How much power for a 10 -14 day hunt?

[TXHunt]

The last piece of the puzzle for my Alaska brown bear hunt is power packs. I will need to charge my phone, Inreach, headlamp, and maybe a few GoPro batteries. I'm kinda thinking 2 of the Anker 20,000 mah packs and a solar charger would be more than enough. Maybe too much since I'm limited to 50lbs of gear on the bush plane.

How much do you take on a 10-14 day hunt, and what do you charge?

Any recommendations for a lightweight solar charger?

 

[Jordan Budd]

Spectre 8W

This isn’t your average solar panel. Spectre 8W is lightweight, weatherproof, and built to keep your essentials charged when weight and space matter most.

darkenergy.com

This or the 18w. I would maybe recommend the 18w as you might have rough weather with cloud coverage. That bigger panel would handle that better. That with even just one 20,000 mah would probably be enough. Just be diligent on recharging

 

[BBob]

Two 10K Anker is plenty for me. I can easily get a week plus on one. Phone in airplane mode for nav, inReach with Messenger on phone for comms. My headlamp (Petzl) will easily go 10 days plus on one battery and the spare battery weighs near nothing. Same for my converted Surefire led that runs on a 16650 battery. I’ve tested solar but ditched it for two battery packs. Solar only gets used at the truck.

 

[revs2ninegrand]

Spectre 8W

This isn’t your average solar panel. Spectre 8W is lightweight, weatherproof, and built to keep your essentials charged when weight and space matter most.

darkenergy.com

This or the 18w. I would maybe recommend the 18w as you might have rough weather with cloud coverage. That bigger panel would handle that better. That with even just one 20,000 mah would probably be enough. Just be diligent on recharging

I would definitely go this route with the solar panel

 

[Carrot Farmer]

No idea….im trying to still figure out my iPhone 15.
Day 1 89%
Day 2 68%
Charge 100%
Day 3 38%
Day 4 11%

In airplane mode… WiFi off. Can’t figure out why happened to battery life on day3!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Marbles]

This is so individual no one can really answer for you

I can get by for a week on a 5,000 mah pack, but I'm power conscious and carry a few spare batteries for my headlamp (never needed a spare, but don't want to be worried about power if I ever get in a bad situation where I need to cover ground at night).

Being a brown bear hunt, you obviously have a guide. That lowers your need to be self sufficient in all situations.

Bring a 5k-10k mah pack that is for emergency charging of your inReach or headlamp. Don't touch it.

Figure out how much you expect to use the headlamp, then bring enough power for that. How much will you use your phone? In airplane and powersaver mode I can get about 4 days out of mine. If you plan on using it for entertainment, better bring a lot more power.

Go pro should be easy, how many mah is a battery and how many charges do you want available?

My last hunt, my battery pack stopped charging anything. One reason I like having a full sized inReach and separate batteries for me headlamp, mad the situation less stressful.

 

[GunsAreFun]

This year with:
- Phone running Gaia with tracking in airplane mode. I do check my phone pretty often to check course and slope shading.
- Inreach with 10 minute tracking and occasional check in messages
- Camp headlight used for about an hour every night
- Headlight in pack used for only an hour or two (it was a full moon)

I drained about 35-40,000mah of power banks not including I had a little time also charging devices in the truck, but probably below 10%. So call it 45,000mah of battery usage for 8 days.

I’m not sure all my battery banks are still operating at full capacity though as those numbers don’t check out. I never drained the iPhone below 40-50% and that battery is only 3,200mah. The inreach never got below 75% and has a similar sized battery. The headlamp battery is only like 1000 and needed 2 or 3 charges. I’m sure there is some efficiency loss.

My only concern with solar panels in Alaska is how much sunlight you get. Some places are cloudy and raining consistently.

 

[Te Hopo]

Personally for that long, I'd be going for a decent solar panel and one 20,000mah power bank in case I got socked in by weather for a few days.

Anything under 5 days I can get away with a Nitecore NB10,000 Carbon been concious of power use with my S25 phone running tracking/mapping and taking photos.