If you're planning a multi-day hike you are probably looking for a way to keep your essential devices charged. If that's the case, please read on.

This post covers my solar hiking setup which I used whilst hiking the Bibbulman (Perth to Albany) trail. The below is particularly relevant for those located located in the Southern Hemisphere, who plan on some kind of long distance hiking and want to keep their essential devices charged.

TLDR; If you have relatively basic requirements you can just do what I did. That is, purchase INIU Power Bank (from amazon) and buy (1 amp) the MonoCrystaline Solar Panel from Core Electronics (see below for more details).

Basic Requirements

If you're new to solar and / or thru-hiking there are a few things to consider before investing in a solar setup. I'll endeavour to keep it simple, because let's face it - we'd prefer to be hiking than thinking about this stuff!

• Firstly, weight and size are a consideration. If you're like me you will probably want a solar panel that is lightweight, with a minimal surface area.

• In my case, I wanted to keep the weight of the panel under 500g and the solar panel to be easily tied on to my backpack.

• Secondly, hiking-relevant solar panels will not have an inbuilt battery, so you'll need to source a suitable Power Bank. This is where you store your solar accrued power. This can then be used to charge your device, as needed.
• Thirdly, to give you an idea of how much power you need, which will inform what you buy it's a good idea to tally how many amp hours you'll need (I'll explain more on this below). That is what you expect your devices to use. Then, based on this work out your solar panel output goals.

Milli amp hours (mAh) is a common unit of battery measurement, which I'll go into more detail further down.

Your Situation

For me, I have fairly minimal power requirements. Specifically a

• Samsung S20
• Nitecore NU25 UL (Head Torch)

My thinking is that if I have any surplus power I can use it on other devices (e.g., GoPro).

If you're taking a mobile phone, you will probably want to optimise it. This means disabling all background tasks and using offline mode as much as possible on your journey. For me this approximates to my phone lasting 2-3 days. The head torch should lasted much longer this (more like at least a week).

As a lot of thru-hiking information seems to come out of the USA I wanted to avoid international postage costs and delays. This meant looking for local products (i.e., Australia).

Your Power Needs

So, using your devices as an example, it's a good idea to tally the mAh of all the devices you want to keep charged. You can Google for this information (approximate is good enough). In my case, my Samsung S20 uses 4800mAh and my head torch uses approximately 500mAh.

So, your tally may look something like this:

phone + head torch = total

4800mAh + 500mAh = 5300mAh

So, based on this information and my approximation of how long my phone will last (2-3 days) I wanted to generate at least 2000mAh per day.

Solar Setup

A popular thru-hiking setup is the Nitecore Nb10000 (or similar) combined with a Lixada solar panel (where the output ranges from 1.2 amps to 1.7 amps - assuming full sun). Had I been in the US, I probably would have gone with this setup.

Using the Lixada as a guide (1.2amp output), I performed a rough calculation of the mAh. This is straight forward, with my calculations below:

amps x hours = amp hours

1.2 x 6 hours x 1000= 7200 mAh

Obviously this is an optimal output which is unrealistic given that the panel will obtain full sunlight minimally during the journey, so let's round it down to 5000mAh.

What I Went With

Solar Panel

I ended up going with a no-name brand solar panel from Core Electronics, here. This panel was promised to produce 1 amp optimally, so:

1 x 6 hours (of sunlight) = 6 (let's just round down to 4 amp hours or 4000mAh)

Given that I was aiming for a minimum of 2000mAh I was thinking that this should easily achieve my goal.

I paid $26.92 for this item (delivery included), with the Lixada option upwards of $70, plus any international postage delays and fees.

Power Bank

The second part of this setup was the power bank.

I wanted to be able to charge my phone twice (4800mAh x 2) on the power bank alone, which meant that I was looking for a 10000 milliamp hours power bank.

At the time of research, the most popular power bank among Thru-hikers seemed to be the Nitecore nb10000 or similar.

A number of much cheaper brands provide a similar product, however. Although, likely not as fast (to charge your phone) or as light as this option. However, I felt given the cost of the INIU 22.5W Power Bank, and the numerous positive reviews on Amazon I thought that I would take the risk.

The Nitecore nb10000 outputs 100W. Which reflects the rate at which your or device will be charged.

I ended up paying around $30 for this and have been able to confirm that it works, with the Nitecore nb10000 around the $90 mark.

How It Performed

During my 11 day hike of the Bibbulman (The Darling Range section), I found that if the sun was out (i.e., it was a clear day) my key devices and my Power Bank was sitting around 100%. Thus, it performed above my expectations. However, my system performance dramatically reduced when there was cloud cover.

Overally, I was extremely happy with both the power bank and the solar panel. The solar panel was particularly robust and had a small surface area as well as being very light.

My suggestion is when you do your calculations factor in the number rainy days common to the month you're hiking in, and assume that you won't get any charge on these days. This will give you a conservative idea of your likely accrued power.

If you have any questions or thoughts I'd love to hear from you, pop them in the comments below.