Posts by Dakatine
Make a big fire. This may sound silly and couterintuitive, but the reason is pretty simple. If you make a small fire you need to put your stuff pretty close to it to have any chance of drying it i...
I thing this is too broad and too personal to get a definitive answer. Mine is: go try out for yourself as much as you can in a safe environment. Experiment with different setups as much as you c...
I am trying to decipher a text from this page on rope solo leading: The other way you can tie in is to create a higher tie in point between your harness and chest harness, meaning you have less...
Short answer: If the tree is a living and thick one, then it was OK. That being said, there are several reasons you should had done a proper anchor with multiple points (trees, in this case) and e...
I am new to aid climbing, still practicing on easy and short walls. I am getting the feeling that if you use adjustable daisies you don't need a fifi hook anymore, but I could be wrong and miss som...
Climbing ropes are meant to hold falls, and to absorb the shock of the fall itself through stretching (they can stretch up to 30% of their length during a severe fall so to reduce the impact force ...
My down sleeping bag smelled like a wet dog after a damp night out. By reading this forum thread. I realized that it probably didn't dry enough after the trip. So I let it out at the air, and the ...
I have plenty of gear and I live in a small apartment. I am planning to buy an outdoor closet to put on the balcony to get some extra space. Here's a sample to show you how it would be like. I ...
Yes, there is an EN standard that regulates how crampons should behave to get the EN certification. Unfortunately the guide is not available for free, as far as I know. The UIAA reccomendations mo...
I am a backcountry skier/snowshoes hiker and I finally want to do an overnight experience in the Alps. The Simplon Dorf area would be ideal (for I can access it quite easily), but any southern Sw...
I wouldn't label this as a "myth" tout court because it may depend on the very single piece of gear, I mean it's material, design, and manufacturing. While one carabiner may not suffer from being d...
OK, I finally tried the setup inspired by this site, which can be fully closed by pegging the sides closer to the middle, and pegging it directly on the ground on the opposite side of the entrance....
Assuming you're reapplying the screen often (sweat washes it away) and it's a quality one, then it would do for what matters sun protection (although you should still properly cover your head with ...
While I am moving more and more towards an ultralight approach to the outdoors, I am discovering that carrying less doesn't only lighten the load on your body; it also puts you closer to the enviro...
I emailed Feathered Friends and PHD about this issue. I only got a reply from FF so far: A compression bag greatly reduces the size of a sleeping bag. There is no limitation to compressing do...
Most sleeping bags have a rating with several temperatures, one for the upper temperature limit, one for the average woman to sleep in a comfortable position ("Comfort"), one third for an average m...
I am searching for a sleeping bag that would allow me to comfortably sleep in the snow eventually at a significant altitude (2800 meters - 9000+ feet), but also (and likely most often) at lower alt...
You can reduce or avoid knee pain by knowing how to descend properly. The correct way to hike downhill is not to move your front foot forward and simultaneously load it with your weight at the sa...
Tyvek is labeled as "water resistant" and not "water proof", but I'd really love to know how much is the fabric resistant to water in practice. Some people built tarps or even tents out of it, but...
It is well known that a down sleeping bag should be stored as open as possible when not in use, but that can be squeezed and compressed to a very small fraction of its size when necessary (that fea...
Most (if not all) the big rock climbing brands do manufacture their gear in China - carabiners, cams, slings, whatever. Now, I stumbled on this: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/Climbings/14...
I am practicing falls with a self belay device indoors and I am tying the rope to the anchors so to fall on a single strand of rope as I would in real life. I used the figure eight on a bight but ...
Assuming it's very impractical to get down to reach the tree line; and that the wind is changing direction very often - so a setup with several sides closed would be preferred - what would be a goo...
I noticed that if I collect water from a stream dense of small debris/thin mud, if I keep the water bottle close to the surface, while it takes a longer time to fill the bottle, the water is cleane...
Unfortunately there isn't much you can do if your rain jacket is not breathable. My recommendation is to replace your rain jacket with a poncho, which may be very cheap - while a highly breathable ...
