General Q&A about the great outdoors and outdoor pursuits.
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I'm currently trying to remark a trail that seems to be forgotten or had very little use in the past few years. The markers that remain (different types of ribbon) are fraying or crumbling dependin...
I asked a question about marking trails and one of the answers suggested nailing markers to the trees. Does this damage the trees? I'm mostly concerned about long-term infection or rot that will ev...
I did not use to think of geotagging photos as a leave-no-trace issue. In fact, one slogan says leave only footprints, take only photos. Yet the Leave No Trace Social Media Guidance states: T...
This is a very subjective question but the goal is to make a somewhat comprehensive Wiki-style list of, let's call it "mission abandon criteria", that should prompt a team to turn back. In a sieg...
(Use case: A hike to heated waters--hiking with only swimwear for lower attire is not an option.) I find most swimwear is not exactly suitable for wearing under clothing, speedos would work but I...
I have a pretty strong magnet for magnet fishing. The problem that I am running into when taking it places is that I need a way to isolate it from my wallet/phone/compass inside my backpack as othe...
Is there any resource provided by the Georgian government or by any other agencies about the camping in Georgia? I would like to know about the rules and safety aspects. Any resource on these woul...
It's winter. I daydream of trips in various areas. Using Google/Apple/Bing maps is frustrating. Openstreet has trails if you are near civilization, but names are weak. None of them have coordin...
Winter is here and, like every year, I am still thrilled when the extended family rounds up all the little kids and we go sledding. This year we compared our sleds and found that some were signific...
I received an old climbing rope, whose history is unknown. I know this rope should not be used for any situations where a fall is possible since it may have already sustained one. However, can it ...
The most recent (2013) edition of Climbing Anchors, by Long and Gaines, makes some interesting statements in the preface about catastrophic failures of anchors. Long first says that: when belay anc...
Some skis nowadays have a different sidecut radius at the front, center and back of the ski. With the different radius they claim to be suitable for both long and short turns. (So far the theory) ...
Hoping to ask a couple basic Q's before my order arrives, I suspect I may've gotten insufficient gear.. 1 - Is doubling-up ropes, or hardware, ever acceptable in climbing? IE, my 8mm prusik cord ...
Being a climber one aim is to toughen up your hands (related: How to toughen up hands?). Building up callused skin is important but how do you keep it? Having dry hands especially from the climbing...
While hiking Ryan Mountain (elevation 5457 feet) in Joshua Tree National Park last month, I saw several of these grayish plants near the top of the mountain. I did not see any at lower elevations. ...
I am stealing Charlie Brumbaugh's question about canoeing on an open lake, because for kayaking you would get different anwers, and it's important to distinguish those. If you are kayaking on a...
When hiking in Israel I've seen some trails that had information on them to contact IDF first for permission before going on them. How I'm supposed to get the permission? How much in advance you h...
I have started looking at sit on top kayaks. Several have looked promising. Though I just realized, in most of them the lowest point in the boat is where your butt goes. I normally travel in a cano...
I'm going to make a bosun's chair to lift me 40 ft in the air to a tree platform (with at least a 6' clearance, so closer to 50'). Of course I would like the right type of rope with the right tensi...
I own a 1988 Malibu Skier, and one of the things I've been thinking about upgrading on it is the fuel gauge. Specifically, I want to be able to have some kind of digital reading of how much fuel I ...
I got a Fjällräven Barents Trousers for Christmas! Hell yeah! It's made of the "G-1000" material. 65% polyester, 35% cotton. G-1000 Original is the original fabric in Fjällräven’s comfortabl...
I recently began learning to fly fish. However most of the streams I frequent are small creeks in the Southern Appalachians that have a lot of growth on the banks and overhead making casting rathe...
I've been experimenting with tight line nymphing and have had good success in murky/choppy water that allows me to get close to the trout without spooking them. However I'm reluctant to use these t...
I need to replace some guylines on one of my tents. I normally use some paracord lying around but they have been getting tripped over more and more. I found some glow in the dark paracord, but be...
I'm starting to go through the book "freedom of the hills". Somewhere in the initial pages, it states that a climbing party must consist of a minimum of three members. A bit later it states that du...
I am often skiing with some friends, and would love to have some way of communicating. I've seen quite a lot of bluetooth based systems for motorcycles, but not as many for skiing. The ideal syste...
Once, I had the opportunity to walk on a floating mat on a guided tour with a nature organisation in De Wieden (Dutch: trilveen). On the surface, it looked (to my amateur eye) exactly like other p...
We always hear about the importance of drag free drifts so I thought it would be great to create a resource listing techniques for achieving a drag free drift. I've setup a community wiki for thi...
When hiking in a rarely frequented area, trails may be very faint to the level of being essentially invisible. In such situations, it has happened more than once that I accidentally followed an an...
There's a lot of talk in the media about Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell's free ascent of the dawn wall of El Capitan. This wall has been climbed before, but this is the first time it's been fr...
I'm wondering how long before one needs to clean their personal water bladder/reservoir while on a thru-hike, extended backpacking trip, or survival scenario. I know it's advised to clean after ev...
A U.S. wilderness area prohibits road-building and other forms of development. Are bridges on hiking trail permitted, or are all river crossings in wilderness areas necessarily unbridged?
For trip planning and navigation during my outdoors trip, I would like to load a track into my GPS (or GNSS) receiver. Where can I find websites that gather user-contributed GPS tracks?
Is there a well-known free webpage in Europe where you can find hiking partners to go on > 4000 m mountains? For bouldering and climbing it is usually not a problem to find "new friends", since...
Last year I went to Washington state and I visited Mount Rainier National Park, Olympic National Park, and North Cascades National Park. I enjoyed all three of them. I just saw a Wikipedia page a...
I have a North Face Big Shot backpack that I purchased around 2003. It was a great general purpose backpack that I used for day hikes, rock climbing, and traveling. Unfortunately time and the abuse...
I read on https://www.walmart.com/ip/Isdin-UV-Care-FotoUltra-Active-Unify-Fusion-Fluid-Color-SPF-50-50ml/304385886: Isdin UV Care FotoUltra Active Unify Fusion Fluid Color SPF 50+ 50ml is a tin...
I feed the local birds quite a lot, and am wondering about the possibility of contracting any avian-related illnessess. How often is it for us to come across a disease-ridden bird anywhere, as well...
I have been fly fishing with my dad for a number of years but recently I went on my own and hit quite the stumbling block... I didn't know how to set the kit properly, normally I drive the boat whi...
Rather than shining in all directions, lighthouses usually produce a directed beam of light that continuously sweeps in a circle. This allows: the light to be more concentrated and so appear brig...
After watching this video of a man punching a kangaroo to rescue his dog, I am wondering how dangerous a kangaroo is to a human on foot? I am sure that there are a lot of other things in Australia ...
I am considering getting a Garmin InReach device (a device allowing two-way satellite communication via text messages) and I am trying to decipher the hidden costs of the subscription that comes al...
So my friend convinced me to buy a Son Of Hibachi :) I've set it up and want to give it a try in the evening. Of course there are several sources for a "how to" and even videos but I wanted instruc...
I frequently encounter trout sitting in the tail of a pool just above the start of the next rapid. So the trout is in slow water with much faster water downstream of it. So typically the fly is swe...
I've noticed that the vegetation in the subalpine forest is very different between the Alps, the Urals, Scandinavia, or the Canadian Rockies. In the latter, I didn't find any at all. In the Alps,...
Yesterday I found a really old deer skull in a forest and I took it home in the hope to get it cleaned up. So I searched it up but I only saw how to clean up dead deer heads with skin on and those ...
I've been watching "A Line Across the Sky" which is a short-ish movie about Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold doing the Fitz Roy traverse. During which Tommy Caldwell mentions Alex doing a 1000 and ...
I'm looking for a decent source to know winter road conditions for various Adirondacks access roads. First level of interest would be just what is or isn't being maintained. A better yet answer w...
Strike indicators are basically the fly fishing version of bobbers and they come in different colors white, yellow, orange, etc. When fishing streams that have a big of disturbance and the sun is ...
Sometimes when fly fishing in canyons the wind will start coming down the canyon and it makes it that much harder to cast. It doesn't take a whole lot of wind to completely stop one from further fi...
