7 Best Ways to Make Coffee in the Backcountry
Whether you prefer the pour-over or the French press, these are our favorite tools of the trade.
How to Wash Dishes While Camping in the Backcountry
These Leave No Trace principles should guide you when you’re on dish duty.
Best Camping Knot: How to Tie the Taut-Line Hitch Knot
It’s easier than you think.
Tips for Weekend Bike Touring + 2 Recipes
You don’t have to go far to escape. Last-minute trips can be just as rewarding if done right.
Living Large—The Habiscape™ Family Camping Tent
I blinked my eyes open on a chilly morning in Colorado and peered out of my sleeping bag. The tent walls sloped high up above us, a small palace to temporarily call our home. My partner, our dogs and I finally started using the Habiscape 6-Person camping tent after tiring of camping in coffin-like tents. Although I wondered if this tent would be overkill for the four of us, I quickly came to love the red and gray fabrics and the safety they provided. With this tent, we no longer had to compromise. We could comfortably sleep in the woods without cramming ourselves into a small space. Yet it still came with all of the necessary protection we needed to rough it in the woods. Since one of the greatest…
Fly Your Tent Down the Freeway
The original Mountain Safety Research Newsletter (1969-1982), written by MSR founder Larry Penberthy, is a fascinating read. The newsletters are filled with extensive and technical product testing and mountain safety information. However, Larry and his team were also known to have some fun. One of our favorite features in this vast newsletter archive is the makeshift “wind tunnel” testing report in Issue 7 (April 1973) for the new MSR Mountain Tent. Important performance features of the tent are profiled under the headings “More Room,” “Condensation,” “Doors,” “Ease of Erection,” “Wind Stability,” “Cookholes,” “Materials” and “Weight.” Within the “Wind Stability” description, the reader is given this glimpse into MSR’s rigorous and fun DIY testing methods. Larry was never satisfied until he personally put gear through the ultimate paces. The original color…
Best Gear for Group Camping By MSR
Our top picks for gathering the tribe.
6 Trip Ideas for Adventurous Family Camping
Have a motivated little backpacker or climber? Try these family adventure ideas.
Thru-Hiking Stoves: DIY or Buy?
The hole punch sank its teeth into the aluminum side of a cat food can, chewing a hole through the wall. My ventilation system was complete. I’d just created a “cat stove”–a do-it-yourself backpacking stove–while sitting in a dank motel room along the Appalachian Trail. With a little bit of denatured alcohol, I had a new way to cook my food, and it only weighed a few ounces. After hiking for several weeks with a wood-fueled stove, I made the discovery that some environments are incompatible with wood-burning stove systems, and that in a well-trafficked corridor like the Appalachian Trail, it isn’t always ethical to collect wood anyway. These findings prompted me to observe other backpacking stoves when hikers gathered at the shelter for dinner. Some hopeful thru-hikers lugged around…