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I am a compass nerd. I like navigating with map and compass and in this video I go over a variety of compasses along with their plusses and minuses: Suunto M-3DL Suunto MC-2G Silver Ranger (US Brand, not Swedish) Brunton 54LU (aka. Silva 54 Expedition – No longer imported by Brunton into the U.S.) Cammenga USGI Lensatic Each compass will have good and bad points. My preference is for a baseplate compass with built in protractor. They are simple, reliable, and work for anything I’ve ever needed a compass to do. More elaborate compasses may have prismatic or lensatic sighting Continue reading →

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In this video I break out my personal wilderness survival kit. It may be different than what you are used to seeing elsewhere because it’s based on my experience from when I volunteered with a wilderness Search and Rescue (SAR) group and what I saw that caused hikers to get into trouble. In particular, people putting together survival kits focus too much on the wrong things. They are often worried about how much fishing line and food trapping materials to carry around and not enough on more critical elements about surviving in the woods. What’s more critical than food? Well… Continue reading →

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When I was in Sweden, part of the road trip I swung by my favorite axe maker: Gransfors Bruks. I think everyone should have a favorite axe maker, don’t you? Gransfors has been making axes for about a century now up in Bergsjö Sweden. I camped overnight at the nice lake nearby and went for a tour in the morning. Now the tour really was you walk around and look at things and they just kind of leave you alone. Part of this agreement is you don’t do something stupid like insert your hand into large moving power hammers or red-hot Continue reading →

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I was given one of the original Casio Pathfinder watches years back as a gift. It had a compass and altimeter built in and was a really cool piece of technology to have on your wrist when outdoors. The only issue it had was it chewed through batteries as the compass and altimeter sensors were power hogs. Well I’m happy to say the new Casio Pathfinder watches solve those problems because not only are the new sensors more energy efficient, but the entire watch is now solar powered! The new watch features: Time/Date/World Time Sunrise/Sunset for your local latitude/longitude Barometer Continue reading →

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This is a short video of me glissading down Mount Saint Helens. Glissading is a fancy way of saying sliding down the snow on your rear end. It is a fun reward after an exhausting climb. I have some glissading tips for you in this video and they are this: 1) Remove your crampons! 2) Control your speed! 3) Know how to self-arrest with an ice axe! Most injuries glissading are from people keeping on their crampons and getting a spike caught which injures a leg or sends them tumbling out of control. Do not even think of glissading with Continue reading →

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After a frustrating experience with an after-market Kydex sheath getting my blade stuck, I posted up a video where I threw a Kydex sheath and the Fallkniven Zytel sheath in a freezer. That video got a lot of upset responses that I was being unfair, it’s not realistic, etc. Well let me just say that I live temperate rain forest. It’s an area where I snow camp and the temperatures will be above freezing during the day, and drop well into freezing at night. So gear you have will in fact get wet during the day (even rained on) and Continue reading →

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Just saw some incoming links today from a Saxo Bank article on their new “Balanced Portfolio.” This is a variation of Harry Browne’s Permanent Portfolio and Ray Dalio’s All Weather Portfolio: Introducing Saxo Bank’s Balanced Portfolio Balanced Portfolio: Initial portfolio trades Abstract: A broad diversified portfolio that is designed to collect risk premiums across liquid assets throughout various economic environments has a more stable performance and volatility over time than traditional equity-concentrated portfolios. By allocating equal risk to each economic environment, surprises in the underlying economy have less impact on portfolio performance. They are basically applying the concepts of Harry Continue reading →

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This is a review of the Katadyn Mini ceramic water filter. I have a love/hate relationship with filters. I love them when water could be questionable, but hate that the marketing around water safety is seriously overhyped. Truth be told, I have drank from backcountry water supplies plenty of times with no filtering whatsoever. Horrors! Someone call OSHA! Yes, it takes some experience and I am doing it with a bit of knowledge that there are risks. But at the same time water filters are not a panacea. If you are not careful when using one you can actually contaminate Continue reading →

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One of my favorite times of year to hike is in the winter and on deep snow. The woods are quiet, there aren’t a lot of people, and the deep snowpack means you are basically floating over the forest debris so you can easily go places that are difficult when the snow is not there. Now winter hiking is fun, but the room for error goes way down. An injury in the summer could just be a slow limp back to the trailhead or perhaps unexpected overnight in warm weather. But in the winter an injury is very serious. You Continue reading →

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I have a pet peeve of mine when I’m out hiking. I really hate seeing people with junk hanging all over their packs swinging around like Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee heading out to Mordor. All that stuff hanging on the pack swings around throwing you off balance, makes a lot of noise, and worst of all you may find it falls off so you lose it! I’ve found a lot of stuff on trails that fell off packs. In my opinion, if the gear is important enough to take, it’s important enough to put it inside your pack or Continue reading →

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