Camping

The best way to deal with wet gear and clothing during a backpacking trip is to dry it. It sounds simple, but we’re often so obsessed with a daily trip plan or mileage goals that we don’t build in any time to attend to basic housekeeping chores. The problem is accentuated …

“You need to buy the tent footprint if you want the fast pitch option,” is the common refrain of tent manufacturers and retailers. But you wonder, “When would I use the fast pitch option and what am I giving up if I don’t buy the footprint now?” Many double-wall tent …

A lot of backpackers get really stressed out when planning trips because they can’t find any information about pre-existing campsites along their route. While campgrounds, lean-tos, and signed designated campsites are usually easy to find out about, that’s often not the case with the dispersed campsites you find in the …

Tent condensation happens to everyone. It’s one of the unavoidable consequences of camping or backpacking with a tent, but it’s usually just a nuisance and not the end of the world. Still, there are a lot of misconceptions about tent condensation and whether you can buy a tent that completely …

Closed cell foam sleeping pads are quite popular with ultralight backpackers who want to shave every ounce from their gear list and need gear that can’t fail. If you want to carry multi-purpose gear to save weight, you’re hard on gear, or want to save money, closed cell sleeping pads …

Tarps are a great ultralight backpacking shelter option, provided they’re used in a climate where there’s no rain or occasional rain. To clarify, I’m talking about square or rectangular tarps with or without catenary cut ridge lines and sides, and not single walled shelters like pyramids and their numerous variants. …

Tent vestibules are like mudrooms at the front of a tent or along its sides. They provide extra space to stash your gear out-of-the-way in a cramped multi-person tent, or a place to change out of wet, muddy gear before you get into the clean, dry end of your tent. …

Bear bags are intended to protect your food on backpacking trips and to prevent bears from becoming accustomed to eating human food. “A fed bear is a dead bear”, as the saying goes, and no one wants to see a bear killed because someone was careless and didn’t hang their …