Posts by StrongBad
Warnings and Caveats Everyone sleeps different. Some people sleep much warmer than others while others sleep incredibly cold. You can try and determine this in your house or better your backyard, ...
If you mean by powerbank something that weighs 200g and has a capacity of 20000mAh and by heat more than a candle worth of warmth, then the answer is no. A 20000mAh powerbank, which is a pretty big...
Back before frameless and internal frame backpacks, there was a time when external frame backpacks were all the rage. They are heavy, sometimes uncomfortable, and can break in spectacularly difficu...
There are a lot of factors, but for the Appalachian Trail there are a lot of hikers so it can give us pretty good insight into the time it takes for the average thru hiker to reach maximum mileage ...
While bears are located all along the Appalachian trail, in most sections they are rarely seen. During prime season there is enough use of the trail that hikers are often aware of problematic areas...
The need for your ears to pop results from a pressure differential between the middle ear and the atmosphere. The middle ear is technically outside your body (e.g., the bones in the middle ear and ...
It is not really about instructing people how to take the harness off, but rather about respecting the personal space of clients. I suggest having an instructor demonstrate the steps to take off th...
This seems like a dangerous setup for using a static rope. If the top right anchor fails as you are weighting the instructor tether, the instructor could fall a meter or so. On a dynamic rope, this...
Taking a literal definition of US and not restricting the answer to the continental US, there is a mangrove swap on Heeia in HI and the list of reptiles in HI does not include crocodiles or alligat...
Before rubber soles, mountaineers (and others) used hobnailed boots "have been used since antiquity for inexpensive durable footwear". There is a nice note here about Vibram soles replacing hobnail...
Sleeping bags come in a variety of sizes (e.g., https://www.outdoors.org/articles/amc-outdoors/how-to-fit-a-sleeping-bag). The most common being regular and long (sometimes there is a short and som...
Given your time period of early June to Early September, my guess is that the least crowded period will be early June. This report (Fig. 4) shows the number of bed nights in AMC huts as a function ...
I take public transportation to my work and the climbing gym. This means my climbing gear stays in my office all day with me. My climbing shoes stink and are really offensive to have in my office. ...
In my younger/cheaper days, I used to scavenge firewood after the crowds would leave the camping area at the end of the weekend. Generally, this meant grabbing piles of unused firewood from near th...
Freezer bag cooking refers to cooking by boiling water in a pot, add the boiling water to a zip-lock type freezer bag filled with the meal, placing the filled bag in an insulating cozy, and letting...
I don't think of myself as being a paranoid individual, but I am cautious about people I meet when hiking. For example, if I am eating lunch at a site less than a mile from an infrequently used tra...
Short roping is dangerous, but it is also a critical part of guiding. This presentation touches on a lot of the reasons for short roping and risks associated with it. Short roping is claimed to pr...
It depends on the circumstances. When hiking alone, I am always a little suspicious of strangers. I don't think this is that unusual, especially in some of the busier places I visit in the US, as c...
They sell small electric coolers (e.g., this one by Coleman) that run off of battery power (you can swap out your car battery with a marine battery or get a second battery/solar setup). As you are ...
Required techniques vary from area to area and problem to problem, that said I think there are 3 techniques that are universal. This belief stems from my philosophy that the best thing about climbi...
Somewhat motivated by How to progress in rock climbing after grades v4 / 5.11+? I am curious if anyone has tried to document if there are particular grades that climbers plateau on and need more ti...
I like this article on vapor barriers. Your trash bag will act as a very good vapor barrier on the parts of your body that it covers. You are going to need a really large garbage bag, or a hole cut...
Thru-hiking/backpacking an established trail for multiple weeks, do-able in winter The longer hiking trails in ME, NH, and VT, apart from the AT, like the Long Trail and the Metacomet-Monadnoc...
I think the key is to avoid the gunk in the first place, or more accurately the second place. I like the these tape gloves and the advice at the end. That advice is you can shave the back of your h...
I don't think it is great practice, but lots of people top rope off of a single biner attached to the belay loop. The belay loop is plenty strong for this purpose, but the carabiner adds an additio...
