Skills
- GEAR • Gear Reviews
- GEAR • Gear Guides
- GEAR • Gear Checklists
- GEAR • Make Your Own Gear
- GEAR • Gear Testing & Research
- SKILLS • Tips, Tricks, and Hacks
- SKILLS • Wilderness Skills
- SKILLS • Training
- SKILLS • Trip Planning
- SKILLS • Food Preparation
- PLACES • Trips
- PLACES • Routes
- CULTURE • Essays
- CULTURE • Stories
- CULTURE • Issues
- CULTURE • People
- CULTURE • News
- CULTURE • Media Reviews
- ARCHIVES (Before 30.Nov.2015)
- SEARCH LIBRARY
- TRAILHEADS
Latest
What a Beginner Needs for Backpacking: Part 2
Clothing, Footwear, Group Gear (Water Treatment, Stoves and Fuel, Shelter). Basic training for the beginner and/or young backpacker, with a focus on Scouts.
What a Beginner Needs for Backpacking: Part 1
The Lightweight Lesson, Essentials, Backpack, Sleeping Bag and Pad, Personal Kit. Basic training for the beginner and/or young backpacker, with a focus on Scouts.
Backpacking and Hiking with an Umbrella
Francis is an umbrella advocate, eschewing typical rainwear. Find out why he's backpacked over 12,500 miles with an umbrella... and decide if you should follow his lead.
Mike Clelland’s Tiny Manifesto of Ultralight Backpacking Tips
Rotating feature with tips and illustrations from Mike Clelland!'s new book: Ultralight Backpackin' Tips
How to Use Trekking Poles: The Gas-Brake-Coast Method
Poking poles around for added stability is fairly intuitive, but the full promise of two more legs - greater endurance, building upper body strength, and reducing injury from stress or falls - requires some technique. Try Skip's straightforward and effective approach!
Backpacking versus Thru-hiking
Thru-hiking is not simply a longer version of a backpacking trip. Considering thru-hiking a long trail? Make sure you know what you're getting into and set yourself up for success.
Guidelines for Grizzly Country
While most grizzly behavior is predictable, there is always an extent to which animals are unpredictable, and thus hiking in grizzly country is inherently dangerous, even if the statistical hazard is very small. Read up on salient safety issues before your next late season backpacking or hunting trip.
Completing a Thru-Hike
What sets successful thru-hikers apart from the rest of the pack? Superfitnessawesomesauce? A trust fund? The best gear? The answer may surprise you.
Smartphone Navigation
Use the ubiquitous smartphone to get where you're going, with details on four apps that support maps for more places (not just the States). All you need do is supply the adventure.
Enjoying Backpacking with Kids: Part 2
The kid-sized kit: Gear should not become an end in itself. The point is to get out and enjoy the woods with kids. Ultralight gear is exciting because it enables kids to do things they could not otherwise do!
Enjoying Backpacking with Kids: Part 1
Everything boils down to a few simple rules that can encompass a surprising range of scenarios!
Fast and Light Winter Travel
Insights from the Alaska Mountain Wilderness Ski Classic.
Food Planning Using Pounds Per Person Per Day
Calculating how much food to take on a trip? My goal is to be perfectly satisfied during my time in the backcountry, but to walk out of the mountains with absolutely ZERO food. It is so gratifying to eat that last raisin on the last mile of the last day. If I can do that, the math worked out perfectly.
Backpacking Light 101: The Art of Ultralight
A Lightweight Primer to Backcountry Travel for the Uninitiated.
Reader Tips: Best Way to Pitch a Tarp with Fewest Stakes or Guylines
We asked, you answered! Responses to our solicitation for the best tarp pitch using the fewest poles, stakes, or guylines.
The Beautiful Cup: Backcountry Coffee for the Ultralight Backpacker
Techniques and gear for the lightweight backcountry coffee connoisseur, because under no circumstances should you let a non-coffee drinker brew your bliss.
Hand Sanitizers: My Journey Towards Discovering Best Practices for Wilderness Hygiene
Facilitating the transportation of fecal hitchhikers from your exhaust pipe orifice to your fuel filler neck orifice is one of the biggest backcountry threats. Stop these illegal immigrants en route, because we all know you can't close the border!
The 45-Year-Old Boy Scout
We asked, you answered: Lightweight Testimony Contest Runner Up!
Everything Weighs Something
We asked, you answered: Lightweight Testimony Contest Runner Up!
Into the Unknown, with Sturdy Footwear
We asked, you answered: Lightweight Testimony Contest Runner Up!
