Down-insulated sleeping bags are still the most popular nighttime insulation option with backpackers because they’re highly compressible and warmer in cold, damp, or drafty weather particularly in the spring and autumn when temperatures are close to freezing. While mummy bag designs still …
Read More »Philip Werner
How Many Days of Food Can You Pack in a Bear Canister or Ursack?
There’s a simple rule of thumb for figuring out how many days of food you can fit into a bear canister. Find out the capacity of your bear canister in cubic inches and divide by 100. That will give you a pretty …
Read More »10 Best One Person Backpacking Tents of 2024
One person, solo backpacking tents are ideal if you’re thru-hiking, fast-packing, or backpacking big miles and want to trim your gear weight as low as possible. More livable than bivy sacks, one-person tents are designed for sleeping and bad weather protection. While …
Read More »Mammut Trion Norwand 38 Backpack Review
The Mammut Trion Norwand 38 is an alpine pack that’s great for winter hiking, mountaineering, climbing, and ski touring. It has a vest-style harness, a rolltop closure with a removable floating lid pocket, dual side-compression straps, side ski straps, dual ice axe/trekking …
Read More »How Effective are DWR Restoration Treatments?
Waterproof breathable rain jackets are not permanently breathable. Instead, they’re coated with a chemical formulation called DWR, which stands for Durable Water Repellancy, that causes water to bead up on the jacket surface when it rains and roll off. The problem is …
Read More »10 Best Backpacking Sleeping Pads of 2024
An insulating sleeping pad is a must-have for backpackers who sleep on the ground in tents and under tarp shelters to prevent body heat loss to the ground. The best backpacking sleeping pads are air mattresses or foam pads because they’re lightweight …
Read More »Gossamer Gear Gorilla 50 Backpack Review
The Gossamer Gear Gorilla 50 Ultralight Backpack is a multi-day backpack that’s optimized for lightweight backpacking and thru-hiking. It’s a great backpack for people who want to transition from carrying a much heavier back to a lighter weight one, without having to …
Read More »10 Best Freestanding Backpacking Tents of 2024
Freestanding tents are the holy grail of backpacking tents because they can be set up quickly just about anywhere, on wooden tent platforms, rock, sand, snow, and even climber’s portaledges, without having to be staked to the ground first. This is particularly …
Read More »Ultralight Backpacking Double Wall Tent Guide (2024)
The number of ultralight double-wall backpacking tents with a trail weight of 3 lbs or less that are available today has grown significantly, driven by consumer demand and advances in fabric and material technologies. If you prefer a double-wall tent over a …
Read More »Janji Tech Transit Pants Review
Janji Tech Transit Pants are great for hiking and backpacking in cooler weather, light rain, and snow. Made of lightweight DWR-treated polyester with four-way stretch, Runner’s World rated them as one of the Best Running Pants for Colder Weather because they’re wind-blocking, …
Read More »Nashville Packs Cutaway Frameless Backpack Review
The Nashville Packs Cutaway Backpack is a 40L frameless rolltop pack that’s a dream to carry for ultralight backpacking, thru-hiking, and even day hiking. While it’s loaded with external pockets so you can reach everything you need during the day without having …
Read More »How to Stop Your Superfeet Insoles from Squeaking
The second most annoying sound in this world is the sound of insoles squeaking when you walk. If you’re a hiker or backpacker, listening to this sound while you hike, mile after mile, will drive you mad…not to mention your partners. But …
Read More »Hyperlite Mountain Gear NorthRim 55 Backpack Review
The Hyperlite Mountain Gear NorthRim 55 Backpack is an ultralight backpack made with an extremely durable outer fabric called Woven Dyneema that is significantly more abrasion resistant than the Dyneema Fiber/Polyester laminate used to make Hyperlite’s regular ultralight backpacks. While it’s priced …
Read More »Sleeping Pad R-Values and Temperature Ratings: How They Correspond
Backpacking and camping sleeping pads are rated using R-values which measure their ability to keep you warm when you lie down on the cold ground. The higher the R-value, the greater the insulating power. It’s much more technical than that, but that’s …
Read More »