Winter can be a dangerous time to hike or camp in the backcountry, but with planning and proper preparation, a winter hike can be a safe and enjoyable experience. Please keep the following in mind when planning an outing:

For safety, never hike alone in winter. The potential consequences are simply too high.
Daylight hours are short [...]

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve become fascinated by the different types of mushrooms and fungus growing in the New England forests where I backpack. I’m not interested in eating them or even touching them, but they’re a very cool life form tied into forest plant communities and it’s worth understanding the role they play.

Here’s [...]

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The Marmot Pinnacle 15 is a very nice down sleeping bag, particularly if you sleep a little on the cold side. It contains 800 fill goose down which will keep you plenty warm for 3 season use and it has a lot of features that you find on other higher end sleeping bags like the [...]

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I was out hiking last weekend in the Middlesex Fells just outside of Boston. I am working on a project that I’ve set for myself, which is to inventory and be able to identify all of the tree species that grow in this natural area. My ultimate goal is to learn how to identify these [...]

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