Your favorite music to help you sleep or to give you inspiration during an uphill slog can be a welcome backpacking companion. As long as it doesn’t add a lot of weight.The new iPod Shuffle 3rd Generation weighs all of .38 ounces — that’s right, just a tad over one-third of 1 ounce. Holds 1,000 [...]
Most ultralight tents are pretty durable, so I look at weight, roominess and price in deciding whether I think a tent is in my ultralight backpacking ballpark. The Big Agnes Fly Creek UL 1 gets Backpacker Magazine’s top rating in its annual gear guide as best all-around. My take: Big Agnes is $300 (pricey), 2 [...]
Pulling off your hiking shoes or boots to cross water is literally a pain. A pain in foot and toes. One solution: Crocs Beach Clog Sandals. I jettisoned my heavy boots years ago, in favor of waterproof tennis shoes. But any water crossing more than a few inches deep requires you to unlace and walk [...]
My regular readers know I’m a gearhound. And I’m always looking for the latest and greatest ultralight backpacking “thing” to include in my pack. My latest find is the MiniTissue. Comes eight in a pack for $1 (1 ounce total weight). Individually wrapped like peppermint candies, you splash them with water making them instantly rehydrate, [...]
As someone who loves gear and is always looking for the next greatest ultralight backpacking gizmo, I strongly recommend you consider the SteriPEN Adventurer. This is Hydro-Photon, Inc’s newest iteration of its proven water purification system, which was first introduced in 2000. I own the first and second generation models, and if you look at [...]
That number — 480 — is a bit overwhelming at first glance. But if you apply my 1-15 rule (your bag should not be over 1 pound, 15 ounces), you trim the choices to 129 sleeping bags. To help pair this list down further, you need to consider temperature rating. I own a Western Mountaineering [...]
I love gadgets. The latest, from a newspaper clipping my wife dropped on my desk, is a cap with four LED lights built in (sample at left has only two, but the Amazon.com version below has four). One of the reasons I became a ultralight backpacker, besides the weight reduction, was the elimination of stuff [...]
The Golden Rule of ultra light backpacking is that every piece of equipment has multiple uses. For example, a bandana is a sweat band, wash cloth, water or coffee filter, a napkin, a tourniquet and sling. The new iPhone is the ultimate backpacking tool. It weigh just six ounces and includes a phone, digital camera, [...]
In the July 18 issue of Newsweek is an article about LifeStraw, a new $3 portable water filter created by a Danish company to protect people in Third World countries from waterborne diseases like typhoid, cholera and dysentery. The LifeStraw website notes: “Sharing a passion to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of ‘reducing by half [...]
I was checking out the weblog at Campman.com and came across a review of a new anti-mosquito patch. Campman says it’s ideal for kids. But when he says the patch kept the bugs off him as well, I knew I needed some. Especially, after my miserable backpack recently to Emigrant Wilderness where we were swarmed [...]
