Search results

I was never one for day paddles. To me, the point is to get out there. If I can't do that, then I'd rather stay home and tend may garden, or play video games.

Interesting. I could make good use out of something like this. I assume that using any kind of flavouring, such as the concentrated juice squeezies, or anything like a dissolving electrolyte tablet would be out of the question, though?

I've actually never heard of these "filter bottles". Can you provide a link?

They do have a bit of a learning curve, and they're not quite fire-and-forget. Backflushing helps immensely as part of a regular maintenance regimen - every second bag of water or so. Not leaving the filter sitting in water but filtering a whole bag into another container first also helps a...

Gravity filter. Even when they get blocked and slow to a drip, once you set it up there's no more effort involved. Just come back half an hour later, and POOF, magic clean water. The only exception these days is that where the water can be particularly silty, I sometimes take a ceramic pump...

Hah. I spent a week in Iqaluit many moons ago, in winter. We needed a lot of light.

The design flaw in the Katadyn system is that the filter sits in water, for hours. This swells the filter fibres, tends to not only restrict flow, but also let in more dirt that then plugs the filter when it dries. The Platypus two bag system, on the other hand, has the filter sitting dry...

A Tale Of Two Cities. I've never read it, don't spoil it. Oddly, I'm a voracious reader of non fiction. Biographies, news, self help books, you name it. But I don't really read much fiction these days. I'm trying to go through a bunch of the classics, the "100 books you need to read before you...

A few years back I planned a trip in Killarney - a place that, for those who don't know, has some of the cleanest water on Earth. There are lakes in that park where (thanks to acid rain) nothing yet lives again. You can see a hundred feet to the bottom in what would otherwise be a tea-stained...

2) I would hope so. My first aid kit contains no shortage of gauze - many of the smaller items are removed to make room for more gauze. Because you'll never need two hundred bandaids of various sizes. If you *NEED* first aid, my thinking is you'll need gauze, and S#!TT0NS of it. The first aid...

Glen, I don't know if you're aware, but those without a Xenforo license cannot read the linked post, even with an account there:

For more luxurious trips we have a pair of Thermarest Mondokings. The stuffsack for them has one of those inflation nozzles built in - the bag you keep them in doubles as the inflation sack, so you're already carrying it. Sometimes I use it, but probably only because I'm a filthy smoker and it...

Paddles. Too much weight to bother with and I kept fighting with people to push off only with the handle end. I used to carry at least four paddles per boat, until I realized we can paddle with our hands and kick if need be. Or if things get really tough, we've trained the dog to tug the boat...

For what it's worth, I too would be willing to financially support this site. Not just because it seems to be a lively place to discuss, but also because the administration is very trasparent, and active. I in no way meant to imply that ads are the ONLY way to sustain a website, just that...

In the IT business they're known as "percussive security". Smash a hard drive with a big enough rock, and you'll defeat the NSA.

Oh wow, I had no idea. Quite impressive. May I eat my words now?

Some years ago I interviewed with VerticalScope for an IT position. Suffice it to say, I'm happy I did not accept the offer. At least at the time, it was a horribly toxic workplace, which I found out later. The main reason was that they had a rather concerning head-in-the-sand approach to a...

I use the same titanium stakes @sweeper posted. It's not just that they're light. They're also indestructible, small (and they nest together too), and easy to pull back up. But yeah, they can be pricey. For car camping I also often use the plastic orange Coleman's stakes...

The method he described was to find the balancing points using the blade of a knife. That way the blade is already exactly where it needs to be to put a mark on the pole. Then you place a sharpie mark where the scratches are. I assume also that sharpie marks will fade when put through a proper...

Interesting trick, but it's basically just making a 100g-200g scale out of a hiking pole, and assumes both that all empty canisters weigh 100g, and that your poles aren't weighed down with dirt or water. I do take hiking poles with me, thanks to an ACL sprain I suffered a few years ago that can...