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TrailGroove Magazine
TrailGroove is a new (beginning of this year) magazine devoted to backpacking and wilderness travel. They do high quality writing and photography on a variety of subjects, available for free viewing in an e-mag format. I wrote a piece on off trail hiking, both in Glacier and generally, for their latest issue. You can read…
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Forests of my Youth
Living where I do know, it is all too easy to become a terrain snob; contemptuous of the world’s more subtle forests and forgetful of how when walking outside wonder and interest is defined internally. In my youth it was very much the opposite. Growing up in Ohio I had to be the manufacturer of…
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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…
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One year later (backpacks for the woods, part 5)
One year ago I wrote a series of posts on packs for wilderness adventure. I discussed how packs work, why we owned the packs we did at the time, and details of several of my own packs. True to form, none of those larger packs are still in our possession. This post will discuss why.…
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Banff 2012: the death of the spectacular
I have in my possession an unpublished essay by Arne Naess entitled “The Spectacular- An Enemy?” According to Bill Devall, he wrote it in the mid-80s after visiting Canyonlands National Park for the first time. At the moment that binder is buried in a box under boxes down in the garage, so I cannot quote…
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Wood stove acalculia
Some numbers to consider: -fully tricked Megalight (linelocs, center guy points each with 12′ of line, stove boot): 29 oz -homemade wood stove (Walmart can): 16 oz -5 foot long, 3 inch diameter stainless stove pipe, with spark screen, end ring, and three cable rings: 15 oz Installing the stove boot is easy. I bought…
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Skis by numbers
Chart by Measured Mass. If you’re a backcountry skier, gear dork, or just like looking at numbers aggregated well, you must go read the above post. As in, now. And the rest of the blog is quite interesting, too.
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Understanding 2012
“We know in our hearts that for the United States of America, the best is yet to come.” -Barack Obama, last night Please note, this is the 2008 speech. It may be true. Perhaps the best is yet to come, but the real question is what the best will look like. There is a reason,…
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La Sportiva Sideral: numbers and rationale
First, the numbers: in mondo 28 the shells weigh 37 ounces (each, w/o footbed or powerstrap), the liners 6.7 ounces. Not too bad when you consider my size 46 BCX11 pleather three pin boots are 44 ounces each. I use size 45 Sportiva trail runners, for a generous fit in the toes, and the…
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Bedrock & Paradox 
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