You Wonder Why We Don’t Have Nice Things
byI sat down exhausted last Tuesday night next to my friends Chris and Forest in front of a granite shelter we’d just built on…
CAMPING
Pooping In The Outdoors: A Flow Chart
byEveryone poops. What to do with it in the out-of-doors can sometimes be confusing. Thanks to this hastily-scrawled, handy flow chart, you can now…
Happy Thanksgiving
byI 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…
The New (Not-Quite-So-Masculine) Mountain Man
byI was trying to start a campfire a couple weekends back and grabbed a fat piece of wood with a crack at one end,…
Sick, Brah: The Ineloquence Of Talking About The Outdoors
byYou, outdoor recreator, are quite probably quite educated: Bachelor’s degree, possibly a master’s degree or Ph.D. You wore a cap and gown and were…
The Best Shoes In Life Are Not Shoes
byI walked onto the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder last Friday and a Denver Voice vendor looked down at my sandals, laughed and said,…
The Rise And Fall Of Macaroni And Cheese
bySometimes I like to fantasize that I have some sort of backcountry suaveness and culinary instinct, and that I will someday take a special…
You Don’t Really Need To ‘Get Away’
byEver fantasized about being a fire lookout, or living in a cabin high in the mountains, or deep in the wilderness somewhere? It’s romantic,…
The Rules For Dating A Dirtbag
byIt’s a singular feeling when you’re 33 and talking to your mother and she says, “You know what I think you should try? Match.com.”…
Do You Love Cars Without That New-Car Smell?
byRemember when you first started climbing, or skiing, or mountain biking, and you went out and bought all the gear, and then you immediately…
Please Don’t Stick Your Hand Into My Bag Of Trail Mix
byHere’s a little tip to curb the spread of disease, illness and other microbial things when you’re in the backcountry with friends: -Brendan
Hey Coffee, I Love You
byWhen you go on a climbing or backpacking trip and someone says, “I’ll bring the coffee,” do you secretly bring your own stash to…
Your Body is a Furnace, Not a Temple: Trashy, Yet Easy Camping Recipes
byCity of Rocks, Idaho, early August 2011: Two men in their late 20s/early 30s sit at a picnic table in the shadow of the…
How to Shit in the Woods, and How Not To
byIt was the night before my 5-day backpacking trip with five tough teenagers from East Palo Alto when someone asked about toilet paper, and…
You don’t have to clip that to the outside of your backpack
byI was renting this guy a backpack and 3-person backpacking tent when I worked at an REI store several years ago, and he and…
Buy the newest, lightest, shiniest gear today or you could die out there
byThere’s a single paragraph in Yvon Chouinard’s Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of A Reluctant Businessman in which he talks about…