When the discussion topic among outdoors people is backpacking freeze dried food, the 800-pound gorilla in the room is always Mountain House Foods. The company that sells 10 million food packages a year to outdoors people, preppers, and survivalists traces its roots back to the Vietnam War. Its parent company,…
Read More
If you’re headed out on a backpacking adventure, you have two basic choices about how you’re going to cook your food other than the traditional campfire. You can cook on a canister stove like the JetBoil or the MSR Reactor. Both are excellent stoves. Those two backpacking stoves and other…
Read More
A backpacking breakfast is an important part of your trip and tends to be my favorite meal of the day. With a little creative thinking you can come up with great ideas to avoid a bland, boring breakfast. Potato Patties Instant mashed potatoes come in all sorts of flavors, from…
Read More
Backpacking is a trade-off between comfort and weight. The best backpacking chair may not be in the consciousness of the serious long distance backpacker who is cutting the handle off his toothbrush to save a few grams. He’s probably not going to be willing to add a pound or more…
Read More
“Layering” is a strategy for dressing for all types of outdoor activity in all seasons of the year. The idea is to stay comfortable by keeping your body as close to a constant temperature as possible. If you understand layering basics for winter hiking, you’ll be able to apply the…
Read More
Portable solar power, and backpacking gadgets that can be powered by solar, have come a long way in recent years. Being able to relieve the little voice in your head when on the trail that worries about battery consumption is well worth it. And so is eliminating the need to…
Read More
If you’re not already familiar with Solo Stove, they became well known for the popular efficient, eco-wood burning, Solo Stove Campfire for backpacking. Riding on Campfire’s success, Solo Stove has launched a new Kickstarter Campaign for their new fire pit product, the Bonfire. The design is based on the same engineering principles of…
Read More
If there’s one thing that’s essential to the atmosphere of camping, it’s a good, sustainable campfire. It keeps you warm, wards off nasty bugs, and cooks your food. If you want to kindle the flames but don’t have a fire-starting kit, don’t fret. Even if you don’t have the conventional…
Read More
A short backpacking excursion to Bear Lake in Emigrant Wilderness afforded my buddy Wade and I a chance to properly do a Sawyer water filter review, and give it a proper test outdoors. I’ve used a PUR (now Katadyn) Hiker for the last 15 years. After looking at all the best backpacking water filtration…
Read More
If you’re like me, you’ve been sleeping in tents for years without so much as a thought to how comfortable you were. The drain of the day’s activities usually wears me out so that I just wriggle into my sleeping bag and pass out. It wasn’t until I was lent…
Read More
Maybe you’ve been on hiking trip and glanced up at a scree slope that leads to a mountain top and thought: “I’d like to climb up there! It looks pretty accessible.” If you’ve never scrambled a peak or do so infrequently, below are some suggestions for your next day out….
Read More
Remember the days when providing enough light at night in the undeveloped outdoors meant using a fuel-based, mantle camping lantern? Sure, they provide enough light as if having a mini-sun the size of a ping-pong ball, but the downside can outweighs the benefits: expensive fuel, delicate mantles disintegrate easily, not…
Read More
Aside from your boots, you probably won’t find a more important factor of your hiking experience than your backpack. Choosing the right pack can ensure that you grind out those miles as comfortably as possible while choosing the wrong pack can make your hike miserable. I’ve had the opportunity to…
Read More
If you’re a strong hiker who is just going out for a day hike, you may or may not choose to head outside with one or a pair of trusty hiking poles. If you’re joints are on the fritz or your hike includes several days, hiking poles are almost a…
Read More
In 2005 I found myself lacing my boots, shouldering my pack, and heading out to Smoky Mountain National Park to hike a sixty-mile segment of the famous Appalachian Trail. Nestled in the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, the Smokies provide a very scenic, but very small segment of this…
Read More
A seven-mile day hike in Northern California found myself and a fellow hiker casually meandering along a trail that wove through a dense patch of woods. Since I was hiking in the rear, I was the one to shout when a thin figure lunged from a nearby pile of brown leaves…
Read More
When you’re out there on the trail, you will inevitably encounter some not-so-optimal weather. Whether it’s wind, rain, snow, sleet, or hail, you need a rain jacket to protect you from the elements. If you haven’t splurged on your other gear, start here. A quality backpacking rain jacket can turn…
Read More
You would be hard pressed to find a hiker who has never gotten a blister. I’ve taken off my Gore-Tex boot after a twelve-mile day to find several blisters all over my feet—everywhere from atop my pinkie toe to behind my heel. They are painful, irritating, and can make the…
Read More
Not everyone agrees that the environment should be protected from the human footprint with no trace camping. But if you are a person who enjoys spending a lot of time great outdoors, then you probably want to make sure that the outdoors stays great. When you’re out there experiencing nature…
Read More
Back in 2009 I was privileged enough to be a part of my Boy Scout troop’s first trip to Philmont Scout Ranch outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Eleven days of hiking through the most beautiful scenery in North America with nothing but what we could carry on our backs taught…
Read More
Depending on where you live, you may or may not have encountered a poisonous plant or two in the wild. If you’re an avid camper like me, you definite have. Trekking along the Appalachian Trail through southern Tennessee, I’ve had my fair share of rashes and bumps from a lack…
Read More
If you’re going to be spending time outdoors in bear country, there are a few things you can do to protect yourself and your property or supplies from harm. Bear safety should not be scoffed at or taken lightly, as the consequences are not worth risking. Without fear mongering, backpacker.com…
Read More
In this video by Sierra Trading Post, John gives a great review of the general different types of sleeping pads available for backpacking. John mentions there are two main purposes for using a pad: To provide some cushioning from the hard ground to improve your nights’ sleep To provide some…
Read More
Bring the Right, Rain-Proof Gear If there’s any chance of rain, you’ll want to be properly equipped and you’ll be much more likely to have a great time! Otherwise, you’ll be miserable at the very least or worse, be at risk for hypothermia. Follow these tips for backpacking in the…
Read More
Outside of getting lost, there aren’t too many mundane things that can impact your hike as negatively as getting a blister. Depending on how many foot blisters you have, and their sizes, it may mean the end of your trek. In a previous article we talked about how to prevent…
Read More
If you’ve ever searched for ideas about making your own DIY backpacking stove, you may have discovered that are a ton of options – from alcohol stoves, rocket stoves, wood burning stoves the list goes on. We’ve quite a few examples over recent years, and below are some of the better…
Read More
So you’re planning a backpacking trip and need some new gear for water purification. Only one question remains – what’s the best backpacking water filter? There’s quite a few lightweight, effective water filters on the market these days. Below are some different examples to to choose what best fits your needs: Sawyer Mini Water…
Read More
My first backpacking trip was in 1991 when I was 18 years old. At that time, one of the hot 2-person ultralight backpacking tents was the North Face Starlight NHP, which I still have and use to this day. I was then amazed at how light it was compared to…
Read More
Those of you whom both backpack and find photography as a passion know it can a real pain when your exhausted from hiking, yet run across an opportunity to capture an amazing shot with your DSLR camera, but it’s packed away in your backpack. Having to stop, unbuckle your backpack…
Read More
Depending on where you’re hiking or camping, you may be miles from the nearest road, and even further from modern first aid facilities. To make things worse, you may not have cell phone service. These factors can turn an injury that could have been treated in civilization into a life-threatening…
Read More