Category: Skiing
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Winter tech thus far
The winter feels like it has barely gotten started, what with the holidays, travel, and illness, but the snowpack is in good shape and the stack of memorable trips is already fat. Earlier this evening I threw together a list for Backpacking Light, and the memories evoked moved me to comment in greater detail. You…
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We need mountains
For mountains winter is the rule, and summer the exception; a dragon’s luxuriant yawn and the resultant 60-day lapse of attention. Soon enough the snow comes back and mountains are once again a place we humans, and the larger mammals with whom we most easily identify, find hostile. Those rare creatures like wolverines who thrive…
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Hill People Gear Runner’s Kit bag review
I’d love to see a historical accounting of when outdoor recreation became, in the first world, bifurcated as it is today. My research indicates that by the mid 70s the effete world of hiking/backpacking/skiing/etc was well separated (in, among other places, ads) from that of hook and bullet. Cultural distinctions between these two have only…
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Neither living nor dead
Last year, wolverines. This year, fishers. As in the bigger of the tree weasels. There’s never been a confirmed sighting in Glacier since the park came into being in 1910. Plenty of crusty folks in the park, young and old, have seen them, but anecdote however experienced is not science. I’ll be part of a…
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2012 Outdoor State of the Industry report and Holiday Gift Guide
Yesterday I discussed how 2012 has, in the cycling world, been the year of the fat bike. Below I’ll examine various other categories, in a non-definitive fashion, to highlight similarly industry-shifting developments. These are products which speak of a significant and promising trend, and which I know from personal experience or reliable reports to be…
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All the hats again
It is that time again, when clothing choices are not mere subjects of fancy and fashion but tangible margins of safety. While the exact percentage is up for debate, thermoregulation on and of the head remains the easiest way to get a leg up here. Last winter I wrote about hats, and this summer wrote…
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Gratitude is no accident
Last week, going through the drive-through of my usual coffee shop, I noticed that they were opening at midnight for black Friday. I was dismayed. Thanksgiving might be the best American holiday on a conceptual basis, but in execution it is riven through with that which makes our culture sick. Commercialism, meat-head athletics, and hurry:…
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Quantifying skis, and repairing the Trak Bushwacker
Counting ounces is an easy place to loose perspective, and comparing ski weights are a great example of this. All the common areas of ambiguity loom especially large here, namely that claimed dimensions are often wrong, and that relevant performance rubrics like flex cannot be quantified. For a recent article I wrote for BackpackingLight (on…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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