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The Weird Science of Night Vision: Lighting Considerations for Lightweight Backpacking
Be sure to check our Gear Guide to LED Headlamps. Turn night into day (use bright light), or preserve night vision (use low light)? Because of the eye’s physiology, it...
LED Lighting Technology: A Comprehensive Primer to Understanding the Design Basis of Light Emitting Diode-Based Flashlights and Headlamps
Be sure to check our Gear Guide to LED Headlamps. A Little History In many ways, the flashlight or headlamp you carry in your pack is a direct descendant of...
Buying an LED Torch: Headlamp Design Considerations to Help Guide Your Purchasing Decisions
Be sure to check our Gear Guide to LED Headlamps. Introduction If your brain isn’t overwhelmed by all the variables in our primer on LED headlamps, it’s time to go...
Western Mountaineering Flight Vest
Introduction The Western Mountaineering Flight Vest provides one of the highest warmth:weight ratios of any garment on the market. You can use this vest for cold rest stops, to boost...
Frameless Backpacks: Engineering Analysis of the Load Carrying Performance of Selected Lightweight Packs
Introduction The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the load carrying performance of several frameless packs available to the ultralight backpacking community. Frameless backpacks tested in this...
Simplicity, Harmony, and Opportunity: Freedom Born From an Ultralight Ethic
"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity" – Albert Einstein’s Three Rules of Work This short quote summarizes my philosophy for...
Quantitative Analysis of Backpack Suspension Performance
Introduction Internet forums, hometown gear shops, and outdoor industry trade shows are filled with backpacking enthusiasts and marketing sharks convinced that their backpack carries weight better than any other on...
Lightweight Backpacking with Young Children
Introduction Introducing your child to the wonders of nature is one thing–helping them enjoy themselves while preserving your own sanity on a backpacking trip is quite another. Backpacking with kids...
Blake Morstad
Blake Morstad was killed in an avalanche on January 1, 2005, while backcountry skiing in Montana’s Centennial Mountains. Please visit the Blake Morstad Memorial at BackpackingLight.com. Blake Morstad recently graduated...
Ryan Jordan
Visit Ryan's Personal Website: RyanJordan.com
Carol Crooker
Carol Crooker, Backpacking Light Editor at Large
Alan Dixon
Alan Dixon, Backpacking Light Editor at Large
Jay Ham
Jay Ham started backpacking in 1990 and went lightweight in 1995. Wanting his children to experience and share in his love of the outdoors, he became obsessed with reducing the...
Don Wilson
Don Wilson joined the Backpacking Light staff as Clothing Systems Section Editor in April 2004. While hiking the John Muir Trail in 1978 he got his initial taste of long...
Andrew Skurka
7,800 miles of walking found Skurka in Bozeman, MT as part of the Backpacking Light team.
Doug Johnson
Doug Johnson joined BackpackingLight.com in October 2003 and is both a reviewer and the Trekking Systems editor. He lives in Redmond, Washington, with his also-adventurous wife Amy. Doug is an...
Steve Nelson
Steve Nelson, Winter Systems Editor, has been backpacking and playing in the snow since he was a kid growing up in upstate New York. Now living in California, he backpacks...
Mike Martin
Longtime BPL Forum contributor Mike Martin joined the Backpacking Light staff in 2006 as Sleeping Systems Section Editor. Mike holds a Bachelors Degree in Engineering and currently teaches Engineering and...
Rick Dreher
Rick Dreher is interviewed by Bruno the Dalmatian. B. So, now that I’ve had my kibble (AGAIN with the kibble!) we can get down to business. Why backpacking? R. At...
Oware Flat Tarps (6×8, 8×10, 10×10)
See how this shelter rates with others in our Comparison Review of Tarps and Other Floorless Shelters Photo: An Oware 10×10 ft tarp setup for an incoming mountain thunderstorm: Pitch...
