Awards

Every year, I like to recognize the piece of gear that has the biggest impact on my hiking and backpacking experience by giving it the Section Hiker Gear of the Year Award. This year’s winner is the Hyperlite Mountain Gear 2400 Southwest Backpack, …

The Sea-to-Summit Ether Light XT Insulated Sleeping Pad is SectionHiker.com’s 2019 Gear of the Year. This is an annual award I give to the outdoor product that has had the biggest positive impact on my hiking and backpacking experience each year. While …

Every year, I like to recognize the piece of backpacking gear that has the biggest impact on my wilderness hiking experience by giving it the Section Hiker Gear of the Year Award. This year’s winner is the Warbonnet Blackbird Hammock (Single Layer), …

SectionHiker.com has been called America’s Test Kitchen of Hiking and Backpacking Gear because we don’t pull any punches in our product reviews. We use the products we review in the field and try hard to explain the circumstances where they provide the most benefit. …

Every year, I like to recognize the piece of gear that has the biggest impact on my hiking and backpacking experience by giving it the Section Hiker Gear of the Year Award. This year’s winner is CEP Compression Socks which have helped …

Every year, I like to recognize the piece of new gear that has had the greatest transformational influence on my enjoyment of hiking and backpacking. This year’s winner is the Solo Wood Stove (click for my review from earlier this year), an efficient wood …

Every year, I like to name a piece of backpacking gear that has had a transformational impact on my hiking and backpacking experience and recognize it by giving it the Section Hiker Gear of the Year Award. To qualify for consideration, the …

I made some major changes this year to my shelter system, switching to a Mountain Laurel Designs Duomid as my primary go-to backpacking shelter, complemented by MLD’s Superlight Bivy. While the Duomid has been quite spectacular so far, my favorite piece of …