Category: Climbing
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Grand Canyon backcountry management plan: Comment Now
Last week Grand Canyon National Park released a draft of their next backcountry management plan. These plans are enormously important; they’re detailed and comprehensive, and set in place policies which are not easily changed and for a variety of reasons are generally not altered for decades. Which options the park service decides to adopt will…
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The 2015 pack fleet
I’ve been doing the pack thing for a while now. After owning and especially building so many none of them can retain nostalgia for long, with any and every little detail subject to scrutiny, revision, and destruction. That said, the novelty of cutting and sewing has also waned significantly in the last year, and it’s…
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The 610 pack, diaper version
I’ve made this pack, or one to fulfill the same role, 6 or 8 times now. Most for my own use, a few for friends. It continually evolves. The most recent version got axed because the back panel taper got too funky and resulted in a subtle narrowing pinch point in the middle of the…
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The 2016 BD Alpine Start Hoody
As I’ve mentioned here and elsewhere, the Black Diamond Alpine Start hoody is one of the better pieces of outdoor clothing one can buy. The original version had a fabric which was as perfect as current technology allows; mine has stood up impressively well to lots of use in the past 20 months. The only…
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The five-foot tarp
A five foot wide tarp is a dead useful thing to have around, for emergency use, hiding from the weather to cook or glass (above), or for a primary solo shelter which will force one to use good site selection and pitching techniques. It’s also an excellent and relatively cheap and easy MYOG (make ya…
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All about insulation
Insulation in outdoor clothing can be confusing. The common question is “will ___ keep me warm during ____”, which is as understandable as it is naive (and bluntly, stupid). Clothing does not make you warm, clothing keeps you warm, and neglecting metabolic training (ex: burning fats), proper fueling and hydration, and technique (ex: slow down…
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The Omnibar
A while ago the folks from Omnibar in Missoula contacted me, both about packrafting beta for the Bob and about trying their product. I said yes, a box of bars showed up in the mail, and I’ve been eating them for the last six weeks. The following are my thoughts. When buying day food for…
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Pack materials redux
This is an update of and the evolution from this post 18 months ago. A good pack fabric, like the well patina’d 1000 denier Cordura above, can do a lot of great work, simply. There is a subtle elegance to something which is easily sewn into a finished product which continues as a reliable, innocuous…
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Dean Potter
It is probable that you know about Dean Potter’s death this past weekend; flying into a cliff while wingsuit flying in Yosemite. Like most attentive climbers in the 90s, I first heard the name Dean Potter in a tiny Wild Things ad in either Climbing or Rock and Ice, showing the above photo (or one…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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