“Bushwhacking is like my third favorite thing to do in the outdoors, behind crotch-deep postholing and getting hit in the head by falling rocks,” I said, shoulder-deep in desert foliage, hands raised like a man fending off a swarm of bees, walking forward in sloppy, almost-balanced steps. I am not a fan of bushwhacking, but [...]

I haven’t had a “proper” Thanksgiving dinner since 2002, somehow managing to be anywhere but watching football and eating an oven-cooked turkey. When people say “Thanksgiving,” I think of being somewhere in the desert with two of my closest friends, Nick and Jayson. Three out of the last four years, the three of us have [...]

Maybe you’ve heard this one: Ski resort patron approaches lift ticket kiosk on Powder Day of the Century and demands a refund for his/her lift ticket, citing “too much snow.” Or the guy who wants to return a 20-year-old headlamp to a store because it has a “lifetime warranty,” which he assumes means his lifetime, [...]

I walked onto the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder last Friday and a Denver Voice vendor looked down at my sandals, laughed and said, “Oh man, you must be from Colorado.” Hey, it was October 5th, far from winter, and it was still 35 degrees outside. Lots of people talk about fall being their favorite [...]

As the USA Pro Cycling Challenge was working its way around Colorado and into the Front Range in August, I saw this Facebook status on my friend Rebecca’s page: I thought, Hell No that’s not bad. And kind of a good question. A long time ago, after two years pouring drinks in a sports bar, [...]

My friend Jesse was about five miles east of Dighton, Kansas, a little over 200 miles from the start of his 500-mile bike ride from Wichita to Manitou Springs, Colorado, when the skewer on his bike trailer broke. The acorn nut holding the end opposite the quick release lever had flown somewhere onto the shoulder [...]

In a conversation a few weeks ago, a climber friend of mine described herself as “not super-girly.” Her expanded definition of that was: I like cute clothes as much as the next girl, but I’d rather spend my money on new rock shoes, or spend my time hiking somewhere rad to go climbing … so [...]

I showed up to meet my friend Becca at the bouldering gym in Seattle on a Monday afternoon. When we discussed what time to meet, she said something about needing an hour’s notice with the baby and all. I figured she meant that she had to arrange things so her husband could watch the baby [...]

Here’s a little tip to curb the spread of disease, illness and other microbial things when you’re in the backcountry with friends: -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you by Outdoor Research.

  Christmas Eve, 2011, I am going to throw up on a spin class bicycle. Sweat is raining off my temples and pooling on the floor beneath my bike. This is my first spin class ever. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is playing, and is now the soundtrack in my evolving [...]

  For years, I have known to pee on rocks at high altitudes because mountain goats crave salt, and if you pee on plants, mountain goats will eat them until they’re gone. I have seen goats milling around the restrooms at Summit Lake on Colorado’s Mount Evans, kind of bashfully but definitely intently making their [...]

GoLite makes a lot of things — ultralight backpacking gear, trail running gear and apparel, outdoor performance clothing, even luggage. One of the things they probably don’t focus on is rock climbing. But I’m going to tell you that one of their packs is great, not for ultralight backpacking, as advertised, but for alpine rock [...]

I have learned many things from my friend Lee: How to place gear on trad routes, how to suffer with enthusiasm, how to talk to myself while on the sharp end of the rope. Other things are more simple. Like how to keep critters from eating the zippers off my climbing pack. Here on the [...]

I was renting this guy a backpack and 3-person backpacking tent when I worked at an REI store several years ago, and he and I had the following conversation, as he was holding the tent bag in his hand: Guy: I bet I could just strap the tent on the back of the backpack here. [...]

Petzl designed the Ultra Wide headlamp for “activities like caving.” I’m not a caver, but I’ll tell you what this headlamp is awesome for: Night biking. Especially night mountain biking. Also night hiking and scrambling, or any night activity that would be more comfortable with a huge box of light projected in front of you. [...]

  There’s a single paragraph in Yvon Chouinard’s Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of A Reluctant Businessman in which he talks about solo expedition kayaker (and grandmother) Audrey Sutherland, who at that time had paddled more than 8,000 miles around the world. One of the quotes attributed to Sutherland is one of the [...]

  I think the first time I heard anything about Chesler Park, I was being a non-productive REI employee and flipping through a copy of Peter Potterfield’s Classic Hikes of the World at the Paradise Valley store in Phoenix. A couple months later, I would move from Phoenix to Denver, on the way stopping at [...]

The average human poop event weighs between 7.3 and 9.3 ounces, according to an Iranian study of 100 male and female subjects. I only looked this up because I think no one should buy a $7,000 carbon-fiber bicycle, since the only people who arguably “need” a bicycle that expensive already get them for free and [...]

This interview was originally supposed to appear on Spadout.com’s Gear Talk before it stopped publishing Jan. 31. I still wanted to share it here, since Mile High Mountaineering is one of the few outdoor gear companies to call Denver home, and I’m excited to see their stuff, which will be available at retailers on March [...]

I rode my bike across the country last year, carrying three free water bottles from my pal Scott’s bike shop, Salvagetti Bicycle Workshop. I wasn’t really convinced there was much difference in any water bottle I owned — basically they all hold water and allow me to pour it into my mouth at some point. [...]

I had this old, beat-up REI Mistral soft shell for 4 years, and finally, when the cuffs started fraying so badly that particles of dirt, rocks, and Doritos would get into the sleeves, I started looking to replace it. My pal Chris, who won’t buy anything without a hood — if Patagonia made a pair [...]

  I’ve been lucky enough to have RMNP in my backyard for the past 5 ½ years. The opportunities to hike, backpack, camp, snowshoe, ski and climb have kept me as excited about it today as I was during my first visit as an adult back in 2005. I’ve spent lots of time in my [...]