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For my recent Boundary Waters trip, I decided that I was going to bring food for the Boundary Waters that met specific criteria: easy to make, no cooking for breakfast or lunch, no prep time for any food between breakfast and dinner, could be eaten on the move, and boil-only dinners. I wanted each day of food to weigh about 1.5 pounds and have around 2,400 calories per day. Planning this way kept my cook kit for this Boundary Waters trip simple. To meet my criteria, I decided on freeze dried or dehydrated food that could be rehydrated in the bag for dinner. I made homemade granola for breakfast. During…

This is all the miscellaneous gear that I hauled with me on my recent BWCAW canoe trip. After this post, I’ll cover the food that I brought with me — it was the best food that I’ve carried on a trip and I’ll be carrying similar in the future. For this post, I’ll just post the list and put my thoughts or future changes in the righthand column. I could have easily saves a pound or so if I had done this list before the trip. I would have probably saved near 18 ounces with a few changes. Navigation NatGeo BWCAW Waterproof Map 3.3 You get 1/2 of the BWCAW…

Here are my choices for a tent, sleeping bag and portage pack for the Boundary Waters trip, specifically my last Boundary Waters trip. The trip followed a ~160 mile, ~30 miles of portages route from 1879. You can read my previous articles: Lightweight Camping Cook Set for Canoeing and Kayaking and Clothing for the Boundary Waters 2021 about those two topics. This is perhaps the easiest category for me to write about. My pack and bedroom gear is the most refined gear that I own. I’ve been using pretty much the same for years. On this trip, I did change it up just a bit. Portage Pack for the Boundary…

This is the second post detailing the gear I brought on my recent ~160 mile trip in the Boundary Waters. During the trip, I followed a route from 1879 that had approximately 30 miles of portages. On the trip, the temp swung wildly from over 90°F to mid or low 20°s. I had prepared for normal temps, but brought extra clothing because I was trying new gear and wasn’t sure how it would work. In retrospect, had I known the temps would swing like that, I would have packed differently. Here’s my 2021 clothing for the Boundary Waters list. Also, I should have added everything up ahead of time, but…

For me, planning meals for a trip feels like drudgery. I’ve often wished I could just farm out the work and end up with a wide variety of good and easy-to-make food. I lucked out when asked to do a RightOnTrek review. Adventure Meals by RightOnTrek does exactly what I was looking for. Via their website, you can quickly get a custom meal plan for your next trip. How does RightOnTrek Work? RightOnTrek’s website feels easy to use. Once you get into the meal planning page, it presents a number of options for you to pick from. The first choice you have to make is the number of days and…

Every spring as the lakes melt and people head out onto lakes, there are accidents involving cold water paddling. Many of the fatalities involve paddlers not wearing life jackets or using immersion gear, such as wetsuits or drysuits. Each spring there also seems to be discussion about whether or not you should wear a life jacket under a coat or under clothing. Because removing a life jacket is more difficult than putting a coat over the jacket, some paddlers wear their coats over their life jackets. That’s not the correct way to use a life jacket. To get a direct answer to the question, I reached out to the United…

I’ve recently had the opportunity to do an Over Easy Breakfast Bars Review [Buy the bars here] with several boxes of bars sent by the company. The company had no expectation of a review, and they didn’t ask for anything in exchange for this review. But, they gave me the bars for free. I hadn’t heard of Over Easy before, and if you haven’t, I wouldn’t be surprised. It seems to be a small company devoted completely to producing breakfast bars. Real Food Ingredients Over Easy breakfast bars come in four flavors: Peanut Butter, Apple Cinnamon, Banana Nut, and Vanilla Matcha. I tried the first three, which were the original…

This weekend is virtual Canoecopia. Usually, this in-person event is the largest consumer paddlesports event in the world. Each March people from all over the world descend on Madison, WI for a weekend of vendors, gear and speakers. There are usually 6 to 10 speakers speaking each hour of the weekend. It’s a wild event. This year, due to the pandemic, the event is going online using the Whova application and Zoom. Many presentations are pre-recorded, but some speakers will be presenting live. I’ll be one of the live presenters given a sweet (the best, really, I’m not kidding. Okay, I’m kidding a little) presentation on Canoe and Kayak Photography…

Recently, I took Sans Meal Bar up on an offer to pay $3 in shipping and get two of their meal bars for free. I figured what-the-heck because I’ve been looking for a bar that could be a meal. If it was good, it might work on some of my paddling trips as a good replacement for crackers, cheese and summer sausage or crackers and peanut butter and jelly or wraps and tuna. While, I do like variety on a trip, it wouldn’t bother me to not have that variety for simplicity. Also, it’s seemed like a good and inexpensive way to add a Sans Meal Bar review to PaddlingLight.…

This is an annual housekeeping post to inform loyal readers, subscribers and readers who get notifications about the 2021 plan for PaddlingLight. First, I’m personally embarking what I’m calling the year of lightness. Each day, I’m getting rid of something. It’s been really fun for the last couple of weeks finding and either selling, donating or throwing an item a day. While not really part of that (but inspired by it), I’ve deleted PaddlinghLight’s social media pages. I looked at the traffic coming to this website from the social media accounts and decided it wasn’t worth trying to maintain or develop the social media pages. The biggest downside to doing…