The HydraPak Flux 1 L (2.7 oz / 77 g, MSRP $20) is a soft-sided, collapsible, 42 mm threaded, reusable water-bottle aimed at the single-use Smartwater or sports-drink bottle crowd.
Keeping Gear Handy on the Trail with Multi-Use Accessory and Utility Pouches
Having accessible “pockets” on your pack is useful for keeping little bits of gear handy without taking off your pack. But consider a multi-use pouch that can also be worn as a standalone fanny-style pack.
Improving R-values For Consumers
Sleeping pad R-values are not useful for many consumers, and the guidance from pad makers, retailers, and gear reviewers is inconsistent and prone to misinterpretation. This is a proposal for improved labeling and marketing of R-values.
Standards Watch: Introduction
Standards Watch will be a monthly column that explains important backpacking product standards, interviews key people, and describes how the industry uses, abuses, or ignores tests and standards.
CrazyCap LED Water Purifier Review
The CrazyCap 2 ($59, 1.9 oz/56 g) is an ultraviolet water treatment device that takes the form of a bottle cap. At first glance, this little multi-use item seems like the perfect invention for ultralight backpackers on the fly. But how does it perform in the field with its bottle compatibility issues?
Fozzils Foldable Dishware: Useful or Not?
Fozzils Solo Pack dishware is a unique, folding, ultralight, compact set of dishes which at first blush are a luxury-seeking, ultralight backpackers dream. But we ran into problems when testing them with hot liquids.
2020-2021 Website Development Timeline
In this post, we share about Backpacking Light’s plans for its next phase of website development. Over the past several months, we have been vetting enterprise website development agencies. We have made our final decision and are excited to announce that we are building a new site and plan to launch it in 2021.
Backpackers Should be Amateur Naturalists
Ben Kilbourne explores the need for backpackers to be amateur naturalists in our effort to steward our natural environment.
On Racial Justice and Protecting Intimacy Between Humanity and Nature
If some of humanity is threatened, then our humanity’s collective intimacy with nature is also broken.
First, Buy A Smaller Pack
Internet pundits often insist that new lightweight backpackers should buy a pack last, so that it will hold all their new gear and a week’s worth of food. Sometimes the advice is to buy the pack first, a little larger in volume than the backpacker thinks they’ll need. But both approaches can misfire, and I think there’s a better way.