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Isle Royale family loop
I’m proud of this one. Back in December when we made boat reservations and committed, I could as is usual with a big trip imagine some difficulties, not others. But those unknowns built and compounded and by the time we arrived in Copper Harbor at 11pm the night before, put the kids to bed in…
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The DY Special: on the water
It is an easy cliche that gear matters less than will when it comes to executing a given outdoor activity, one whose heart is in the right, but ignores many practical details. We now have eight boats on the premises, but neither the four packrafts nor the whitewater canoe nor the freightor canoe nor the…
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Fashion and the delams
Challenge’s Ultraweave fabrics have seen impressively broad acceptance this winter, with companies as diverse as Pa’lante and Stone Glacier using it, and companies like MLD and Seek Outside moving to make it a core part of their pack line ups. As I found out this past summer, the specs are impressive, and the marketing equally…
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The DY Special, prelude
In early September last year I was cruising Craigslist for random boats, as one does, and saw something scary. I kept coming back over the next week, and eventually told myself that were the thing still for sale when I came back from a hunting trip, I would call about it. There was little doubt…
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Petzl Swift RL review
Montana at the start of winter is, to state the obvious, dark. On December 22nd we have 8 and a half hours of daylight, and by today, over a month later, we only have an hour more. Provided you can tolerate the cold and have enough interests, there is never a shortage of things to…
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Things from 2021
Astute readers may have noticed that, back in mid spring, photo quality here took a turn. The previous fall my long standing iPhone 5se took a dive (literally, on main stream in Escalante) and after 4 months of tape holding chunks of the screen in, reliability mandated a new phone. I’d spent the winter putting…
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Montana’s early rifle
We’re in the second half of September, which means that in three Montana hunting districts, rifle season has started for deer and elk. This is, I believe, the earliest season anywhere in North America for these animals, aside from special tags. The mystique, or more accurately malarkey, surrounding these three districts is considerable, and the…
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little Big Blackfoot bikeraft loops
As opposed to the Little Blackfoot, whose headwaters are too small and brushy for good floating, the Big Blackfoot River rarely runs parallel to a road, something that makes for convenient and high quality floating. The middle section of the Big Blackfoot and its tributaries, which is to say the bit in the Helmville/Ovando valley,…
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The Fantasy
Make no mistake, this is a silly boat. Just as it has been a silly, unusual, and in some respects unpleasant summer. The heat rolled in at the very beginning of June, and baked me thoroughly during an exploratory trip on the upper reaches of Tenderfoot Creek. With the exception of a cool and rainy…
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Bark River Micro Canadian re-scale
For the past four years my Micro Canadian has always been one of my very favorite objects. It blends practicality and elegance in a way which few other categories of things can. Restlessness, and extreme specialization (river rescue), are the only real reasons I’ve used anything else. To address the former I bought a Bark…
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