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Articles published at Backpacking Light prior to November 26, 2015.
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Metamorphosis #4: Monocle
It is amazing how removing so much from one's hands puts so much at one's fingertips.
Metamorphosis #3: Walking the Edge
At the onset of my affiliation with Backpacking Light, my base weight stood at a whopping sixty pounds. After several months worth of hand-wringing and basic re-education in the art of backpacking, I'd dropped my base weight to nineteen pounds.
Metamorphosis #2: A Change in Attitude
Compared to the expertise written into surrounding pages, a nineteen-pound base weight must look like an embarrassingly tight pair of pants. With another ten pounds in food and water, my thirty-pound pack still needs heavy trimming.
Metamorphosis #1: Confessions of a Heavyweight Backpacker
At the trailhead, I saddle up: I don't carry my pack. It rides me. My steel-toed boots thunder along the trail, resonating tremors deep into the ground of high country tundra. My shirt clings heavily with perspiration, the soles of my feet cry out for air, and my shoulders ache for reprieve. My name is Nathan Boddy, and I have a backpacking problem.
Backpacking in Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Photo Essay
Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, situated in the southwestern Highlands, is Scotland's first national park, encompassing a beautiful area of mountains, forests, rivers, and lochs surrounding Loch Lomond itself, the largest lake in Britain.
Grand Canyon Rim-2-Rim-2-Rim
While perhaps a touch extreme, running Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim (RRR) is not uncommon within trail running circles. But within hiking circles, this trek does not seem to garner much attention, when there are few trips, mile-for-mile, hour-for-hour, that compare. In one day, you pass through 1.6 billion years of geology (four times) and span the grandest Big Ditch in the world (twice).
The Unbearable Heaviness of Business and the State of Outdoor Retailer
There is a cost of doing business in the outdoor industry, especially as a collective whole. Can social media alleviate some of that cost, or is it simply a mechanism for increasing the clutter of information coming from OR?
Winter in Cairngorms National Park, Scotland
The Cairngorm Plateau consists of bare, stony undulating terrain and can seem benign in clear, summer weather. However it's edged with cliffs and steep slopes, and poor visibility is common as clouds sweep across the slopes. Join Chris Townsend as he crosses the Plateau on a freezing winter day.
Podcast: Alpacka Packraft Safety Design Features
Designer Sheri Tingey talks about the history of safety design in Alpacka packrafts and the latest tweaks she's made to the boats to improve whitewater performance and safety.
Tea House Trekking: Lightweight to Everest Base Camp
Join Ron Rod as he explores Nepal in July: monsoon season.
Autumn in Cairngorms National Park, Scotland
Reminisce about the warm colors of the fall with Chris Townsend's evocative photography.
Dana Parnello on Controlled Product Testing at REI
Dana shares his thoughts on lightweight trends, gear testing, breakthrough products and assorted other topics.
Reflection on the Wild Coast: A Photo Essay
Adventurers Erin McKittrick and Bretwood Higman summarize their 4000-mile trek in photos and prose.
The Journey’s End: Summarizing 4000 Miles Along the Wild Coast (Podcast)
A few weeks after completing their 4000-mile journey by foot, ski and packraft from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands, Erin and Hig share a tale of a destructive bear encounter, their favorite gear, future plans, and why being good at transitions was a vital ingredient to the trip's success.
Mountain Magic on the Pyrenean High Route
Backpacking Light member David McClure's forty-two-day traverse of the French/Spanish border mountains.
Podcast: Carol Crooker Puts Waterproof Footwear to the Allegheny Test
Four footwear systems in as many days: Carol does her best to get cold feet.
Paramo Waterproof Directional Clothing
Waterproof clothing without coatings or membranes: how they do it and how it works.
Podcast: Journey on the Wild Coast – Raising an Adventurer
Erin and Hig's mothers weigh in with childhood anecdotes that give us a glimpse of young explorers in the making.
Wanderlust: Backcountry Meandering with My Family in the Wallowa Mountains
Join Regina WB for her annual family trek to Blue Lake in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, Wallowa Mountains.
State of the Market Report: Single Wall Tents (2008)
Veteran gear editors Chris Townsend and Will Rietveld unlock the mystique of the single wall tent - identifying their advantages and disadvantages, evaluating designs and technologies, listing specifications on the lightest ones available, picking their favorites for a range of applications, and speculating on future trends.
