It happens to everyone: you’ve had your favorite backpack for years. It’s held textbooks, a week’s worth of clothes, and camera equipment. You’ve dragged it on and off of trains, planes and automobiles; you took it caving and scraped it against rock walls. Its limits were tested and it always stood up to the test,…
Category: Gear
Rutharitas
In October 2008, I had the good fortune to walk a cross country backpacking loop off the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We were a party of six, and when it came time to figure out how we would divvy up group gear, trip member Bob Wade kindly volunteered to “bring evening cocktails”. We…
Community Maps for Garmin
Owners of Garmin GPS units will be interested to know about two web sites offering free map and trail software created by “community mappers”. GPS File Depot is a rich resource worth checking out. Dozens of free topo maps and some street maps are available for download; with maps for Arizona, California, New Mexico, to…
GPS Favorites
I have long been fan a of Garmin; handheld GPS units. Most all of the Garmin units I’ve tested have been accurate, reliable, light, rugged, and well designed. Our most popular models are in Garmin’s “Mapping Handhelds” product category, designating units that can display optional maps and usually with built in base maps. As of…
Pack Rats and Mice and Ringtails, Oh My!
Even when bears are not a threat to the outdoor traveler’s food, mice, rats, ringtail cats, and other small mammals can be relentless in their effort to dine on back country food stores. Garbage and empty food wrappers also attract the attention of hungry critters. This is especially true at often-used campsites. And perhaps just…
Great Packs for Short Waists
At the Summit Hut, we are always on the lookout for products that solve problems; a boot that fits a challenging foot, a piece of climbing gear that fills a particular need, or as discussed here, a large capacity day pack that fits people with short torsos. Many of us need and use big day…
Chlorine Dioxide
Water purification in the backcountry is a vexing problem without a completely satisfactory solution as far as I am concerned. Over the coming months I’ll be discussing several water purification products on this blog. For the past few years I have been relying almost exclusively upon Katadyn Micropur MP1 purification tablets, which is a chlorine…
SPOT Revisited
Last month I reviewed the SPOT Satellite Messenger in a blog entry titled “See SPOT”. In the review I reported that while using SPOT on the Arizona Trail, I experienced an 80% transmission success rate, speculating that the failed transmissions were due to hillsides or foliage blocking SPOT’s view of the sky. Last week I…
Light Emitting Diodes
I sometimes muse, “What have been the best advances in outdoor gear?” There are plenty of candidates. Developments in material, fabrics and design have led to plenty of innovation in packs, outerwear, clothing, cooking systems, tents, and much more. And how about GPS units and digital mapping software, or the introduction of trekking poles? But…
See SPOT
I used the SPOT Satellite Messenger during my hike of the Arizona Trail last spring, and wanted to let you know what I experienced using the device. Weighing 7.3 oz (including two lithium batteries), the SPOT device is billed as “Handheld satellite communication and safety device” by SPOT Inc. (a subsidiary of Globalstar, the satellite…