stg-sectionhikercom-buttons.kinsta.cloud Backpacking Gear Reviews and FAQs

I backpacked the northermost section of Vermont’s Long Trail during Hurricane Ike in 2008. I didn’t realize that I was hiking through a hurricane at the time, since that kind of weather is the norm on the Long Trail not the exception.  It was only when I’d finished my section hike, that I learned that Hurricane Ike had passed overhead. …

“Did you get any bites?”, I asked my fishing and bikepacking buddy Ken. “Yeah, mosquito bites,” he replied. We were bikepacking in northern New Hampshire just a few miles south of the US/Canadian Border in an area called the Republic of Indian Stream. Largely owned by lumber companies, it’s crisscrossed by hundreds of miles of gravel logging roads that are …

Owl’s Head Mountain is one of the most remote 4000-footers in the White Mountains, deep in the heart of the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Feeling in need of a long hike, I decided to climb it but to take a roundabout route to get there, looping around the peak’s north end to hike the “notorious” north section of the Lincoln Brook Trail. …

A lot of us pride ourselves on having a lightweight backpacking gear list coupled and the advanced hiking skills that make it possible to replace extra gear with experience and know-how. But how far are you willing to push the gear vs. know-how trade-off? Would you be willing to bring a lightweight saw and a more robust knife on your …