Posts by Chris H
Clear repair tape over the top of a good marker pen will protect it indefinitely up to hand washing (a dishwasher will soften the glue of some tapes). Make sure to wrap the tape right round so it s...
I have a mapcase made of clear plastic (PVC I think). It has a roll top held shut with velcro. Both sides of the velcro were attached by some sort of welding process but one of them has completel...
I doubt it's possible to get a sensible answer with realistic equipment, as removing evaporation will make you sweat more. So weighing your clothes while tightly sealed would give an overestimate. ...
Bags that are long enough and sturdy enough to take a hip belt probably already have them. The belt needs to couple well to the frame/load if it's going to take any weight so you need more than jus...
Grey squirrels make a surprising range of sounds, including quite a loud one sometimes called barking, but repetitive and rather like a cackling at times. This video collects a few of them; you mig...
Keeping things against the floor with insulation on top is often the best approach for keeping them cool. This could be under the front seats or in the spare wheel compartment, but many modern cars...
A clean sock will protect them from scratches with no need for fasteners and it takes a fair bit of pressure or impact to actually damage glasses (bending them slightly is another matter). Once wra...
Until you got to "shorts and T shirt" I'd have said a waterproof belt bag. I've used them kayaking (on the rare occasions when it's warm enough to go without a drysuit or at least dry-cag in the U...
Extra air works if the reason it feels too hard is that you're compressing the filling (these mats have an open, springy foam inside). But of course there's a point where adding air makes it firmer...
When it comes to printing, there are printable vinyls for both laser and inkjet printers. Some inkjet inks run badly in the wet whatever the substrate, while others show little or no deterioration....
For one day a phone will do it. Most android phones allow GPS in flight mode and there are plenty of apps that will log tracks offline (I use one called IPbike as a bike computer with data and WiFi...
I spent much of today cycling around quiet country lanes in South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Oxfordshire, and saw at least 6 dead badgers on the road. I saw a few others earlier in the week on ...
I suggest using both the car and the tent together. A car will lose heat fastest through the windows, so use the tent to cover them (and the top). The windows are a thin single layer of glass, wh...
I suggest the first step is to go for the light, grabbable stuff - plastic bottles for example. The contents, if any, can be poured onto the ground. This assumes your roadside example, which is lik...
I have a rather nice 1-2 person hiking tent from over 20 years ago. It's still made, with very few changes, and is a double wall design that pitches in one go. I thought it was nylon but the curren...
There are lots of good reasons to reject such proposals, and these would have stopped them being implemented. Some examples: Deliberate injury - would the emergency services attend if someone was...
Seal them away (in transit and at work - store them somewhere dry and well ventilated at home). You could use a dry bag sold for kayaking etc. Small ones are cheap on ebay but I've linked to some...
Not inside anything you're in. A smouldering fire is pretty much the worst thing for generating carbon monoxide. That will poison you. I'd include the boot of a saloon car (trunk of a sedan?) as ...
I can't tell from the picture whether this would work with that pack, but with some of mine I run the hip belt round the pack rather than round me, before fastening it round the back. If you're wor...
It's perfectly possible for both to be true: it moistened your mouth but doesn't help with hydration The act of chewing stimulates saliva production, so your mouth is less dry. But that wastes a li...
Almost all common fuels produce water when burnt, as they're made up of hydrocarbons. That is to say the hydrogen in them combines with oxygen to form water. The extreme example is methane, which h...
Stews based on fresh vegetables and pulses (dried or tinned) are as healthy as you like and can be made from only shelf-stable ingredients. With the addition of potatoes or pearl barley you can coo...
A kayak that can handle rocky class 2 rapids can handle inshore waters in benign conditions, or surf a little. Whether it's good for fishing is another matter; for that I'm used to seeing sit-on-t...
You're unlikely to have to eat all your emergency rations in adverse conditions, so apart from a variety of bars I suggest : Nuts. I'm quite partial to chilli peanuts, toasted corn kernels and th...
In British English there's no doubt. Sources including the prestigious Royal Society for the Protection of Birds use Canada Goose every time (often abbreviated to Canada in the field) . But bird n...
