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GearPods Shelter Kit Review
GearPods, a company based out of Polson, Montana, manufactures “modular, lightweight adventure and survival gear to help the outdoor enthusiast to prepare for the unexpected.” Their gear systems combine interconnecting, waterproof containers with pre-built survival kits. Users combine any number of containers and gear to arrive at a customized kit, something like my emergency ditch kit. I’m currently testing out GearPods Wilderness system, which includes first-aid, survival gear, a lightweight stove, and the GearPods Shelter. Because the system is modular, I’m reviewing each component separately. I’ll wrap-up the reviews in a final overview and opinion of the products with a separate post. Because, I travel in lightweight style, I prefer…
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Review: Jetboil Stove
Jetboil’s Personal Cooking System, now called the Flash Cooking System, includes a compact stove, windscreen, bowl and pot. When combined with a 100-gram fuel canister, the components create a small cooking system for one person. Jetboil designed the stove and fuel canister to perfectly nest into the pot. This creates a system that when packed is about the size of a Nalgene bottle. The compact nature of the stove drew me to it, and about a year ago, I received one from Jetboil to use on an expedition. Over the course of a year, I’ve used the stove for over 50 days, and feel confident in reviewing it. Using a…
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Tarptent Double Rainbow Review
Tarptent’s Double Rainbow, introduced in 2006, received consistently good reviews on the Internet, so late in 2007, I decided to purchase one. During 2008, I used the tent exclusively. This tent has some good and bad points. Initial Thoughts Upon Receiving the Tarptent When I decided to purchase the Double Rainbow, I noticed a waiting list, so I exchanged emails with Henry Shires, the owner of Tarptent. He quickly answered all the email I sent to him before the purchase, so I made the assumption that the customer service would be quite good. Settled on a long wait, somehow my Double Rainbow showed up at the door a little earlier…
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A Paddle with a Twist: Making a Feathered Kayak Paddle
The main problem homebuilders face when trying to build a feathered kayak paddle is how to make the feather. Most builders either buy an adjustable ferrule that allows several different angles of feathering for the paddle or they build a scarfing jig that allows them to cut the shaft at an angle to give the proper feather and later they glue the two pieces together. The third method, which is the one that I like, involves twisting a multiple laminates to the feathered angle and holding them in place on a building form while the glue dries. This article describes the third method. Choosing Materials Materials Needed: The laminates for…
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Review: Orikaso Fold Flat Bowl
A review of an innovative new product designed to help save weight in the kitchen, a place where saving weight is needed.
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Review: Moleskine
These lightweight high quality notebooks and cahiers are about the best that money can buy and perfect for keeping a journal on while on a trip.
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Review Terramar Transport Micro-Mesh T-Shirt
A review of one of the best T-shirts in the world. The Terramar Transport Micro-Mesh T-Shirt is reviewed.
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Book Reviews
Jacobson, Expedition Canoeing. Connecticut, The Globe Pequot Press, 2001. Cliff Jacobson lays down the law of canoeing big and small rivers of the Canadian North. He covers details such as researching, picking a canoe, picking gear, navigation, cooking, hazards and rescue, and much more. Jacobson also includes other great Canadian explorers as additional voices to enhance his book. You’ll here from such greats as Verlen Kruger, Bob O’Hara, and many others. If you buy one book on how to canoe, this should be it. Get the book at Amazon here. Excerpt: page 53: “Some people are turned on by beautiful cars. With me, it’s canoes. So it was natural that…
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Bending Branches Viper Review
A review of the Bending Branches Viper prototype paddle.
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Eezycut Trilobite Knife First Look
The Eezycut Trilobite Knife is an effective, easy-to-use tool for cutting ropes and webbing, offering safety and versatility.
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KÜHL’s The One: Best Jacket for Canoeing?
I find KÜHL The One jacket incredibly versatile, comfortable, and well-insulated, suitable for many activities and weather conditions, and highly breathable.
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Guide to Staking Out Tents on Rocky Ground
Camping on rocky ground is possible with the right preparation. Use durable cord for the stake out points and utilize rocks for secure tent staking.
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Sea Kayaking Safety in Photos
Practitioners of SEA KAYAKING are a bunch of safety-conscious hoopy froods. We sass this because sea kayakers always talk about safety. For example, “You just posted that video of the place I paddle. The video only showed calm water, but it gets crazy there. You should have introduced the video with a 15 minute safety talk about the dangers of paddling there when it gets crazy.” Sea kayakers have conversations that stretch out into 100s of comments about how one advertisement showing calm water might lead someone to buy a recreational kayak and go paddling in 10-foot waves. They debate the merits of self-rescues and then they debate them again. Sea kayakers come up with…
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2024 PaddlingLight Update
It’s 2024 and PaddlingLight is still kicking away. It’s been 20 years of blogging about paddling on PaddlingLight and before that Nessmuking and before that on a different website. It’s hard to believe, but this is one of the longest lasting blogs about paddling on the internet. I’m almost a grey beard now, so I should get really good at rolling my sea kayak soon. Anyway, I have thoughts… Blogging over Marketing As I’ve expressed before, I think that social media ended up wrecking the golden age of blogging. There used to be a bunch of different paddling blogs bouncing ideas off of each other. Now, it’s just a few…
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Canoe and Kayak Building Resources
Building resources for wooden canoe and kayak homebuilders.
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