Just Gear: Part 4

Boulder 30 solar panels charging my Yeti 400 portable power unit.

I brought too much gear, too much equipment, but some was pretty important, or at least entertaining. So here, shout-out to Goal Zero, just a quick review of some equipment I brought, and have used, sometimes often, during my adventure. First, I have really have enjoyed my Goal Zero Rock Out rechargeable, portable speaker, and iPod which provides the music. I do not listen to music at all while driving (apparently, my right speaker in the van did not survive the trip well, constant hummmmm, so annoying, and when I re-balanced the speakers, lost my stereo sound, and was almost as annoying), but did enjoy listening to music in the evening, while cooking dinner, or just hanging out at camp. I could charge both the speaker and my iPod while driving, and the sound quality is pretty good. You are not going to provide loud music for a large party, but for me, the Rock Out speaker worked great.

As for portable power on the road, you cannot beat Goal Zero for quality and performance. My only complaint is that the Yeti 400 Portable Power Station (in combination with the Boulder 30 solar panels) which I use, weighs a ton (well not a ton of course, but it is heavy). The Yeti 400 works really well, especially keeping the batteries for my cameras charged while in the field. I also used it a number of times to keep my computer going, which was really important, as all my images from my cameras were first downloaded to my Toshiba laptop before being copied to external hard-drives for backup and storage. If the Yeti 400 was fully charged, that was enough "juice" to recharge my computer almost twice. The only issues I ran into early was, the weather, and, having enough time to get the Boulder 30 solar panels out to charge up the Yeti. Early on, along the Carratera Austral, there was little sun, lots of cloud and some rain, and days on the road were long, so there was often little time to use the panels to charge the Yeti. It got better further south, and definitely better as I would later move north along the Argentinian coast, but early on, I struggled a bit to keep the Yeti 400 up to full power. As a result of this, and the weight of the Yeti 400, I do question whether I have really needed this equipment. One reason for this is that, many campgrounds actually have power where you can plug in equipment (this mostly in Argentina), and I stayed in enough hostals that if I planned well, I could get a lot of equipment charged while there. There were many times when I really needed, and used my Goal Zero solar equipment, but I just was not totally "off the grid" enough to justify hauling it all the way down here. Got to love Goal Zero equipment, but for me, speaker necessary, Yeti 400 and Boulder 300 solar panels, a bit of a luxury which might not have been worth it to bring along.

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