Category: Backpacking
-
Bob Open 2017, the final countdown
There’s not much anyone can do now, aside from show up tomorrow morning and walk across the Bob. Fretting about conditions only does so much good. A warm and sunny Tuesday sent melt across Montana into a temporary frenzy that is only just subsiding. It looks like rivers will be down to a manageable, but…
-
You are all going to die
Nothing is certain and a lot can change in three weeks, but right now conditions for the Bob Open are shaping up to be as or more challenging than they’ve been, for any years of the formal event or for the two years prior when I did solo trips that weekend. Compared to three weeks…
-
Bark River Micro-Canadian; more knife perfection
Last fall I wrote; Ideally, I’d like one knife which combines the slicing and edge retention of the Dragonfly with the abuse-ability of the Candiru. The Bark River Micro-Canadian has been the number one candidate for some time, but it violates my no-knives >100 dollars policy. A year from now I’ll probably have purchased one,…
-
The Guidebook is live
If you want the most recent version of my long running guidebook to packrafting in Glacier and Bob Marshall you can have it now, here in fact, for five dollars. This is a beta release, and a rather primitive one. You pay and register your email, and I will email you a 32 page PDF…
-
Escalante countdown
0830, prelude I have an old acquaintance who for decades has specialized in 2-3 week technical outings which consist of little other than day trips. He only camps away from his truck when a route cannot be fit into a day, however long. The planning and discipline required to live out of a vehicle for…
-
Osprey Rev 18; discontinued brilliance
Osprey is an easy company to dislike, largely due to their unapologetically Google-esque ownership of the pack market, but more substantively because of their tendency to emphasize specialization to an absurd degree. However, they are good pack makers and brilliant pack designers, and often enough come out with a pack whose coherence moves the bar…
-
How to start packrafting
Many thanks to those who in the last 48 hours have pushed the Car Camping sticker into competition with the Home sticker. The later is still leading, but not by much. Today is the last day where a sticker purchase will come with an entry into the pack raffle, so there’s that. The first…
-
How the Kifaru Duplex Works
When it comes to modern, internal frame load haulers for big game hunting Kifaru has defined the genre and, web traffic and analytics would have one assume, sells more than any of their competitors, by a considerable margin. Recently I had a chance to borrow an older Duplex frame and spend a decent amount of…
-
2017 Bob Open, planning from afar
As things stand today, the family and I will almost certainly be at the start of the 2017 Bob Open, if for no other reason than we rented the (superlatively gorgeous) forest service cabin at the start for the nights of the 26th and 27th. I’m less certain I’ll actually start the course, but knowing…
Bedrock & Paradox 
You must be logged in to post a comment.