Good gear: L.L. Bean’s Microlight FS2
In camping gear we like three things above all others: we like durable (because nothing else matters if a pole breaks or a seam rips), and light (less is more), and cheap (because). So we’re very attracted to the new Microlight FS2 backpacking tent from L.L. Bean. We can’t vouch for its durability because...
Fun run from the walking dead
Look at the face of a person skiing. OK, that sounds dangerous. Instead, look at the face of a person who has just made that final steep run and slid into the back of the lift line. Smiles. Maybe a look of steely self-satisfaction. Ruddy exhilaration. Actual human emotion. Now go to the gym...
Ultralight camping: Dropping 20 pounds of gear is like losing 20 years
Snow melts, summer seems like a possibility, and suddenly hiking and biking gear seems fascinating in a way it didn’t three weeks ago. The seed takes root; a few days later you invent a reason to swing by your local outfitter. You daydream about day hikes. Then something a little longer. And gear that...
Paraphernalia redux
We have become a nostalgic lot. This morning I was Googling, recollecting the back-of-the-calf supports that were slid into or otherwise added to old ski boots. All I came up with were Jet Stix, the lame supports that losers strapped to their Rosemount boots. (Who used Rosemount boots anyway?) I...
Good design turns our head (again)
When it comes to basic survival needs—like potable water—it is irresponsible to recommend a product based on anything less than functionality. So we are not recommending the CamelBak All Clear UV Microbiological Water Purifier, because haven’t tested it. (Yet.) We can only say this: if it reliably does what it claims it...
Twofer attaboy for Arc’teryx
About this time of year most people are willing—nay, eager—to set aside all the holiday joyfulness and release that mean-spirited cynicism that’s been bubbling just under the surface. So if one last…tiny…thin…wafer of good cheer is too much, please forgive us. But didn’t want to close out the season without a nod...
Saturday Stew: December 17, 2011
Hey, this week we’re out on schedule with our week’s collection of miscellaneous bits and pieces. Don’t tell us there’s no such thing as progress. Or discipline. Or time on our hands. Years ago, we read a reference to the preposterous number of calories chocked into a single serving of...
Health Watch
This is a shoulder season—too cold and too often icy for comfortable biking and too warm and rainy for snow sports (at least at our elevation)—so we are inside more than we like. This is a time to concentrate on health and fitness, building up resources that we can put...
The New Apple iPod Nano (vs. Motorola’s MotoACTV)
Recreati wouldn’t normally review consumer electronics, but we’re making an exception for the new Apple iPod Nano. (Close readers will note that we’re capitalizing Nano even though Apple doesn’t. In English, the proper name of a thing is capitalized. We’ll bend on the intra-capitalization of iPod, but we have...
When it comes to sweating the small stuff, Steve Green is our Yoda, our guru, our sensei
If you’re interested in laying down some of your backpacking burden, you can find plenty of advice in bookstores and online. (Type “ultralight backpacking” into the YouTube search box and you’ll get over 3,100 videos.) But no one synthesizes the opposite poles of obsessive-compulsive, shorten-and-drill-out-your-toothbrush hysteria and utterly...
Only seven months till the ice is off the northern lakes
There’s still plenty of good paddling left in 2011, but this is the time of year when people start looking ahead to the 2012 season. To accommodate that casting forward, canoe and kayak manufacturers are already making promises about what they’ll have available in the spring. (Pouring...
