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Latest
Learning Curve: Unpacking Backpacking
In a year of back-and-forth hiking plans and a busy career in backpacking media, Maggie works on understanding what backpacking means to her.
The Overlook: Observing Transition Season
Ben Kilbourne uses the writing of Aldo Leopold to examine his interaction with nature.
Learning Curve: I Finally Had to Plan a Backpacking Trip With No Help
I'm a big planner at home, but not so much with backpacking. On my last OCT solo section, I actually had to do all of the planning myself.
The Overlook: Good Gear Lets You Be Present
What's the perfect pack? One that stays off your mind.
The Backpacker’s Journey
Rex Sanders examines the arcs and stages that backpackers take as years and mileage start to add up.
Learning Curve: Risk Assessment
It takes a close call for Maggie Slepian to dial in her risk assessment skills.
Unpacked: Rewards of Repetition
Greek philosophy says you can't step in the same river twice, but what about backpacking the same trail?
Take This Poem on Your Next Trip
The words you carry with you are just as important as your gear.
Learning Curve: What I Learned From Taking a Beginner into the Backcountry
I thought I knew how to take first-time backpackers out, but I'd never actually taken a bare beginner into the backcountry.
The Overlook: Giving Back to Bear’s Ears
Ben Kilbourne reflects on his first journey in the Bear's Ears National Monument, and wonders how to give back to such special places.
You Know You’ve Been Backpacking a Long Time When…
Rex Sanders takes a walk down memory lane (er, trail).
Learning Curve: Learning to Turn Around
For some people, turning back is the hardest skill to learn.
The Anthropology of a Trail
When we trek, we are taking the paintbrush or pencil that is the foot to the page that is the earth.
Followed in Plain Sight
Shilletha Curtis recounts a harrowing encouter and invites the reader to see the world through her eyes.
Learning Curve: Backpacking is the Great Equalizer
Maggie Slepian considers what it means to be a perfectly average backpacker in a city (and industry) full of high-achievers.
The Overlook: Frozen Tracks – Monument Restoration and the Fate of the Upper Paria
Ben Kilbourne follows tracks in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as its fate once again hangs in the balance.
The Overlook: Backpacking in a Time of Uncertainty
Is backpacking suddenly...hard? Ben Kilbourne understands, and discusses how to deal with it during uncertain times.
Life in the Dog House: A Survey of the One-Person Tent, With History
Some observations on cheap one-person shelters, including on their design, proliferation, and history, and comparison between some shelters.
Learning Curve: Learning to Suffer
BPL columnist Maggie Slepian unpacks suffering in endurance sports.
Gratitude and Recovery After Outdoor Trauma
BPL author Rex Sanders meditates on gratitude and 2020 as he recovers from a traumatic brain injury during the time of COIVD and wildfires.
