Something is happening in your yard at 2:13 every morning. The garbage lid is crooked. The bird feeder is empty. One tomato has been bitten once and then abandoned in a way that feels disrespectful.
Birding begins with a simple desire: to look at a bird. Binoculars improve this process by introducing focus wheels, diopter adjustments, field of view, eye relief, objective diameter, close-focus distance, lens…
There is a particular moment in backpacking when a clear mountain stream stops looking like water and starts looking like a microbiology problem.
The great outdoors contains mountains, lakes, forests, deserts, and several million square miles of places where a human can stand.
There is a point in adult life when twenty-five dollars for a pair of socks stops sounding insane and starts sounding like preventive maintenance.
The basic backpacking meal requires hot water. This has not stopped the outdoor industry from producing enough stove systems to support several competing philosophies of boiling it.
Walking is simple until someone puts a mountain underneath it. Then humans begin adding equipment. Trekking poles can improve stability, involve the upper body, provide another point of contact on slippery terrain, and…
A bear canister is an expensive plastic or composite cylinder you carry into the backcountry so a bear cannot eat your tortillas.
For years, backpackers have participated in a small ritual of self-deception. At bedtime they take a jacket, stuff it into a stuff sack, place their head on it, and announce that this is basically a pillow.
Emergency preparedness has a natural life cycle. First, a severe storm happens somewhere else. Then you read an article.