Welcome to episode 126 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 a little small talk about small backpacking gear companies.

Then we'll share some benefits of buying from cottage gear manufacturers.

Next on the Summit Gear Review, we'll review a piece of gear we found by accident that will share

a hack that will reduce your productivity at the office today by 20 percent.

We're sorry. All this and that's about it. Today on the first 40 miles.

I don't know how I didn't see this before Josh today is April Fool's day.

Yeah I was going to say something at the end of the episode.

Shoot I love this holiday and I love to plan you know little things for our family but I

don't know how I missed it on our calendar for the first 40 miles. Oh well. Okay. Well I guess expect

expect nothing today expect no surprises there's nothing I don't even have anything

up my sleeve it's

empty yeah we're sharing real information today yeah no fake stuff no fake news

nothing no and I think today's episode is really helpful because when I first started

backpacking I had a friend that was pretty new to backpacking as well and one of

the things that we kind of were trying to figure out was how do you find gear that's not in REI?

You know, how do you find that perfect little trowel or you know some new thing new little cool piece of

gear to take with you that's not in the big outdoor stores you walk into those big

...