ajtestbed Consumer Reports has nothing on us. We know that the difference between camping comfort and a total goat rodeo often comes down to your kit. Are you prepared? Are you resourceful? Can you pound in a titanium tent stake at 1 in the morning with nothing but what you find on site, or should you … Read more
“It’s like having gasoline out there,” said Brian Steinhardt, forest fire zone manager for Prescott and Coconino national forests in Arizona, in a recent AP story about the increasingly fire-prone West. Now something else is happening — and at the worst possible time. Federal firefighters are leaving the workforce and taking their training and experience … Read more
Wanna know where a raindrop that falls in Glacier National Park eventually ends up? Would you like to follow the headwaters of the Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico? Or just see a 3D map of where the water in your local watershed flows on its way to the sea? Check out the River Runner … Read more
My favorite travel bag setup is based on the Eagle Creek Migrate Wheeled Duffel. It’s 110 liters and I stuff it with their excellent Pack-It system of packing cubes and shoe organizers. The duffel is weather resistant, the shoe organizers can keep filthy shoes away from clean clothes, the packing cubes are tough and can … Read more
Ecologist Chad Hanson calls his new book Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate, but it could just as well be titled Why We Should Love Dead Trees. Hanson, director of the John Muir Project, uses the book to explain why wildfires are beneficial to forest ecosystems and why keeping fire-burned … Read more
It’s Friday, we could use some feel-good inspiration, so we dug through our archives to find a list of great quotes for a little breezy early weekend reading. Travel feels just around the corner, doesn’t it? The world is opening back up, the idea of getting on a plane, or a boat, or even just … Read more
Have $35k burning a hole in your pocket? Of course not! But that doesn’t mean it’s not time to take out a second mortgage or sell everything you own for the chance to own this sweet mashup of a 2001 Tacoma with a fiberglass Chinook camper from 1978 artfully built out and ready for dirt … Read more
My first bike multitool was a hex key set from Park Tools. Plastic, inexpensive, as long as the fix required just a hex key, I was all good. Then, I upgraded to a Blackburn Big Switch. Hex keys, torx screws, and a burly metal construction—a nice tool I still recommend. But then for Christmas my … Read more
Erden Eruç has more time at sea in a rowboat than anyone alive, nearly three years all told, including 312-days alone on the Pacific. The 59-year-old Seattleite was the first person to circumnavigate the globe alone and under his own power, crossing the world’s three great oceans—Pacific, Indian and Atlantic—in an expedition that took five … Read more
As much as I have always loved talking about my puppy, this time is different. He’s gone. A few days ago he simply didn’t wake up. It’ll be awhile until I don’t get choked up thinking about that. Longer still until I can talk to anyone else about it. Right now I just want to share … Read more