Author: DaveC
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OR Ascendant Hoody; at last
Since the original Rab Strata I’ve been looking for an active insulation mid/outer layer that can do both with minimal compromises. That is: provide substantive static weight/warmth, as well as balance breathability and weather protection coherently. The Strata was more on the outer layer side of things, while somehow not providing as much static warmth…
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A decade in the outdoors
7 things that happened in the past decade; equipment, trends, and the ways the two intersect to create human experience. The Alpacka booty The technological advancement of the decade is, for outdoor adventure, without question the packraft. 10 years ago the state of the art was the above. Today, boat shapes make that level of…
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Top 5 backpacks of the past 10 years
The close of a decade approaches which, if you’re not stocking it with thinly context’d affiliate links, isn’t so bad an arbitrary cause to re-examine what has happened in the past 10 years. Lists focus the mind, and the fingers. The best of these use material goods as a vehicle to examine culture, and since…
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Forward the consumer
I have profoundly mixed memories of my first Outdoor Retailer. The barely 1 year old Little Bear had an ear infection come on while we were hiking in Glacier just before, was cranky on the drive down to SLC through the night, and the next night required a hasty visit to first urgent care and…
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Straps back in stock
Packraft straps are back in stock, now in either rainbow or gold with black buckle. Stocking stuffer, or tool to tie poorly behaved guests up in the shed? In any case fully seasonally appropriate. In other consumerist news, a new outdoor trade show launched recently. Back in SLC, and supposedly excluding apparel and the many…
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Black Diamond Hilight snap judgment
15 years ago I bought the first generation of the Black Diamond Firstlight. It was a remarkable thing for the time, a silnylon floor and ripstop Epic fly which, with the simple design, added up to an almost unprecendentedly low total weight and small packed size. We used it a bunch for 7 years until…
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Hunting the Kaibab
Last week, I fulfilled a longstanding ambition, and went Kaibab squirrel hunting north of the Grand Canyon. Kaibab squirrels are a subspecies of the Abert’s, a common, ear-tufted rodent seen through the more arid parts of western North America. The Kaibab developed its distinctive white tail and dark body due to geographic isolation, and are…
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Giving; part 2
When you’re 4, or 19 months, does it make a difference if the leaf pile or puddle is 800 miles away? Or an hour down the road? Perhaps our national crisis has as much to do with the realization that growth and novelty don’t guarantee meaning as it does with the profound and inevitable generational…
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Thanks; part 1
As married adults M and I were content, for over a decade, to ride through the holidays and end of the year without much intentionality. This year that changes, to fit the raised stakes two kids and their indoctrination bring. So we’re currently on the road, working on new habits and traditions. Doing old things,…
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Ripped and chewed
One of the privileges of traveling off trail, something often but not necessarily associated with hunting, is getting to know how animals use the landscape, season to season. We’ve had an atypical autumn in Montana, with big storms and cold temperatures in September and October giving way to moderate temps and a big melt off…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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