SectionHiker.com Backpacking Gear Guides, Gear Reviews, and FAQs

If you’re a woman who dreams of walking the Appalachian Trail as either a thru-hike or in sections, you probably have thoughts and questions you’d prefer answered with a female perspective. Based on my experience preparing for my Appalachian Trail thru-hike and what I discovered during my trip, I’d like …

More and more backpackers are switching from sleeping bags to backpacking quilts because they’re lighter weight, more compressible, and more comfortable, especially for side sleepers. While top quilts have always been popular with the hammock crowd because they’re easier to use in the confined space of a hammock, they’re also …

A backpacking or camping sleeping pad’s R-value measures its resistance to heat loss to the ground when you lie on it at night. Pads with higher R-values do this more effectively than pads with lower R-values. R-value isn’t a measure of warmth per se, but of a pad’s ability to …

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 and compact. While they vary in composition and …

Mt Faraway and Mt Roberts are two peaks in the Ossipee Range in New Hampshire, about 30 minutes south of the White Mountain National Forest. Closer to New Hampshire’s “Lake District”, winter conditions there tend to be a bit milder than up north because the mountains are not as high. …