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Essays
Usually I walk in canyons to particular destinations, to specific features. I walk where there is water. I walk where other people walk, where there are trails. This time was different. I would be walking a path no humans walk, at least in its entirety. Humans cross this path; there is Highway 89 and there are numerous dirt roads, but these lines of travel all run counter to the path I was about to take. Humans pass on human errands. A family on vacation crosses this route, speeding down the highway. A rancher crosses too, bumping down a dusty red road in the predawn light to check his tanks.
It’s the fifth week? Tenth week of the pandemic? Who knows. I wake and put on water for tea and sit down at my computer again. The world is contained within the window of my screen every day now, separate from me. My friends call occasionally from their own separate windows. The window itself facilitates our stilted, delayed connections. Before all this it was just the eye which mediated, now it’s this window. There is no coming together, drifting apart, only separation. I’ve come to love my neighborhood. The magnolias, blooming pears, crabapples, and tulips are the only things that seem to me both separate from me and tangible. They’re right here. I believe they exist. They suggest to me that there might be more than just my own mind.
When we climbed the road out of Hurricane, Utah and spilled out onto the Arizona strip we were disheartened to see the ground covered in pillows of windblown snow.
A storm had passed through on Sunday and nights had been cold and days sunny but not warm in the two days that had since passed. We turned off the pavement onto a snowy, muddy, and frozen road and motored slowly south, watching the cold land pass beside us. The dark forms of horses stood in the cold night and paced along a fence. A jackrabbit darted into the road in front of us and ran in the patch of frozen mud between the strips of snow for miles. When we sped up, it sped up, and when we stopped it stopped. When we tried to gun it to get around, it pushed its little heart as hard as it could, ears determined, legs moving like pistons, getting up to 35 miles an hour before we backed off and conceded to just follow at jackrabbit pace.
At the edge of the firs he became a mirror through inheritance. He stands on the edge of the Red Rock Lakes now just as he stood 200 million years ago when the limestone solidified and began rising out of the valley behind him. He waited there in darkness, not unworried, but staring intently at the possibility that the sun will never rise again.
Near the Drum Mountains in central-western Utah the virga approached us, and we sped towards it in my 1993 Nissan truck. Dark blue and humanlike it swept the plane. It touched down somewhere, its feet the fleeting monsoon, welcomed by reaching greasewood and shivering russian thistle. Lightning cut across the dark form and we entered the deluge. Flash and boom inside of it, and flash and boom again. The rain transitioned from a heavy downpour to individual drops and the drops lessened and we looked back and the great dark form was now behind us; we had passed through its body. Lightning hit the sagebrush and greasewood plane where we had just been.
Artist Statements
Poetry
it is not a mountain anymore
it is now an idea of the shape
of the memory
of a dream
of a mountain
Gear Reviews
In this post and the accompanying video, I’m comparing the longevity of DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabric) and silicone-coated nylon shelters. To do this, I’m going to take a look at two Mountain Laurel Designs shelters, one made of DCF and the other made of 30 denier silnylon, to see how they’ve faired over the years.
The Long Haul 50 is in the ~2lb framed pack category. Packs in this category should be able to carry up to 40lbs comfortable and 50lbs occasionally while still being pretty comfortable.
I made this video to explain why I’ve made some of the choices I’ve made as I keep on trying new backpacks.
I’ve been on a hell of a pack journey; it has been challenging to say the least to find something that is light and carries a lot of weight well. If you’ve read through some of my other posts you’ll know that I used a large HMG Porter 4400 (46oz) pack for a while, but it destroyed my shoulders. Then switched to a Seek Outside Divide 4500 which I still have and love but is heavy at 57oz. I began using a medium 32oz HMG SW 3400 modified with loadlifters for most of my three-season trips, but it still wasn’t quite cutting it. I tried the Seek Outside Flight One (38oz) briefly but I bought the wrong size (22”) and did not like the hip belt. My next pack was the Hanchor Marl (40oz) which I still have and like, but which may become obsolete with the introduction of the SWD Big Wild 70.
I’ve been using the Seek Outside Divide 4500 as my go-to load-carrying pack for about the last three years. A good example of an ideal trip for this pack is a five-day packrafting loop in Canyonlands National Park I did in 2018. I carried typical three-season equipment, five days of food, a 6lb 11oz packraft, an 18oz PFD, a 37oz paddle, a ton of water, and other packrafting gear. At my heaviest, hauling water from Spanish Bottom up 1000 ft in less than a mile to the Dollhouse and then through the Maze to Water Canyon, my pack was probably around 48lbs. I do not like carrying weights like this. But sometimes it happens, especially with boats, and especially in the desert where water is potentially scarce. When I have to, the Divide is the perfect pack for the job.
I’ve used the Seek Outside Flight One Solid Spectra backpack on three trips now including the Uintas Highline Trail. The Highline was 104 miles over the course of 6 days, making it a great test for this pack. I don’t know my exact starting weight but I’m guessing it was around 30lbs with a few liters of water and a grapefruit. It felt heavy with 50% of the weight on my shoulders, so I ate the grapefruit right away. But as much as I messed around with the adjustments I couldn’t get the weight distribution right. It remained between 55/45 and 50/50 hips/shoulders for the remainder of the trip, even at the end when my pack weight was below 20lbs.
When I set out to find a simple, stable, light, modular shelter in 2015 I pretty quickly landed on the Mountain Laurel Designs Duomid. It’s not the lightest shelter in the world, but something about it felt foolproof, reliable.
My Personal Use
I worked as a ranger in the High Uintas Wilderness during the 2013 season when I used the gear provided by the Forest Service. Most employees used Big Agnes Seedhouse 2 tents. At about three and a half pounds, these tents were not ultralight but they were pretty roomy for waiting out 48-hour storms while reading, listening to podcasts, or playing guitar. Yes, I carried a guitar. At four and a half pounds it was worth it considering how many nights I spent alone.
*****August 2022 Note: I’ve removed this video because I have tested a lot of packs since I made this post and I no longer feel conviction about this modification. In my opinion, it’s totally fine for straps to attach at the top of the shoulders if the straps are fairly cushy and spaced properly for a person’ s shoulders. If a pack fits like this, loadlifters are indeed unnecessary. That said, the load ratings of HMG packs are completely bananas. If they fit a little better in the shoulder I’d think they could carry 35lbs comfortably. *****
The first pack I can remember owning was a green JanSport. When I was about 21 I replaced it with a blue 115 liter Lowe Alpine. I used the Lowe for a while, eventually replacing it with a Dana Designs Astralplane (also in the 115 liter range, and weighing a now unfathomable 7.5lbs), and then with a Black Diamond Infinity 60, and then with a Boreas Buttermilks 55. In retrospect, the BD and the Boreas weren’t bad packs but the swiveling hip belt on the BD squeaked and the Boreas hip belt nearly tore off one time when I carelessly stepped on it while hoisting the load onto my back. Oops.
Gear Lists
Some people begin packrafting because they’re looking for new ways to connect landscapes. Others begin packrafting because they’re sick of schlepping their 50lb kayak around. I’m in the former camp—an ultralight backpacker-turned-packrafter with extreme ultralight biases. When I wrote a packrafting gear list about 4 years ago, I didn’t realize how strong these biases were and how much they limited my packrafting abilities and comfort. At the time I hadn’t paddled much more than the ephemeral streams in Utah’s canyon country, so my experience was somewhat limited. That list still feels applicable to a certain kind of boating, but it has its limitations. Now, I think a different gear list is needed.
This complete packrafting gear guide is written for most people in most packrafting scenarios—I hope it will help you choose a packraft, a paddle, safety gear, and all the packraft-compatible backpacking gear you need for multi-day expeditions.
book reviews
Roman Dial’s The Adventurer’s Son is a deeply honest piece of writing. Dial, a hardcore adventurer, displays admirable vulnerability in this story of family-building and loss. He examines the heart of the adventurer, how it yearns to walk the knife edge cornice between life and death while simultaneously questioning that desire, especially when it causes others pain. He grapples with the guilt of encouraging adventure in his son—also named Roman—as adventure led ultimately to his death.
Gear Review & Essay Portfolio (Links To other Sites)
Leopold is arguing that the first four grades with their inherent dissociation from the land, and the relative nonexistence of the fifth among recreationists, pose a huge threat to the lands on which we recreate. The lower recreation grades,
“consume their resource base; the higher grades, at least to a degree, create their own satisfactions with little or no attrition of land or life. It is the expansion of transport without a corresponding growth of perception that threatens us with qualitative bankruptcy of the recreational process. Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.”
Then my attention turned to the pack I was wearing. I was 11 miles into the first day of testing the YAR Gear Mountain Drifter 38 Liter pack and needed to pay attention to whether or not it was working. Suddenly aware I hadn’t spent all that much time thinking about it during those first 11 miles, I promised myself I would try and pay better attention from then on out. I hadn’t noticed undue pressure on my shoulders, hips, or back. All I really did remember from the last 11 miles were the large volcanic stones in the trail, prickly pear, agave, alligator juniper, piñon, yuccas, and countless birds. I remember the looming blue triangle of the Mazatzal Mountains dusted lightly in snow creeping slowly closer to me like one of the pyramids of Giza chained to a winch and cranked heavily across the ground. Is that how they were built? With that thought came a flood of associations. “When the great – pyramids – dragged themselves out to this spot – sickness sank into the little one’s heart,” I sang loudly, remembering the beautiful and dark Jason Molina song.
“The road seen, then not seen,” begins the poem “Santiago” by David Whyte.
The road seen, then not seen, I think, walking down Woodenshoe Canyon in Bear’s Ears National Monument in late November. The red trail below my feet leads into piñon and juniper and turns and disappears within them. The path seen, then not seen. It dips into a willowy wash and is nearly gone, only seen where snake grass is occasionally matted down by past feet. The road seen, then not seen.
The Gryphon Gear Aries 20 Quilt (25.7 oz / 729 g, MSRP from $327) is a three-season quilt with a differential cut, draft collar, an edge tensioning system, and 17.5 oz (496 g) of down fill. Its price puts it a little under the cost of similarly rated Nunatak and Katabatic quilts – its closest competitors. It is the warmest 20 °F quilt I’ve ever used.
Who or what makes a trail?
I’ve often wondered this when veering off the Bonneville Shoreline trail that skirts the edge of Salt Lake City to investigate less distinct deer trails. The Bonneville Shoreline trail is a human trail today, no doubt, but when Lake Bonneville lapped at the shore between 30,000 and 13,000 years ago, bison, deer, and later Shoshone, Ute, Goshute, and other Native people surely walked the edge of the water. Then when the lake receded, it left a clear line, an obvious promenade just asking to be walked. So, who or what created this trail? Did the lake itself make it? After all, today’s trail is named after the lake. The existence of this question seems to speak of its own futility, or maybe trail-making or path-making are just more complex than they appear.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was designated in 1996, with its original size encompassing 1,880,461 acres. President Bill Clinton famously signed the proclamation on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, several miles and a state away from the southern border of the new monument, an act seen by many local Utahns as cowardly, a slap in the face, and more proof that only outsiders wanted this land to hold monument status. A little over 20 years later, Trump pleased these same folks by reducing the size of the monument by about half. Now many who lamented the shrinking—locals and nonlocals alike—are anticipating President Joe Biden’s restoration of the monument to its original size. On his first day, he signed an executive order for the review of the monument boundaries. With all of this in mind, I decided to walk through an area that could be affected by whatever Biden decides to do to see if there was a story inherent in the place itself, one separate from the political division that accounts for most monument discussions.
Throughout the summer, despite the ongoing pandemic, an uncertain relationship, political division in the U.S., the impending election—and the possibility that it wouldn’t go smoothly—I somehow completed several multi-day backpacking trips and even the Uinta Highline Trail. I even said out loud on multiple occasions that I was actually enjoying quarantine, that I was enjoying my work routine at home, and that I liked cooking every meal every day. But by mid-September, something shifted in me.
Just outside the town of Strawberry, Arizona we found the dirt road that would take us to Twin Buttes trailhead, where we would be leaving the truck. A creek flowed across the road, but when we drove into it we found it was shallow, demure, and proceeded south unimpeded. The road took us through junipers and oaks in the bright sun and, when we parked, I stowed my wallet somewhere in the truck and my hiking partner Jesse did the same. We’d later come to regret this decision.
The Overlook is Backpacking Light’s new monthly column where hiker, writer, and thinker Ben Kilbourne will explore backpacking from many different vantages. He will try to climb up to a high place with a view, an overlook, where the myriad issues intertwined with backpacking can be seen. This column will challenge the reader to embrace complexity and engage in thoughtful dialogue with other readers. Join us at The Overlook!
An Encounter
After a long workday, I closed the computer, switched from jeans to running clothes, drove up Big Cottonwood Canyon just outside of Salt Lake City, and parked on the side of the road behind a long string of cars. On a Friday afternoon, hordes of people had the same idea as me: get some exercise in the woods. It’s a common pastime for Salt Lakers of all kinds, an activity with no apparent common denominator. The Wasatch Range is a place where different people are brought together through a shared love of the outdoors.
Continue reading at Backpacking Light
The Borah Gear Bug Bivy is a reasonably priced bivy for use under a variety of tarps when there is mild to medium bug pressure. It can add a few degrees of warmth to your sleep setup and is also great for cowboy camping. It weighs between 5.5 – 6.5 oz, costs $85, and can add a lot of versatility to your shelter system. There are other similar bivies out there, but none of them hit such a remarkable price point.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
The Six Moon Designs Haven Bundle is a lightweight (34 oz), two-person, double-wall, tent that includes the company’s Haven Tarp and Haven NetTent. It checks a lot of the same boxes as comparable tents, and the price point comes in below many of them. The Haven Bundle is exceptionally easy to use, with effortless modularity and effective toggles for rolling back doors. These features paired with high-quality materials make the Haven Bundle a great choice for people who like the ease-of-use of traditional dome-style tents but want something lighter and more durable.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
The Warbonnet Diamondback Quilt (stock model, sewn footbox, 0 degree model) is a very lofty quilt for use either in hammocks or on the ground. It has a 15D shell and liner, comes in a number of sizes, and several color configurations. With 19.36 oz of 850-fill down inside, it should be good for winter use or three-season use for cold sleepers. Personally, I have found it to be quite warm in temperatures ranging from 34 degrees F to 12 degrees F. The quilt’s pad attachment system left me wanting but is somewhat forgivable due to its excellent side-elastic system. It costs $375, which is significantly less than some comparable premium quilts.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
The Western Mountaineering Versalite 10 sleeping bag is the sleeping bag I would choose if I could have only one. It can be used very comfortably between 10 and 40 degrees and pushed a little further in either direction. I’ve taken it below 10 wearing some layers and have draped it over me quilt style when temps are warmer than 40. The Versalite is pretty pricey, but worth it if it’s going to be your primary or only sleeping bag. I’ve owned mine for six years, during which time I’ve owned a number of other sleeping bags, but the Versalite has remained in my possession for longer than any of the others. The reason I’ve kept it around is that it’s a truly versatile sleeping bag.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
I pull my truck into a packed trailhead across the street from the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, park, and again look at my phone. I check my messages, scroll briefly through Instagram again, and then turn it off and tuck it under the seat. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon and I’m feeling a sleepiness only caffeine, napping, or walking can fix. English tea time. Spanish siesta. Utah amble.
Continue reading at Backpacking Light
The Seek Outside Eolus Tent with Nest is a 36.9 oz-tent that pitches with two trekking poles. It is very large for such a lightweight two-person tent, making it extremely livable and comfortable, especially for taller individuals, or people who have to pack a lot of gear. The tent has a unique zipperless door that opens and closes by sliding it up and down a guyline. This design makes it perfect for desert environments where zippers often fail as a result of sand. As is usually the case with Seek Outside products, the design of this tent is above and beyond what anyone else in the industry is doing. I salute their creativity as it pushes the backpacking industry forward.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
Purifying water in the desert can be a unique challenge. Often, it’s hard to even find any water to begin with, and when you finally do, it’s opaque with silt or full of swaying algae or tiny worms. Much of it is frankly unappealing. In this article, I will discuss pathogens, purification methods, challenges unique to desert environments, and solutions. Most of what I cover saying pertains to the dirty, filthy, sandy, silty, muddy water sources that transect the Colorado Plateau, including Grand-Staircase Escalante National Monument, Bear’s Ears National Monument, Canyonlands National Park, The San Rafael Swell, and Grand Canyon National Park. Although the lessons learned can also apply to the Sonoran Desert, the Mojave Desert, and the Great Basin Desert, as well.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
The Zpacks Pocket Tarp w/ Doors is a one-person tarp weighing 6.1 oz with guylines attached. It is constructed from 0.55 oz/sq. yard Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF), a fully waterproof material that doesn’t stretch or sag when wet. I purchased this tent primarily for use in the desert southwest where shelters aren’t often needed and where zippers often clog with sand. My hope was that the Zpacks Pocket Tarp w/ Doors would feel like almost nothing in my pack and provide enough protection for those short-lived summer storms or light spring drizzles. Read on to find out if it lived up to my expectations.
Continue reading at Section Hiker
Out of my backpack, I pulled the small nylon sack that contained my tarp and began scanning the meadow for a flat place. My pack fell over and my pot and stove spilled out. I walked away from the mess toward a mostly flat, mostly rockless patch of meadow. Perfect. I pulled the tarp out of the sack and draped the rectangle over the grass and the tiny white and purple flowers. Before I pounded in a single stake I noticed a dead lodgepole about 50 feet (15 meters) away and 60 feet (18 meters) tall. Halfway up the tree split into a schoolmarm, one side bare and the other side impossibly supporting a mess of dead branches. The whole thing leaned generally in my direction. This spot will not do. I gathered the tarp and continued the search.
Continue reading at Backpacking Light
When the snow starts to melt on the high plateaus above the canyon country of Utah, intermittent rivers start to flow, and I start refreshing the USGS site every few hours looking for an upward trend that means it’s time to go boating. Often these rivers flow between February and May, so this gear list is a direct reflection of that. In the high deserts of Utah in mid-March anything could happen. You could see rain one year, snow the next, and even some 85-degree days that leave you squinting through the glare for a shaded alcove under which to hide. Because of this variability, the gear list I have made accounts for chillier spring weather scenarios. I will offer some suggestions for pushing this list towards summer…
Continue reading at Section Hiker
The Nunatak Arc UL 20 Quilt is a thoughtfully-designed, lightweight three-season quilt. While fairly expensive at $425, its features and execution make it worth every penny. There are a number of quilts out there that cost a good $150 less than this one, but many of them lack premium features such as a draft collar, differential cut, or an edge tensioning system. Nunatak quilts are also highly-customizable. They offer a variety of fabric, sizing, and pad attachment options. So, if you know what you want, and don’t mind waiting a couple of months for it, consider placing an order with Nunatak…
Continue reading at Section Hiker
On May 16, I stood at Bryce Canyon’s Yovimpa Point looking through my breath at a dusting of new snow covering the pink slopes. The weather was expected to get worse, with snow above 6,500 feet statewide. My initial plan was to follow the route of an individual deer from her winter range near the Utah/Arizona border to her summer range near Cedar City, Utah. This particular leg of the trip was going to end here in Bryce, but the discouraging forecast made it clear this was not going to be possible within our timeframe.
Continue reading at Wildlands Network
Needing a break from studying, I leave the Environmental Humanities building on the University of Utah campus and begin walking towards the hills and the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. I cross roads and parking lots, and pass students slack-lining between the trees that surround the dorms. The hum of the city to my back, I step from asphalt onto dirt and begin walking uphill.
Continue reading at Torrey House Press
I can’t sleep. The inflatable pad underneath me feels torturously unstable. I am tempted to push it aside in favor of the cold, lumpy ground. Hours pass and I wonder if I have been thinking about anything at all. I roll onto my other side again and listen to the tent fabric scrape against a dead finger of greasewood. I had reached the San Rafael Swell in central Utah just in time to start walking up a narrow canyon patinated with dark streaks of desert varnish. The deep sand slowed my pace as wind-broken rain scattered out of the orange west. I planned to walk for at least an hour and a half, but the storm clouds made evening arrive early. At the first sign of flatness I dropped my pack and listened as caterpillars dropped out of the cottonwoods above me like weighty raindrops.