Gear
This past summer I was delighted to find Cascade Mountain Tech trekking poles at Costco for Amanda. The twist-style locks are failure-prone, but for $27 they were by far the best value on the market, featuring carbon fiber shafts, faux cork grips, carbide tips, and several types of baskets. This past weekend I found another fantastic…
A major attention-grabber at last week’s Outdoor Retailer Summer Market (ORSM) was the BioLite CampStove, a unique biomass-burning stove that will boil water and charge your electronics via USB. The CampStove was featured by many of the most popular online media outlets, including Outside, GearJunkie, and TrailSpace; Brian Green has also written about it a few times.…
Yesterday Amanda found a great deal on trekking poles, at Costco of all places. We’ve been slowly assembling her backpacking kit since she will be joining me on a 3-day trip in Rocky Mountain National Park and a 7-day trip in Yosemite National Park later this Summer and Fall. Poles were still on the list…
My relationship with GoLite — and specifically with its founders and owners, Kim and Demetri Coupounas (“Coup”) — goes back nine years, to the summer of 2003 when GoLite welcomed me to Boulder, Colo. as a summer intern. We have both grown a lot since then. During my speaking and book tour earlier this Spring…
Outdoor fabrics are frequently described as being “breathable,” and this is (except in one case) a desirable characteristic. My observation based on clinics and online writings is that the concept of breathability is generally understood, but usually superficially. Further, there is some confusion about how it relates to “ventilation” as well as some unrealistic expectations about…
Nearly ten years ago, on May 5, 2002, I started my first long-distance hike: the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail. The AT was one of my first backpacking trips as well — the first had been only two months earlier during Spring Break, when I’d gone to Yosemite Valley by myself and had gone on two one-night trips, to…
Earlier this Spring I had the opportunity to present at Google’s main campus in Mountain View, CA, as part of the Authors@Google program. Special thanks to Andrew de los Reyes for organizing and marketing the event — it was a huge success. The video below is fairly representative of the clinic with which I’m currently…
“These are waterproof, right?” asked the customer to the Campmor sales clerk, as he walked around the footwear area testing out a pair of backpacking boots. Out of intrigue, I stopped to watch how the conversation would unfold, despite needing to get back to the area where my gear and skills clinic would be starting…
This is another post in a series of “how to” articles I’ve written recently. If you’d like me to address a particular subject in the next installment, leave a comment for me. If you’d like to read more content like this, then consider buying my book, The Ultimate Hiker’s Gear Guide. I adore some GPS…
Here’s a reality check: if you are backpacking in wet conditions—which could entail prolonged rain, dew-soaked grass, melting snow, un-bridged creek crossings, or even just high humidity—your feet are going to get wet. So-called “waterproof” footwear will not keep your feet dry. Advertisements and marketing that makes such claims are false and disingenuous, and they…