Category: Backpacking
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10 years ago
..we went to Vegas and got married. It hasn’t always been easy, but in the last week down here in Utah we’ve had lots of enjoyable hours to think about how good every year has been. When I think about having become an adult over that same time period, coming to terms with constrained choices…
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Deciding the future
Later today M and I leave south. We’ll be spending two full weeks in southern Utah. While there we want to pick where we’ll spend the next three or so decades. Some, or many, of you may not know that we got married and lived in the Colorado Plateau. Before she started hanging out with…
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Make your year long
Yesterday morning I woke up in one of my best camps of the year. After a frustrating day stalking and glassing all over a series of hillsides and bottoms I retreated to the edge of a meadow near a major creek confluence to see what might come in the last hour of daylight. It was…
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Quit being comfortable
It has been noteworthy, and not just I think because I’ve been paying attention, how often comfort has been mentioned recently as a selling point for “ultralight” backpacking. For example, from the recent revival of Sierra Designs as a (hopefully) relevant brand; “…the Flashlight is the ultimate backpacking tent for those who believe that comfort…
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Clarity
I’ve been waiting for this trip for a long time. It’s a perfect plan: hunt your way upriver from the Meadow Creek trailhead, shoot something, and float it back out. At the low levels of autumn Salmon Forks down is floatable, and aside from a few shallow riffles and two rapids, everything is runnable in…
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How the Dana Design ArcFlex packs worked
[Both packs are sold.] The pre-K2 buyout, Bozeman-made Dana Design packs have achieved cult status. Some of this is the mythology of rarity, but a lot of it is based in fact. They’re heavy, and lack a few refinements considered mandatory today, but nothing subsequently made has been both as durable and had as good…
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30s and raining: some suggestions
30s and raining is the toughest weather to manage sustainably. What follows are some ideas for how to do so, in vague order of importance. -Don’t put your rain jacket on until you have to. “Have to” can be defined as the point where you’ll be getting wet enough from exterior sources that maintaining core…
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A new schoolhouse
I was talking with a client the other day about the virtues of being a beginner, and how wonderful it is to be in a position to learn new things every time. The downside of this can be in the doing; the painful process of finding out the mistakes you made earlier. Early autumn in…
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Autumnal shoe roundup
The time of shallow snow, snain, and hourly freeze/thaw cycles is upon us. Check your shoes. Caveat for all of this is that the shoes gotta fit ya. Check the links to older posts for more extensive discussion. The Boulder X Mid continued to impress through our rather short summer snow climbing season. They’re the…
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Back to the beginning again
As I’ve mentioned before, my parents met in an outdoor shop, and I went backpacking from before I can clearly remember. Backpacking is important to me, and getting to go on a trip with my mom is a big deal. Glacier is also a big deal. We first came here when both my sister and…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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