Insulated with lightweight, compressible 750-fill goose-down, the hooded Rab Men's Microlight Alpine Jacket provides lightweight warmth for everything from hiking to climbing to around town use Check out the Rab Men's Microlight Alpine Jacket at Backcountry Edge: http://www.backcountryedge.com/rab-me...
At less than eight ounces, this technical down jacket has an incredible warmth to weight ratio with Mountain Hardwear's QSheild Down and ultra lightweight fabrics. QShield Down resists moisture and retains loft for consistent, dependable warmth.
An excellent layering piece or cool-weather stand-alone, the Mountain Hardwear Hoodless Monkey Man Grid Jacket offers excellent comfort and range of motion. I actually have this jacket and I really love it , very warm on a nice fall hike here in the Great Smoky Mountains .
Layer on warmth with the Thermostatic Jacket's lightweight Thermal Q Elite Synthetic insulation. Warmth without the weight, it's low-profile, lightweight design makes it perfect for wearing under a shell or as a stand-alone jacket.
New for 2012! The Vasque Snow Junkie insulated boot is ready for cold weather aerobic activities. Using Vasque’s UltraDry waterproofing system and lined with 200 grams of 3M Thinsulate insulation, the Snow Junkie is your go-to winter boot for snowshoeing, winter hiking and backpacking.
Made from a combination of waterproof leather and synthetic textiles, the upper of the Snowburban UltraDry boot is durable yet lightweight and a rubber toe cap and molded rubber heel yoke serve to further reinforce the boot and support your foot. The lace system of the Snowburban UltraDry boot allows for a secure fit during longer hikes and the low profile lace webbing over the foot slides easily in and out of a snowshoe binding while the metal eyelets at the ankle offer durability on off trail and deep snow excursions. A D-ring at the toe of the boot lets you quickly fasten gaiters down and keeps snow from bunching up under the toe of the gaiter.
Under foot you'll find a dual density, EVA midsole for lightweight cushioning as well as a TPU instep plate and textile forefoot plate for increased protection. Vasque's Perpetuum Last creates a good fit for steady, long distance hiking. Mid traction lugs help you keep your footing on crusty snow and frozen mud and a soft fleece collar at the inside of the ankle adds a touch of comfort and warmth.
Designed and tested in Canada, the Hillsound FreeSteps6 is a traction device made to assist users so they can enjoy the great outdoors safely in snowy and icy conditions. Made of durable high-grade stainless steel, the Hillsound FreeSteps6 offers anti-slip traction for general winter activities such as city walking, trail running, light hiking, ice fishing, hunting, etc.
With SuperFabric at its base, providing the ultimate anti-abrasion and slash resistant technology where you need it most, the Super Armadillo Nano Gaiter can withstand and endure the adventures we encounter. When comfort is your saving-grace on the mountain, the Schoeller C-Change with Nanosphere will give you a snug, breathable, barely-there feel hugging your calf. It allows you to flex and move without restriction, pinching or pressure points.
The SteriPEN Journey LCD is the easiest and most versatile water purifier on the market. SteriPEN uses ultra-violet light to destroy bacteria, viruses and protozoa, like Giardia, in seconds. Press the Journey’s single button once for a full liter or twice for half a liter. The LCD screen shows you the countdown. When purification is complete, a happy face appears. On the bottom, the battery status is shown. Wipe dry and enjoy safe drinking water anywhere. Avoiding travels diarrhea is easy with the Journey LCD. If the stream or lake contains particulates, first pre-filter the water – use a bandana, coffee filter or the new SteriPEN fits-all filter.
The fits-all filter can be used with narrow to wide-mouth bottles. In wide-mouth bottles use only the upper cup. Place the cup on the bottle, pull air vent and immerse in water. Wipe out the cup and remove the filter screen. The fits-all filter can now be used as a bottle adaptor for the SteriPEN Journey or Classic. Insert the Journey and flip the assembly upside down. When water covers the water sensors it triggers the UV light – gently agitate. The Journey’s durable UV lamp can purify 8,000 liters. Purifying in a commercial bottle is a key benefit when traveling in countries with unknown standards.
In 48 seconds you can drink with confidence. To store the Journey, wipe dry and enjoy a long safe drink. The SteriPEN Journey LCD provides safe drinking water anywhere, anytime. And as one blogger said, “When’s that last time that your purifier smiled back at you?”
Trekking Poles with external locking systems have a lot of versatility. They’re great for use in the summer and in the winter, ah you can adjust them with gloves on or you always have that visual confirmation that your poles are locked in.
After you’ve used your poles for a while, you may find that you need to adjust the external locking mechanism to keep the pole section tight when you lock them in. Backcountry Edge stock three brands of poles that use external locking mechanisms and here’s how you adjust them. Easton’s locking mechanism is called the Rock Lock. I really like this mechanism, you know it’s very simple to open and close and if you do find yourself needing to make adjustments on the fly, you don’t really need anything to do it. You just stand up the locking mechanism, twist it to the left to loosen it, twist it to the right to tighten it, flip it back over and lock it in. Black Diamond uses the mechanism that they call the Flick Lock. What the Flock Lock does is it pulls these two plates right here together, to lock the pole section in place. If you need to make an adjustment to the Flick Lock, just turn it right here, you can see we’ve got a Phillips head screw right here. Get your screw driver in there, tighten it up a quarter of a turn and everything is good to go. A little bit more tension to lock it in and you’re set for the trail. Leki’s external locking mechanism is called the Speedlock.
So you’ve got this red lever here, that’s how you unlock and lock the pole. What that does, is there’s a couple different steel plates sandwiched back in here. When you clamp it down it pulls everything together. You get that nice click to let you know that you’re locked in, and if you need to adjust this one you’ve got kind of a knurled screw, right here, you can just twist that a little bit, make your adjustment and lock the poles in. So if ease of adjustability and use find their way to the top of your list or you’re just working on poles that you already own, these three locking mechanism are easily maintainable and give you a secure lock every time.
There are generally five ways to treat your water, so you've got water filters, water purifiers, you've got UV light treatment, chemical treatments and of course, you can also boil your water. With filters and purifiers you have a couple of different options. In this case we have a synthetic cartridge. So these style filters usually pump water very quickly, so you get a lot of water output for not as much work time. They are not field maintainable and they tend to clog faster because of that synthetic material that's not able to be cleaned. And you end up replacing the filters more often, but they do pump a lot of water very quickly. Then you have a ceramic style filter. And this is basically a piece of clay here. These pump a lot slower than synthetics, however they are field maintainable. As you can see on this piece, you can use a Brillo pad and kind of scrub the outside and clean off any dirt that's built up on there and put it back in the case and start pumping water again. So they're field maintainable and they last a really long time. You're not going to be spending perhaps as much time or money replacing them. However, they do pump slowly and they are a little bit more brittle and delicate than a synthetic. This is a piece of ceramic, so if you were to drop it really heavily or if it were to freeze in the wintertime, it could potentially damage that cartridge. A third option is going to be a filter or purifier that offers you the best of both worlds. So in the case of this model, we have a ceramic filter here at the top.
You’ve got the best of that and then underneath here you can see you also have the synthetic, so this is a combination version that basically gives you the best of both worlds. There are also models that have systems that allow you to back flush them. What this means is you can kind of rearrange how this system works so the water is going the opposite direction and forces water back through that filter system and cleans up some of those built-up contaminates in it. So it extends the life of those filter systems as well. So UV light is another form of water treatment and this is a technology that is frequently used in urban municipalities to treat large quantities of water, so it's not just an application that's being used for backpacking. It consists of this lamp here that the UV light comes through, which can be very delicate. Most models come with a protective covering to keep that safe. The upside to these models is that they are extremely small, compact and lightweight. They also will treat your water for different forms of bacteria – protozoa, kryptosporidium and viruses. So you're good there. The downside to them is that they do run on batteries or are going to need to be charged after multiple uses. so potentially you could be out in the field and have this item stop working on you. And they don't give you an option with just the model by itself for cleaning particulate matter out of water. That would be things like leaves, mosquito larvae and chunky stuff that gets in the way. So you would want to strain your water or run it through a pre-filter of some sort before using this. Chemical water treatment options have some upsides and downsides to them. The upsides to them are that they're going to be really affordable.
They're really lightweight and barely take up any space in a pack or emergency kit. The down side is that you typically need a lot of them to treat water especially over a longer period of time. And a prolonged period of time needs to pass for chemical water treatments to break down viruses and other bacteria and other contaminates in the water. A couple of these treatments would be iodine which is an extremely common one that has been used frequently by backpackers in the past. It does have a pretty bad taste with it and there are studies that show long term side effects to using this over extended periods of time and quite a few people are also allergic to iodine. So it may not be as easy to find in shops as it once was. Another good chemical option would be Katadyn MicroPur tablets. This is a product that is based on a chlorine treatment that's really similar to what you might find in your tap water. It has very little taste and is also affordable and lightweight. So your fifth option is boiling water, which will remove all of the things we discussed in this video from your water and can be used in conjunction with all of the methods that we talked about here.
This is the Eagles Nest Outfitters DoubleNest Hammock. The DoubleNest is a hammock that is made large enough for two people so you can relax with anybody that you, ah, want to be that close to. It’s a nice parachute nylon material and packs down to a pretty small size with this compression strap that wraps around it. You’ve got extra space on the side, again, to fit two people in and it’s tied off here, at the end, with a very strong cording that gathers all the material together for strength. They also have a steel carabiner, that’s included, this clips right into your ENO (Eagles Nest Outfitters) SlapStrap or SlapStrap Pro or whatever other suspension system you may come up with climbing rope or another nylon cord of some sort. So that’s the DoubleNest. I have this hammock and have used it several times and love it better than tent camping especially when backcountry camping alone .
There’s a lot of different packs and a lot of different equipment on the market and every company has their own design and every backpacker has their own likes and dislikes and preferred way to do things. So this is going to be some tips and ways to pack basic backpacking gear into a backpack that’s going to make that process logical per items you need throughout the day versus items you need to have in camp, as well as a way to distribute weight in your pack that’s going to work with the packs suspension and general backpack design. So, we’ll start with the bottom of the pack here and a sleeping bag is an excellent item to stow in the bottom of you backpack. They are typically bulky and heavy but they are usually not the heaviest group of items that you may be carrying so it’s usually a good thing to stow in the bottom here. Some backpacks have a zippered compartment at the bottom that you can easily access, some don’t but either way I would put that sleeping bag in the bottom of my pack. This is going to do a couple of things. One, it’s going to give you a nice sturdy base for setting the pack down as well as building a foundation for all the other items that you’re going to stack on top of it. It’s also something that you’re probably not going to need until you get to camp and go to bed so stowing it away in the bottom where you might not have access to it is fine because you’re probably not going to need it. Ok, now we get into the main pack bag, or the main body of the pack, and the next item is a tent. Tents are also going to be fairly bulky and heavy items. If you are going with someone else and you can split it up so one person gets the fly and one person gets the tent, that’s going to be the best way to pack it. You can distribute weight that way better as well.
In this case.....
I’m going by myself and I’ve got my one person tent that came in a long, skinny sack that really wasn’t conducive to fitting in my pack in a way that allowed me room to pack other items. So what I did was purchased another stuff sack of a size that I liked better. You could even purchase a compression sack if you wanted to compress it and make it even smaller. So don’t limit yourself to the stuff sack that your product came in and consider other shapes and sizes. I’m going to take my tent which is also a bulky item and isn’t too heavy, maybe two pounds, and stick that in my pack next. It’s going to add to the foundation that the sleeping bag has given me and note that I did not pack the tent poles and tent stakes in with the rest of the tent. Typically the heaviest set of items you’ll be carrying are your food and cookware, water set aside. So here’s my bag of food. You do want to think about putting your heaviest items in this mid, center area of the pack and as close to your back as you can get them. You want those heavier items to be right between your shoulder blades. I’m going to take my food, and I’ve kind of got it packed in a way here that it’s long and skinny, so it’s going to sit right up against my back there. Then I’m going to take two other items that fit in here, and instead of laying them long-ways I’m going to stack them in here vertically. Here’s my sleeping pad and here’s my stove. They’re almost the same shape, this longer, cylindrical shape, so they pack in their nicely and they also weight about the same. I’ve also got a little cup and bowl set that I’m going to stack right on top to give me an even platform to finish out my packing. The last items I have that take up a lot of room are my clothes. I’ve got my bag of clothes here and they’re really lightweight but they’re sort of bulky and I want the up high in the pack because they weigh so little compared to everything else. This does make it a little inaccessible for me to get to my food so I’ve made a point to pack all of my dinner and breakfast meals that I’ll eat in camp in here where I don’t need to access it though out the day and I’ve taken out my snacks and what I’m having for lunch and I can putt hose in another smaller bag in an easier to reach spot. So here’s my clothes and they fit right on top here and take up the rest of the room but they weigh almost nothing so they don’t add weight up high in the pack that might throw me off balance. Now I just have a few remaining items and most of them are small. I am going to take my tent poles and stick them in this side pocket.
It’s long verticality is going to make it fit well against the side of the pack so it makes a safe place to put them where I won’t worry about them getting bent and I’ve got a compression strap that will secure those on there. This pack happens to have some other zippered side pockets here. I would take my tent stakes and put them in whatever outside pocket you have available and in this case I put them opposite the poles so the weight can balance out. I’ve got a few more comfort items here. They are both relating to sleep. I’ve got a soft sheet set that goes with my therm-a-rest and I’ll stick that down here with the sleeping bag, as well as a little pillow. With both of these items, if you don’t have extra space down here, I would say you should go ahead and tuck them in inside the pack someplace and try to fill in some of those nooks and crannies that get created when you put bulkier items in. At the top of the pack here, which is fully loaded, I’ll put a rain jacket or wind jacket. I might need them it during the day and take it off as I go up hill and warm up and then take it off as I go down the other side. So, I’m going to stick it here underneath the hood. That way it’s in a place where I can grab it quickly if I need to or if I’m hiking with someone else I can ask them to grab it out of there pretty fast. Let me get the hood adjusted snug here so that jacket it secure underneath of there. It’s out of the way here with quick and easy access and not taking up more room inside my pack bag. Another important item I have here is my Steripen, I use this to treat my water with, and I’m going to keep that either right here in the top pocket or potentially, this front mesh pocket. This makes it easily accessible for me and it can dry here well.
If I was carrying a larger water filter with me, Steripen is pretty small, I would keep it up here in the top pocket where it is out of the way and protected but I do have quick and easy access to it so when I get to stream crossings I can pull it out, filter water and stick it back in without having to dig into my pack at all. I’ve got a little bag here with some odds and ends in it. A first aid kit, bear bagging line and headlamp and I’m going to tuck that any place on the outside of the pack I can fit it. I might need to get to the first aid kit in a hurry or I might need my headlamp in a hurry if it’s late in the day. That puts all of those items in a easy to get to spot. They could just as easily have gone in one of the top pockets since they don’t weight very much. That leaves me with a side pocket here for my water and there is plenty of room to tuck some of my snacks for the day in there. I also have an extra water bottle and some other odds and ends that I’m going to eat throughout the day as well that I’ll put in these top pockets. And that’s how to pack a pack. These are some basic tips on how to pack a backpack.
They aren’t going to work for everybody and there’s a lot of different packs and equipment out on the market but hopefully it gives you a better understanding of where to put items in a pack and hopefully it makes your next trip a bit smoother and more comfortable.
If you’ve flown on a plane recently, you’ve noticed the distinct lack of pillows on board. Sure, they’ll sell you one for $7, but who wants to pay for a terrible pillow you’ll never use again. As a result, many people bring along their own more comfortable neck pillows. The downside to this is that they’re bulky, and take up extra space in your luggage.
Merrell saw this as problem and figured out a solution. They created the Guise (Men’s) and the Charade (Women’s) jackets. Normally, these are Primaloft Eco insulated jackets that keep you nice and toasty on chilly days (or plane rides), but will convert into a neck pillow when needed. Thus, you can bring a jacket and a neck pillow in along for the ride.
As a jacket, the Guise is a water resistant insulating layer. Being water resistant, the Guise isn’t for summer downpours, but it will take a quick shower without a problem. The Primaloft Eco material is made from 50% recycled fibers and does the job quite well. Merrell thoughtfully included pit zips if you get too hot. Additionally, there are two hand pockets and one check pocket on the front.
Transforming the jacket into a pillow can be a bit awkward on a plane. You have to unzip a zipper on the inside of the jacket and essentially turn the jacket inside out. However, this does get the job done. The pillow itself isn’t as comfortable as a standalone neck pillow, but it’s quite a bit more comfortable than the $7 pillows they sell on board.
And if you don't fly this will make you a nice backpacking pillow !
Adventures In Stoving: Wood Fired Cooking on a Caldera Cone: It can be tough to do real cooking on a wood fire in the backcountry. Sure, there are guys who can do it, but it's not all that easy, even for the experienced. Is there a way we can make cooking on a wood fire a little more accessible? As a matter of fact, there is: A wood burning stove.If you've been following my blog, you know I've been evaluating a Sidewinder version of the Ti-Tri Caldera Cone
•On downhill hikes especially, they decrease the amount of stress on your legs and joints.
•On uphill climbs, poles transfer some of your weight to your shoulders, arms and back, which can reduce leg fatigue and add thrust to your ascents.
•They make crossing streams, loose rocks and slippery surfaces such as ice and snow patches easier and safer.
•They help you establish a walking rhythm.
•They can push back overhanging vegetation from the trail and probe soggy terrain for holes and boggy spots.
Trekking poles are most helpful to those with weak or damaged knees or ankles, particularly when going downhill, because the poles absorb some of the impact that your body would normally sustain. According to a 1999 study in The Journal of Sports Medicine, trekking poles can reduce compressive force on the knees by up to 25%. This translates into literally tons of weight that your body will not have to support during the course of a regular hike.
It should be noted that using trekking poles will not decrease your overall energy expenditure since you'll be using your arms more than you would when walking without poles. They do, however, help distribute your energy usage in a way that can help your hiking endurance.
Types of Trekking Poles :
Antishock poles: These offer internal springs that absorb shock when you walk downhill. With most poles, this feature can be turned off when it's not needed such as when you're walking uphill. The antishock feature is recommended if you have weak or damaged ankles, knees or hips. It adds a bit to the cost of the poles.
Standard poles: These do not have the antishock feature and are lighter and less expensive as a result. While they don't absorb as much impact as antishock poles when going downhill, they do provide a similar level of balance and support.
Compact or women's poles: These are shorter and have smaller grips for hikers with smaller hands. They are easier to swing because they weigh less and are also simpler to pack. Youth poles for kids are also available.
Hiking staff: Sometimes called a walking staff or travel staff, this is a single pole that's most effective when used on relatively flat terrain and with little or no load on your back. Hiking staffs are adjustable and some include the antishock feature. They may also include a built-in camera mount under the handle that can be used as a monopod.
Nordic walking poles: Long established in Europe, Nordic walking is gradually becoming popular in the U.S., too. It's a social activity that offers a total body workout. Nordic walking poles are a modified version of trekking poles. REI does not currently carry poles designed for Nordic walking.
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