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Sawyer Bug Spray Review: Better than DEET?
What a year to test out a new bug spray and do a Sawyer Bug Spray review. This year has been buggy. I live in northern Minnesota where the state bird is the mosquito and where black flies like to rip into your flesh to drink of your blood — like vampires. Seriously. We have no-see-ums as well as biting flies of all varieties. In a normal year, it’s hard to mow the lawn for about a week or so, because you’ll have 1,000 bugs swarming around you. This year, it was a full month of hard lawn mowing. At points, you didn’t want to be outside. We have a…
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What I Carry on my Life Vest for Kayaking
What you carry on your life vest for kayaking varies based on personal choice and what you use your vest for. But, many beginners or intermediate paddlers skip carrying gear on their vest in favor of throwing it into a day hatch. That can be a bad choice. As the Coast Guard says, “If it isn’t on you, you don’t have it.” As an example of what to carry, I present to you what I carry on my life vest for kayaking. Vest fit is personal, but also a bit of a compromise with features. The vest that fit me best only had one tight pocket and made it impossible…
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Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow Review
Getting the comfort of your bed at home when in a tent feels challenging. There’s an entire industry behind making a bed in a tent comfortable. It seems like you can check off two items out of this list: comfortable, lightweight, inexpensive and durable. Enter the Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow. I bought one several years ago and have been using it since then. This is my quick Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow review (what can you say about a pillow). How many items will it check off? Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow Review Description The Hyperlite Mountain Gear Stuff Sack Pillow is designed to be stuffed…
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Free Boundary Waters Maps You Can Print at Home
File this under really useful and holy cow! Peter Wagner did the canoe world a huge service. He used Caltopo and GPX data compiled by forum members of the BWCA.com to make free Boundary Waters maps. You can download the maps and print at home. He made modifications to that data set to show campsites, portages, fire perimeters and Primitive Management Areas. But, he says not everything has been verified. The maps look very nice. I downloaded a few and even though he states that campsite and portage data hasn’t been verified, everything was correct on the maps that I examined. After being really impressed by his project, I pestered…
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What to do about paddling niche websites…
I’ve devoted much of my life to paddling. Started when I was a kid, guided sea kayaking, had a sea kayak guiding business, sold paddlesports equipment at the retail level, was an ACA L4 Open Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor, been a columnist for print paddling magazines, published my photos in a canoe load of magazines and calendars, and have been blogging on this website for over 15 years (it used to be called Nesmuking). During my time blogging, I’ve witnessed the death of great paddling websites and blogs and the rise of crappy affiliate marketing niche websites. And crappy niche sites are getting top results in searches and giving people…
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The Explorer vs. Tempest
Back in 2013, I asked about switching from an Explorer to a Tempest on an online forum. I loved the Explorer, but I knew exactly what I didn’t lov about it. And, I was hoping to find a sea kayak that was better than the Explorer but still felt Explorer-ish. I tried several boats and liked the Vaag and Tempest best. The Vaag didn’t click with me with its stability profile and the Tempest clicked with me. I eventually bought a Tempest to use in my sea kayaking business (read: Why I Got Out of the Sea Kayak Guiding Business). But, found that after paddling it daily for much of…
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How to Replace Kayak Deck Lines
This topic may seem like a nobrainer, but over and over I’ve seen this done incorrectly. So, while it may seem like a topic that doesn’t need explaining — after all, how hard is it to cut off the old deck line and put in new line — I’m going to tell you how to replace kayak deck lines the correct way. How often do I replace the deck lines? Part of your preventive maintenance schedule should be replacing your kayak’s deck line. When you notice that the line looks faded, it’s time to replace it. Also watch for fraying along the line, especially at each of the fittings. Or,…
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Crackpot Kayak Dude
Every now and then some crackpot contacts me, and it irritates me enough to post the conversation. I get a ton of these types of emails and sometimes share them on my private FB profile, because they are humorous. But a few deserve to see the light of day. Here’s one of them. I have to wonder if it is because I give away drawings of kayaks for free on this website. Maybe I need to raise the price to $5 or $10 minimum for any drawings. Crackpot Kayaker: Hello !! I just tried to answer your questions about why you do not receive more pictures , answers or contacts…
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The First Roll Expedition
For Immediate Release: 4/1/2019 Grand Marais, Minnesota: PaddlingLight’s publisher and primary author Bryan Hansel is excited to announce a new world record attempt and a new expedition. Over the next year, he will attempt to roll his kayak in a new pool every day. Not only will the pools be different, but each pool will be newly constructed and have never had a kayak roll in it. “I’m excited about this expedition,” said Hansel. “Each day, I’ll explore a new pool with a roll and discover what it is like to roll in that pool. To me kayaking is about discovery and I’m looking forward to this expedition of discovery.”…
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NRS Boundary Boot Review
If there’s one thing about early season paddling it is this: your feet get cold. This is especially true if you have the wrong gear and keep sticking your feet into icy water. Over the years, I’ve tried different methods of keeping my feet warm and have settled on using a dry suit, warm socks and the NRS Boundary Boot, which is a classic piece from NRS. Every year, I think about writing a review for these shoes, but never get around to doing it. So here’s my NRS Boundary Boot review. The way that NRS describes the NRS Boundary Boot makes you think it is a shoe designed for…
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Canoecopia 2019 Trip Report Part 2
I forgot to include several products that I saw at the Canoecopia 2019 show in my last Canoecopia Trip Report. I shot these products on my phone instead of my real camera and didn’t realize it until today. These two products surprised me more than any other at the show. The first is the Kitigan Cross Canoe. It’s like a combination of a stand-up paddleboard, canoe and a sit-on-top kayak. You can walk on the deck, move seats around, stand up, carry gear, fish or even do yoga. It has hatches for dry storage. I has a retractable skeg. If it feels as stable on the water as a stand-up…
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Canoecopia 2019 Trip Report
Last weekend, I attended Canoecopia in Madison, Wisconsin. It’s the world’s largest paddlesports expo. I gave a couple of presentations. One on paddling the Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande River and the other on Photographing Seascapes. When I wasn’t giving presentations, I was in the Northstar Canoe booth helping out as a Northstar sponsored paddler. I did manage to walk part of the show, but not the entire show. When you know so many people in the industry, it is hard to make it from one side of the show to the other and up and down all the isles quickly. I wish I had gotten to spend a…
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Totally Lame GoPro: Setting a Kayaker on Fire
Someone posted the below video to my social media feeds today and made the comment, “There are thousands of good reasons and good ways to paddle, this is not one of them.” The title for the video was, GoPro: The Kayak Fire Fall with Rafa Ortiz. With a clickbaity title like that, how could I not click on the link and see what GoPro was doing now? My first thought when I started the video was, I wonder if they found a natural phenomenon like Yosemite’s Firefall. When the setting sun hits Horsetail Falls exactly right in the month of February, it lights up like a burning stream of fire.…
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Minnesota Border Route Challenges
The Border Route is a well-established 260-mile classic canoe route from International Falls to Lake Superior, following the international boundary between Minnesota and Ontario. The western half consists mainly of large open lakes, including Rainy, Kabetogama, and Namakan Lakes in Voyageur’s National Park and Lac LaCroix, Crooked, and Basswood Lakes in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA). The eastern half consists of numerous pristine wilderness lakes and streams, connected by frequent short portages and brimming with history from the fur trade era. Most paddlers complete the route from west to east, hoping for tailwinds and a light-weight food pack by the end when they reach the historic 8.5-mile Grand Portage…
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Combat Wipe Review
In the backcountry, you get dirty by the end of a long day of paddling and sweating in your drysuit or under your life vest. Before clawing your way into a sleeping bag, it’s nice to feel clean. While we are around water when paddling, sometimes the water is too cold to swim in or too salty or dirty. In cases like that, I like to take a sponge bath or use a wet wipe. I recently had an opportunity to review Combat Wipes, a type of wet wipes designed for the outdoors. Combat Wipes are a 100% bio-degradable wet wipes. They measure approximately 7 by 8 inches. The samples…
