Hilton’s Tent City in Boston, MA
When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, PA, we used to drive to a place in the suburbs called Ralph's Army Navy Surplus to buy camping and backpacking equipment. There wasn't anything like REI or EMS back then. Ralph's was one of those special stores, packed to the gills with interesting stuff, and I used to love going there to look at everything from tube tents and fishing rods to gas masks and wool army blankets.

Yaktrax Walkers
Yaktrax walkers are a traction device that you can attach to your shoes to prevent slipping on ice and snow. They are made using an elastic mesh that wraps around the sole of hiking boots, trail runners, or even dress shoes. Wire is coiled around the elastic and provides traction that bites into frozen surfaces to keep you from slipping. Although they have an attachment system similar to

Scarp 1 Tarptent: Autumn Field Testing
I've taken my 4 season Scarp 1 Tarptent on two late autumn backpacking  trips over the past few weeks and I thought I'd write up some notes about my experiences so far. We're right on the cusp of full winter conditions in New England, so you should expect at least one more update on the Scarp's winter performance on snow and in alpine conditions before March, 2010. In this writeup, I'll try not to repeat the material covered in my

Skookumchuck on Ice
I have two short sections of the Appalachian Trail left in New Hampshire and had hoped to complete one of them this weekend, a 2.7 mile stretch (requiring 14 miles of hiking) from the Skookumchuck Trail at the northern foot of Mt. Lafayette (5,260 ft) to Mt Garfield (4,500 ft). To hike this section, I had to hike in to the Garfield Ridge Trail (AT) up the Skookumchuck Trail, a distance of 4.3 miles with about  2,700 feet of elevation gain. Unfortunately when I got to treeline and the AT, the tra

Pack Goats, Ham Radio, and the 10 Essentials
I give in. I'm finally going to publish a list of the 10 hiking essentials on my blog. But you have to watch this video my hiking partner Chris sent me. It's got these great pack goats in it named Peanut and Rooster and some ham radio operators, who were the original social network in my book. It's not that I think the 10 essentials are bad or misleading. The problem is that there are nev