Well, I’ve spent much of the past couple days pricing gear for snow camping. Let’s look at the numbers: Down parka: $150-200 Insulated pants: $150-200 Zero-degree rated sleeping bag: $200-300 Four-season tent: $400-500 We’re talking serious bucks to acquire enough…
Backpacking
Links and comments about backpacking, camping and long distance hiking at Two-Heel Drive
Temptations of winter camping
by tmangan • January 24, 2006 • 6 Comments
Plus side: no bugs, no bears, pretty snow on trees. Minus side: freezing one’s fanny off. Rebecca at Calipidder.com told me about a backpacking group she hangs out with. They’re planning a couple weekend snow-camping trips in the next six…
The white isn’t just snow
by tmangan • January 24, 2006 • 4 Comments
A thread at the Backpacking.net forums wonders why so many backpackers tend to be predominantly white folks (and predominantly white guys, at that). GoBlog brought this up a few weeks back in a post skewering the lily-whiteness of Outside magazine…
An excellent backpacking tale
by tmangan • January 18, 2006 • 1 Comment
HighSierraTopix has a thread on “meeting people in the backcountry” that generates tons of interesting ancecdotes. My favorite so far is one by Markskor of Sacramento called The Kid from Tuolumne Store. It’s a bit long but must be read…
Pitching in the rain
by tmangan • January 18, 2006 • 1 Comment
Trailforums has an informative thread on pitching your tent in a downpour. I’ve been tempted to try out my REI Quarter Dome on a rainy weekend just to see how it’s done, but I’m not sure I want to get…
Uh, guys, lighten up
by tmangan • January 14, 2006 • 0 Comments
A couple comments over at GoBlog reveal an interesting pissing match between light-backpacking visionary Ray Jardine and the founder of GoLite, who went to some length to put out some fires Jardine was spreading because the two guys had a…
A thruhiker’s tale
by tmangan • January 14, 2006 • 4 Comments
I’ve been thinking about picking a hiker at random at TrailJournals and just following him/her along as the trip progresses, with posts here grabbing snippets of journal entries. This morning I found an intriguing prospect: A guy named Eric Yakel,…
On doing it yourself
by tmangan • January 14, 2006 • 2 Comments
Must Be This Way laments the lack of lightweight backpacking gear sold in the UK. Back before there was Go Lite, people just made their own stuff. Heck, Ray Jardine built a business around it. I spent an hour or…
What to do after high school
by tmangan • January 11, 2006 • 3 Comments
You think all the kids are glued to their TVs and wrist-locked to their Xboxes? One poster at Whiteblaze.net is agonizing over whether to start college or hike 2000 miles first, then start college. Many of the Whiteblaze veterans insisted:…