One of the most important backpacking skills is learning how to take care of yourself if you have to hike in sustained rain. Foot care, campsite selection, thermoregulation, pacing, layering, cooking, hydration, packing, and gear selection are all factors in learning how …

Cascade Mountain Tech, the company that broke the trekking pole market by selling inexpensive high-quality trekking poles on Amazon and at Walmart, now offers inexpensive snowshoes that cost one-half to one-third of the price of name brands like MSR, Atlas, or Tubbs. …

The Wildcat Mountain Range has two White Mountain 4000 footers, called the ‘A’ peak or Wildcat A, and the ‘D’ peak, or Wildcat D. There are actually about 10 peaklets in total along the Wildcat Ridge Trail but those two are the …

A backpack rain cover serves several purposes. It prevents rain from leaking through the fabric and making your gear wet. It also can protect your backpack from getting torn if you have to hike through dense vegetation. However, whether you need a …

What is Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF)? Dyneema Composite Fabric is a non-woven, laminate material that is used to make ultralight backpacking gear including backpacks, tents, tarps, footprints, stuff sacks, and backpack rain covers. It is made by sandwiching ultra-high-weight-molecular polyethylene Dyneema fibers with polyester to produce an …

Quilt sleeping bags and sleeping bag quilts, as they’re sometimes called, are best thought of as hoodless sleeping bags. They usually have full length zippers, so you can completely block external drafts from stealing away your body heat, you can open them …

Everyone knows you need to pay attention to hot spots before they become blisters. But many hikers ignore them until it’s too late and then continue hiking on blisters, only to make them worse. Why is that? I’ve been reading Fixing Your Feet …

The Osprey Packs Atmos AG 65 (new in 2022) is a multi-day backpack suitable for trips up to a week in length, with a suspended mesh frame and an adjustable length torso and hip belt so you can get a custom, personalized …

REI’s Gauntlet GTX 2.0 Mittens are very warm single-layer Gore-Tex mittens good for temperatures into to the single digits. They’re extremely comfortable with long gauntlets to keep your wrists and hands warm. But the best thing about these mitts is their reasonable …

You need to insulate your water bottles in winter or your drinking water will freeze. The best way to do this is with a neoprene overcover that you can open without taking off your gloves. The overcover and bottle can be attached …

Montbell’s Light Long Gaiters are highly functional Gore-tex Gaiters with a simple design that overcomes many of the problems that you’re likely to experience with gaiters from other companies, including Outdoor Research’s Crocodile Gaiters, the most popular winter gaiters sold today. These …

If you plan to go hiking or backpacking in a foreign country or travel out-of-state by plane, here are 10 packing tips to help guarantee that your backpacking gear does not get lost, destroyed by luggage handlers, stolen, or confiscated by airport security. …

Many hikers and backpackers like to attach extra accessory pockets to their shoulder straps and hip belts to provide extra storage and help organize their gear so it can be accessed quickly without removing their backpacks. Extra water bottle sleeves, camera bags, …

The MSR Pocket Rocket 2 is a powerful canister stove with built-in the pot supports, that fold down and away more compactly along the stove stem (see below). This makes it easy to store the Pocket Rocket 2 inside a small cook …