Posts by ShemSeger
I'm literally in the thick of the smoke right now, fires are burning a half hour upwind of me, and ash has been falling from the sky like snow. Just this past couple weeks the government has been s...
The answer to this question will vary on your level of foot strength and the terrain. Human beings did pretty well for thousands of years without supportive footwear, but when they started walking...
Get a proper backpack for a DSLR. I literally carry my DSLR backpack everywhere. It's basically my man-purse. The model I have has a camera pocket on the side, which I can access quickly by dropp...
The most likely cause of death would be a crash landing. When geese come in for a landing after a long flight they are exhausted and look for lakes or ponds to land on because they can glide in o...
Gojo Pumice Hand Cleaner. If you've worked with grease, grime, or in a coal mine then you know what pumice hand cleaner is, it has silica sand in it to help scour away the gunk. You use it without...
They fly on the wing currents produced by the birds in front of them. It's similar to drafting someone in front of you while cycling or racing. The leader is breaking trail, and the followers are b...
What you want to learn to tie is a Kiwi Coil. A kiwi coil is an alpine coil you manage and wear while still tied into the end of your rope. Tie in as you normally would while climbing or glacier...
Lots of people will double up twist-lock carabiners for various reasons, and it is considered an acceptable method of protection by many, although in my opinion it is very unnecessary (related: Is ...
I had a friend who lost a significant amount of weight from bouldering and climbing. What was remarkable about his weight loss is that as he began to shed pounds, his climbing strength and abilitie...
First of all, racking on your shoulders isn't meant to substitute racking on your belt. Supplementary shoulder racks are meant to provide you with additional racking points for climbs where you are...
One option would be to use snow glasses. They've been used for centuries to prevent snow blindness, and work by limiting the amount of light that can enter your eyes. They are simple to make, and c...
The Kenow fire burned ~38,100 hectares of forest in BC and in Waterton Lakes National Park. There are rumours surfacing about the number of animals found dead in the park thus far. Ground crews hav...
Kernmantle ropes are constructed by braiding a mantle (sheath) around a dynamic kern (core). After the rope is constructed, the only way to get the core out without damaging the sheath is to pu...
Lots of swim/board shorts come with key keepers in the pockets. Chances are you may even have one in the swimwear you own. It's simply a length of elastic cord stitched into your pocket. If you don...
Depends entirely on the skill level of the climber and the spotter. Falling is a skill, and catching a fall is a skill. The more skilled the climbers are, the higher risks they can take. If either...
Extending everyone's rappels and tying everyone into the rope before the first person descends is the proper, safest way to do things, unless you wanted all the followers to tie an autoblock as wel...
Everyone knows that fires are a big concern during droughts, but can they also cause a drought elsewhere? I currently live just on the East side of the Canadian Rockies. All summer long fires have ...
The answer to this question depends a lot on the situation. If the bear runs away after being sprayed, then it gets away with a runny nose and burning eyes/lungs for a while and a reason not to app...
Bears only have one reason to go anywhere, and that reason is food. Humans eat to live, but bears live to eat. They are always on the move to find more food, discovering new patches of berries, dig...
I was hiking in the Ptolemy Plateau in the Canadian Rockies yesterday. There were all these plants that looked like something right out of a Dr. Seuss book. What are they?
I was hiking in the Southern Canadian Rockies yesterday and was paying special attention to all the plants I'm not familiar with, one was these bushes with these clusters of tiny blue berries. The ...
That's a magnolia tree. I first saw one in Delaware in the dead of winter encased in ice after an ice storm. All the other trees had dropped their leaves, but the magnolia doesn't shed its thick l...
Before bear spray was even a thing, people always carried shotguns. Most people in the wilder parts of the world still do carry shotguns, because an angry bear will charge right through bear spray,...
One thing you can do if there isn't too much friction in your rope, is lock off the short side of the rope, and continue to descend on the long side. With the short end locked off, you can lower y...
So this happened the other day; shouldn't have happened if I had been taking my time and paying attention to what I was doing, but it did: I was cleaning several ropes from the top of a short cra...
