Category: Hunting
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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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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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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…
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North Fork updates
The initial run of packraft straps has sold out! All orders yet to be shipped will be fulfilled and sent out today. I’ll be making more in early December; until then they’ll appear as out of stock in the store. The second run might even be a different color. Taking suggestions now. Not just for…
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Ammo questions
Most will recall that a bit ago Luke commented that “I think a TSX is just tougher then it really needs to be for a deer or even an elk broadside.” The translation here, for the non-hunters, is that while bullets may be lumps of metal, they are not merely lumps of metal. 300 years…
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The vexatious Airshed
Windshirts are complicated, because their job is a difficult one, and an important one. Patagonia’s Airshed, a pullover shirt made from the outer fabric of the Nano Air series, has been around for a few years. The lack of a hood, concerns over durability, and the expense put me off for a while, but Max’s…
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10 yards
Fortunately the bull died on a slope. So when it came time to turn it, I knew from two years ago to turn the head, stab the uppermost tines into the ground, grab the lower back leg, and pull hard. Rather than 20 minutes of near-impossible flailing against snagging willows, this time three tugs had…
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Shit that works: MSR tent stakes
Back in July I seized on a weather window and probable lack of snow and did a big alpine traverse in the Bob. Early summer in the alpine, especially in the limestone reaches of the Bob that hold water in mysterious places, generally mean bugs. So when set my camp the first night, in a…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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