chunk of weight and some space that if you can get comfortable with it and leave something like that home, it's gonna help

Tayson: you stay super light in your travels. So, okay, we gotta go ahead and wrap this up. Thanks for joining us on this podcast, where we talked about traveling up to Olympic National Park. Testing, the coda UL backpack and all around just enjoying The Journey of there. So, I know, I definitely enjoyed it. I'll remember for a long, long time. Make sure. You are on our YouTube channel so that you can see the videos and more description on what we actually were

Tayson: seeing and talking about and experience in on this trip. Also, make sure that if you have not already review the podcast on whatever app that you were, Viewing it on. Make sure you are subscribed. And please share the podcast with that. We'll catch you on the next episode of the Live Ultralight podcast. Hey everybody. This is Tayson again. And really quick. I wanted to invite you to join, probably the best thing that we've ever put out which is the Live Ultralight

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