Category: Skiing
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A decade in the outdoors
7 things that happened in the past decade; equipment, trends, and the ways the two intersect to create human experience. The Alpacka booty The technological advancement of the decade is, for outdoor adventure, without question the packraft. 10 years ago the state of the art was the above. Today, boat shapes make that level of…
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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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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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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…
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Shit that works: the Rocketbox
Our Yakima Rocketbox turns 20 this year. Over that time, few other items have been as consistently useful when it comes to outdoor adventure. The US is set up for cars, with the overwhelming majority of prospective destinations not lending themselves to non-private motorized transportation. If in places like Alaska the wilderness can make hard…
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Introducing North Fork Packraft straps
The astute will have noticed months ago that I’m in the process of launching a pack company, North Fork. I’m pleased to report that it is going very well indeed, in spite of no overt public evidence of progress. Two years ago I sketched out a detailed idea of the two packs I wanted to…
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Layering in 2019: insulation
Moreso than with most categories I feel sympathy for beginners trying to come to terms with understanding insulated garments for the outdoors. Staying warm outside, on the face, shouldn’t be so complicated, and while the nuance and especially implementation of staying warm outside can be hard to hew closely with, having warm enough clothing shouldn’t…
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Layering in 2019: mid and wind layers
Since 2011 I’ve owned around two dozen windshirts, and while a third of those were for larger reviews and garments in which I didn’t have an inherent interest, this still amounts to an extravagant total. As of today there are only four in regular rotation. In the same period I’ve had at least the same…
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Layering in 2019: introduction and baselayers
Any discussion of layering has to start with it being somewhat of a misnomer; the point of a good layering system is to provider a few solid pieces which cover as great a range of conditions as possible. If you have to swap, add, or remove layers often, you chose poorly for the day. That…
Bedrock & Paradox 
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