Articles

Is the down in the top half of your quilt redundant with the down in your puffy? In other words, could you save weight by wearing your down jacket to bed and using a shorter quilt? Yes. Potential Savings My current quilt is an Enlightened Equipment Enigma 20F in size long/wide, weighing 684g. My current jacket is an original Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer, 232g. So, any combination weighing less than 916g is an improvement. Nunatak's Akula half-bag weighs in at 454g for the 54" version, but that would go all the way up to my armpits. The 46" version would [...]

To my knowledge, only Therm-a-Rest and Sierra Designs properly rate the temperature ranges of their quilts using the EN standard. Originally designed for sleeping bags, the standard test assumes that there is a hood involved, which quilts obviously do not have. TaR and SD circumvent this problem using the simplest approach possible: just throw a hood on the thermal mannequin and be done with it. In a previous post on buying a winter quilt, I used data from TaR and SD to put together an equation that could estimate the EN comfort rating of any quilt given the amount of [...]

Leukotape is the undisputed champion of blister prevention tapes. Unfortunately its zinc oxide-based adhesive leaves a sticky residue on the inside of your socks. Over hundreds of miles this residue builds up and eventually your socks look like this: Gross. I just want to be clear about how much residue there is here: the arc on the heel (as well as the two lighter dots above it), the white stripe just behind the arch (as well as all of the light-colored area around it), the white patch where the balls of the feet go, the white near the red lettering [...]

The system in use The built-in stake loops on most tents aren't wide enough for snow stakes (which you need when you're on snow or sand) and they certainly aren't wide enough for rocks which are often all you've got when you're above the treeline. After a handful of nights on rock, snow, and sand I think I've perfected a system which allows you to anchor your tent to rocks or snow stakes so that you can pitch it just about anywhere. Ingredients For each stake loop on your tent you'll need: A mini carabiner (Litesmith or Zpacks)A LiteOutdoors tensioner9" [...]

(Note: I had to shorten up the title quite a bit from the original to keep the page layout sane) Conventional wisdom in the outdoor world is that wider-bottomed pots are more efficient than narrow-bottomed ones. As a result of a larger-pot requirement for an upcoming trip I picked up an Evernew Ti Ultra Light Pot #2, a paper-thin titanium pot with 900mL of capacity. Compared to my previous Evernew Ti Mug Pot 500 with 500mL of capacity the #2 pot has a significantly wider base, about 5 1/2 inches vs. the mug pot's 3 3/4 inches (almost 50% wider). [...]

After our recent foray into shirt drying times I thought I'd take a crack at pants as well. Here are the contenders: Prana Stretch Zion ($85, 400g, 97% nylon 3% spandex), the reigning champion of outdoor pantsKuhl Kontra Air ($85, 329g, 72% cotton 26% nylon 2% spandex), a lighter cotton-based alternative that I've been evaluating as a replacement for the ZionsUrban Star ($15, 744g, 98% cotton 2% spandex), a pair of daily-wear jeans I picked up at CostcoSmartwool 150 leggings ($85, 170g, 87% wool 13% nylon), a super-old pair of thermals I found in the back of my gear closet [...]

Batteries are heavy so dialing in the proper battery size is an easy way to drop a few ounces off your pack weight. Step 1: List Device Battery Capacities First, start off by listing your devices and their battery capacities (units here are milli-amp hours or mAH): Pixel 1 phone: 2,770inReach Mini satellite communicator: 1,250Nitecore NU25 headlamp: 610Fuji X-T20 camera: 1,260 That's 5,890 mAH total. Step 2: List Device Expected Lifetimes Most devices provide some sort of estimate of lifetime based on typical usage. Let's list those out: Pixel 1: 19 days (standby)inReach Mini: 20 days (extended tracking mode)Nitecore NU25: [...]

In his September wrap-up of his Northern New Mexico Loop trip Paul "PMags" Magnanti mentioned his love for cotton-polyester blend thrift store hiking shirts, particularly western-style snap-button shirts. Having been raised in a "cotton kills" household I found this to be rather shocking, but since he obviously does a lot more hiking than I do I decided to do a little more digging. I picked up a Kuhl Airspeed (265g, $85) and Wrangler Riata (194g, $20) to compare against my Montbell Wickron Light (203g, $69). The Montbell is 100% polyester and the Wrangler is 55% cotton and 45% polyester. The [...]

One of the features that was omitted from the Levity was a dedicated ice axe attachment system. Fortunately creating your own is easy, you'll just need two things: About nine inches of cord (I use LiteOutdoors 1.8mm guyline)A Lightrek pack bungee attachment ($2.50, 4g) Ice axes are typically stored by pushing the shaft through a loop near the bottom rear of a pack until it catches on the head, flipping the shaft up vertically until it's near the top of the pack, and then cinching the shaft down against the pack so it's nice and snug. Since the Levity has [...]

There are several ways to carry water when you're out and about. Hydration Bladders Hydration bladders, such as the Platypus Big Zip LP, are large pouches that slide into a sleeve inside your backpack's main compartment. They have a drinking tube which is routed through the top of the pack and is then attached to your shoulder strap for easy access. To drink, all you have to do is put the end of the tube in your mouth. The example given above weighs 170g for the 3 liter size (57g per liter) and costs around $40 ($13.33 per liter). The [...]