Posts by ShemSeger
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...
It affects accuracy. There's something in archery known as the archers paradox. If you think about it, you never actually shoot an arrow straight in front of you, you have to shoot it around the ...
All our kids have been coming on hikes with us since they were newborns. We have two types of baby carrying hiking packs, two more snuggly baby carriers, and a variety of baby wraps. The answer to...
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...
You can quickly determine how much time you have until the sun goes over the horizon using your hands. Hold your hand out in front of you at arms length, parallel to the ground, palm towards you. ...
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...
The Kenow fire ripped through the Rockies near where I live. Flames were reported to be hundreds of meters high coming off the tops of some trees. Some of those flames licked the crags I most frequ...
The crazy 34,000 hectare Waterton wildfire (more than 84,000 acres) appears to be slowing down a little, but already much of the landscape is scorched, and the flames are out in a lot of places. It...
Dew is likely wherever there is atmospheric moisture and an overnight drop in temperature. Dew forms when the ground or any other object radiates it's heat and becomes cooler than the air. The mois...
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...
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...
In Canyoning/Canyoneering, floating ropes are used to make rope management a lot easier. Unfortunately for those of us interested in canyoning who don't live in Europe, specialized canyoning gear i...
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 ...
I'm a cyclist on the side of people being allowed to ride on trails in National Parks. The arguments for are simple: allow bikes so cyclists can enjoy nature while doing a healthy activity they als...
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...
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...
