Gear
Field tests, not unboxings. Everything here has been carried, dropped, soaked and repaired before we wrote a word.
Gear · Season Notes
The Greasy Season: What's Quietly Changing Under Your Feet This Fall
The first cold mornings in the White Mountains sort the trailhead crowd into those who packed for summer and those who read the season right — and the year's real shifts in trail footwear are all about the treacherous stuff underfoot.
Gear · Dispatch
Mend and Make Do: A Night at the Gear Repair Table
In a fire hall in Marquette, Michigan, a room full of volunteers proves the thing the industry would rather you didn't know: almost nothing you own is actually dead.
Gear · Guide
The Sixty-Liter Question: How to Buy a Pack Without Being Sold One
The 55-to-65-liter pack is the one bag that covers most of your trips — and choosing well comes down to a few unglamorous truths about your hips, most of which the feature list exists to distract you from.
Gear · Explainer
Wetting Out: The Short, Rented Life of a Water-Repellent Shell
Your rain jacket isn't leaking when it goes cold and clammy on the ridge — it's doing something stranger, and the microscopic coating that failed was never built to last the season.