Category: Tech
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My ultimate hunting pack
Last month a reader contacted me about a pack bag for a Seek Outside frame, mentioning these bags as inspiration. Primary use for the pack would be elk hunting in the Olympics, with capacity and simplicity as main design priorities, along with side pockets which would hold a sizeable tripod and 80mm+ objective spotting scope. …
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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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Astral Brewer 2.0; the hiking review
Shoe weight matters. Read all this stuff if you haven’t recently, the most singular point being that the guy with the lightest shoes was the only one who made it all 1000k. When I was just getting into serious backpacking, about a decade ago, I got the idea that one ought to have a footwear…
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Blue bike tales
Last week, at a yard sale, we saw this pretty blue Trek Antelope 850, and for $40 and in excellent condition I just couldn’t not take it home. A little digging reveals this Trek is from 1990, close to the vintage of the Bridgestone MB-5 which was my first real bike. Functionally identical performance between…
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Counter-less
Shoes of the Crosslite family have been my point of reference for rugged backpacking and hiking for a decade now. The Crosslite, Crossleather, X Country, Anakonda, and Bushido have shared basic tread patterns, excellent rubber, close fit and low stack height, making them the best choice, for my foot, for technical hiking. Most of these…
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Rebuilding the Osprey Vertigo
Sometimes function is encapsulated in a moment. Back in the day Todd Goss had a solid gig guiding rock adventure courses for guests at the Green Valley Resort in Saint George, which in either of the few locales (Moe’s valley for convenience, the mountains to avoid the worst heat) involved some steep hiking, some easy…
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How the Imlay Kolob works
Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time. M and I lived in Moab for most of 2004, which was significantly the first spring after Mike Kelsey’s Technical Slot Canyon Guide to the Colorado Plateau was first published. Prior to this there was plenty of incomplete or tangential beta for technical slots…
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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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