Loading a kayak on a car roof alone is one of those paddling skills nobody teaches you until you're standing in a parking lot, gripping a 60-pound boat, and wondering how it ever gets up there. I've been there — arms burning, kayak sliding off the rear bar, straps tangled in the wrong order. After […]

When the chairlift ride freezes your nose hairs and the trail map sticks to your glove, you need more than a heavy jacket. You need a layering system. After twenty seasons of skiing in everything from damp coastal storms to dry -25F mornings, our team has learned that staying warm in extreme cold is less […]

I learned how to layer a sleeping system for extreme cold the hard way - waking at 3 a.m. on a frozen snowfield in the Wind Rivers with a hot torso and ice-cold feet, even though my bag was rated to zero. The bag was fine. The problem sat underneath me: a summer sleeping pad […]

If you have ever lost a lure to a wind knot, fought a bird's nest five casts into a fresh spool, or watched a trophy bass snap your line at the rod tip and swim off with a $20 plug, you already know what line twist costs. I've been fishing long enough to have done […]

Here's the stat that changed how I camp in winter: the average person exhales about one liter of water overnight. That's a full soda bottle of moisture pumped into your tent while you sleep, and when it hits a cold tent wall, it freezes into the frost that shakes down your neck at 2 a.m. […]

To prevent reel corrosion in saltwater, rinse the reel with fresh water within an hour of leaving the water, dry it completely with compressed air and a microfiber cloth, apply a marine-grade corrosion inhibitor such as CorrosionX or Boeshield T-9, then store it in a dry, covered place. A consistent five-minute post-trip routine stops chloride-ion […]

There's a sinking feeling every angler and duck hunter knows: that cold-water seeping into your bootie mid-crossing, the slow cold creep up your shin, the moment you realize your waders are leaking again. I have lived through it on a Montana freestone in October, on a Texas marsh in January, and on more Pennsylvania trout […]

If you've ever pushed off from shore and felt that wobble under your seat, you're not alone. I've spent the last decade coaching new paddlers, and I can tell you this: most kayak tips are not caused by the boat. They're caused by the body inside it. Learning how to prevent a kayak from tipping […]

I learned the hard way how to protect a camera while kayaking. Three years ago I took a surf-zone tumble in my sea kayak with a full-frame mirrorless body and a 70-200mm lens tucked in a regular zippered camera bag. That bag was supposed to be water-resistant. The Pacific Ocean disagreed. Eight hundred dollars of […]

How to purify water while backpacking is the question that keeps first-time backpackers up at night, and for good reason. I've been treating backcountry water on trips from the Sierras to the Wind River Range for over a decade, and I've seen a well-prepared friend still spend three days hugging his water bottle after skipping […]