7 Essential Skills Every Outdoors-Person Should Know - Explore Magazine. Credit: David Webb Do you want to fix your banged-up apparel, tune-up your bike and organize your gear better, both at home and on the trail?
We have all those tips and more—time to elevate your game! 1. Patch Your Waterproof Clothing Keith Milne When your waterproof gear springs a leak, fix it with a patch kit, available at any outdoor store. 2. Adobe Stock When a zipper doesn’t work on a jacket… well, it’s not really a jacket anymore. A bent slider is often the cause of zippers not staying closed. If not, try replacing the slider. 3. Bikes of all stripes may be getting lighter and easier to maintain, but gears will always need adjusting.
. • Set your bike off the ground. . • Put your bike in the smallest chain rings both front and back. • While pedaling with your hand, index up through your gears one at a time. . • Continue doing this until the chain shifts nicely in every gear going up. 4. Camping sometimes feels like the thing we do between packing up and unpacking. Need to de-stress? Try the healing waters of Colorado's historic hot springs. Visiting hippy-dippy, crunchy-granola, clothing-optional Valley View Hot Springs requires determination.
Part of the nonprofit Orient Land Trust, a conservation organization, daily access to the hot springs is limited, and only donors to the trust may make advance reservations; otherwise you have to call the morning you want to visit and hope you can get in. Sure, you can try popping in, but it's a fairly remote location (about an hour south of Mount Princeton) and you risk being turned away. Inconvenient, yes -- but it also ensures that the gorgeous, rustic springs aren't overcrowded. If naked people make you nervous, choose another spot; men, women and children shed clothing freely in the rock ponds, heated pools and hiking rugged wildflower-lined trails.
We started at the relatively large Soaking Pond, but shrieking children drove us and a few others out -- we moved on to other pools while a group of Midwestern seniors opted to return to their campsite for lunch. Best Sleeping Bags for Camping: How to Choose. When you’re new to backpacking and camping, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the technical specifications involved in choosing your gear.
Sleeping bags are no exception. To the untrained eye, a -40F rated, down-fill bag may look super similar to one with synthetic fill that’s rated for 35F. But those factors could make a huge difference with regards to your personal comfort and safety. Here, we’ll decode the most important aspects of a sleeping bag—how warm the bag is, what it’s insulated with, and how it’s sized—to help you find one that makes the most sense for both your body as well as the season and environment where you'll be using your bag. Once you’ve made sense of the particulars, investing in the right sleeping bag (and sleeping pad) can make snoozing on the ground just as cozy as a night in a hotel room. Temperature Rating The most important consideration when picking a sleeping bag is how warm you'll be while asleep. Down Versus Synthetic Sleeping Bag Sizes. On Flipboard.
18 awesome camping gear ideas you never would have thought of. Photo: Scott Sporleder This post is proudly presented in partnership with REI.
IT DOESN’T MATTER if you’re pulling up to a family campsite in your car, heading out into the backcountry, or going ultra-light and long distance — there’s gear you can bring along that will make your camp experience so much more comfortable…and so much cooler. Here are some ideas you might not have thought of. 1. Solar shower Bathing in that lake sounds amazing until you realize no actual washing takes place when you run shrieking out of the ice-cold water. 2. Axes tend to be heavy, and splitting firewood with a hatchet after a long day of exploring outside can be more energy intensive than you bargained for. 3. This might seem obvious, but I’ve got teeth marks on my flashlight from all the nights I held it in my mouth, refusing to acknowledge that a headlamp is essential and worth the investment.
Really going deluxe? 4. Like to show off your chef prowess even if the kitchen is a picnic table (or your lap)?