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How does a Quilt’s Pad Attachment System Influence its Heat Loss Resistance?
This study quantifies how quilt pad-attachment geometry affects convective heat loss. Using a controlled thermal surrogate, standardized wind exposure, and time-constant (Ď„) modeling, we compare pad strap to sheet-and-shingle systems. Results show that tighter pad coupling preserves a substantially higher fraction of still-air thermal resistance, especially under modest side winds.
Sleeping Bag Liners and Quilts: Convective Heat Loss, Draft Control, and Practical Benefits
Sleeping bag liners are often sold as warmth boosters, but their real value in quilt-based sleep systems is managing convective heat loss. Drawing on field use and ongoing experiments, this article explains how liners affect drafts, when they help, and when their weight is better spent elsewhere for cold sleepers.
Winter Backpacking
A curated guide to winter backpacking gear, strategies, skills, podcasts, forums, research, education, product recommendations, and more.
Episode 139 | Repair Kits
Learn how to build ultralight repair kits using context, consequence, and capability. Ryan Jordan compares short-term and expedition trips and addresses how to fix shelters, packs, footwear, lighting, and water treatment without carrying excess gear.
Riding the Dragon: Trekking the Mini-Traverse, a Drakensberg Mountain Adventure
Jeff de Graffenried recounts a trek across South Africa’s Drankensberg Mountains’ Mini-Traverse.
Episode 138 | Plan-Focus-Trust
Learn the Plan–Focus–Trust framework and discover how preparation removes fear, presence builds clarity, and trust turns small wins into lasting confidence – a mindset for wilderness travel and life goals.
Episode 137 | The Risk Control Continuum
Learn how to manage backcountry risk using the Risk Control Continuum framework: use hazard triggers, control layers, and field tools like the HEAT and ECG checklists to detect drift, make better decisions, and stay safe in the backcountry.
How Fishnet Works (Part 2): Layering for Moisture, Thermal Management in Cold-Weather Backpacking
Fishnet base layers offer a structural solution to the long-standing tradeoff between warmth and moisture control. By emphasizing airflow and vapor transport, they maintain comfort across cold, dry, and humid environments where conventional wicking fabrics fail. This article explains the thermophysiology of fishnet design and provides evidence-based strategies for layering in alpine and variable weather conditions.
Outdoor Gear Journalism: Developing Trust Standards
The integrity of gear reviews is currently experiencing a decline in consumer trust. Consequently, the GearTrust framework, which is substantiated by research, has been developed to conduct credibility audits and elevate consumer confidence.
A Case Study in Backcountry Emergency Triage and Decision-Making: Fall-Induced Facial Trauma
Ryan Jordan details a fall-induced facial injury, the triage process, decision not to evacuate, and critical self-care lessons.
The Nose of a Bear
Bears’ sense of smell is extraordinary - but their ability to detect properly contained food is often exaggerated. This presentation explores the science of odor control, food storage systems, and campsite hygiene. Learn how to reduce scent dispersion, prevent bear encounters, and responsibly protect both your food and the wildlife around you.
Episode 136 | Fringe Season Layering
Debunk wicking myths, optimize thermoregulation with hydrophobic base layers & utilize shell layers effectively to help with fringe season layering in the backcountry.
Stealth Camping
Learn how to stealth camp through minimizing your impact, concealing your camp and preserving solitude.
Episode 135 | Field Notes – The Metabolic Cost of Bushwhacking
Understand how brush work, impedance work, and hazard work explains the true metabolic cost of bushwhacking and how resistance, rhythm, and stability impact energy.
Episode 134 | Sleep Quality in the Backcountry
Disrupted backcountry sleep affects recovery, judgment, and safety. Learn how altitude, stress, and gear impact rest, and discover strategies for better sleep.
Risk management for fringe-season backpacking
Fringe-season backpacking exposes a mismatch between environmental change and human perception. As autumn transitions to winter, conditions evolve faster than our decision models. Here, we examine how environmental inertia, cognitive bias, and system coupling create risk - and why adaptive, resilience-based frameworks outperform traditional control strategies in dynamic mountain environments.
Sleeping pad systems for bivy sacks
Sleeping pads play an outsized role in bivy systems. This article explores how pad type, size, and placement affect warmth, comfort, condensation, and integration - helping you choose pads that maximize efficiency and livability in confined bivy shelters.
The metabolic cost of bushwhacking: brush work, impedance work, and hazard work
The Metabolic Energy Mile (MEM) framework provides a method for quantifying the energetic cost of backcountry travel relative to treadmill walking. Off-trail conditions increase the Metabolic Difficulty Ratio (MDR) through three mechanisms: brush work (mechanical resistance from vegetation), impedance work (loss of locomotor efficiency due to disrupted stride), and hazard work (energy expended to maintain stability and avoid injury). Distinguishing these categories improves predictions of caloric demand, time requirements, and route planning accuracy.
Polartec Aircore – a brief review
This article presents an independent evaluation of Polartec’s new electrospun membrane fabric, originally developed for cycling jackets. Performance data on hydrostatic head, moisture vapor transmission (MVTR), air permeability, and fabric construction are reported and analyzed.
Naturopathic Sleep Aids for Backcountry Use
Enhance performance and recovery in the backcountry through naturopathic sleep aids including melatonin, theanine, glycine, magnesium & botanicals.
Wind, blood, and coffee: lessons from the tundra
Exposure, injury, and cold winds turned one bivy into a teacher. Fall in the alpine strips you down - and sharpens attentiveness in return.
Anniversary SaleMay 15 to 25 - REI's biggest sale of the year.
