Category: Packrafting
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Almost nothing
For the first half of this past week I drank no coffee. Wednesday last we went on a hospital tour, and saw the very posh maternity ward where Little Bear will come into the world this summer. Four hours later I was at home in the thralls of norovirus, vomiting hard enough I was worried…
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Skurka’s Core 13
Most gear is something to which I pay little attention. Packs are a fascination and thus an object of consistent experimentation, even if for example I currently have five very solid 3000+ cubic inch ones in the closet right now. Most other things, such as stoves and shelters, are boxes to be checked once before moving on. …
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Snotel for backcountry planning
Discussion about the Bob Open is heating up over at BPL, as is appropriate for this time of year. It’s just about late enough in the winter to use what resources are available to make meaningful extrapolations concerning what things will be like out there in two months. With that in mind, I want to…
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The curious Strata Hoodie
Polartec Alpha was developed for the military, as an insulation which would form the core of a garment that would, as an insulator, better straddle the divide between static and dynamic warmth. Alpha does this by being more air-permeable than synthetic fill insulations such as Primaloft and Climashield, and at the same time more svelt…
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Altra Lone Peak 1.5: half brilliance, half crap
Disclaimer: I bought these shoes with my own money at full retail, and for the past six months have not used them as the manufacturer intended. I make no apologies for asking a lot from my shoes, nor for emphatic feelings about this most important item. Altra is about to release version 2.5 of their…
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Concerning sandflies
The sandfly is a fact of life in New Zealand. Forrest McCarthy called them the countries top predator, which is in a sense quite accurate. The “bloody sandflies” are both widespread and annoying, and coping with them requires a few special preparations. Thankfully, sandflies are no where near as obnoxious as mosquitoes. Yankees familiar with…
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Hunting, land, and a moral failure of American capitalism
Hunting is expensive. Non-resident elk tags in the lower 48 run between 500 and 1300 dollars, when all costs are included. Deer tags are generally a fair bit less. Any other big game species (bear, moose, mountain goat, sheep) is generally quite a bit, or exponentially, more expensive than elk. Sheep tags cost between 1300…
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The 12 best miles of 2014
Not the best hikes, skis, or floats, but the best single isolated miles of travel. The ones which are worth a lot of potentially frustrating work to find. Presented in chronological order, with one photo and one mile for each month of 2014. For organizational and review purposes; January was a long time ago, and…
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First steps towards 2015
December north of the 45th parallel wants to be a quiet time, and in the last six years I’ve learned to let it be just that. So in the three weeks after hunting season I did only as much of anything as I wanted to, which added up to a few hikes and snowbike rides…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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