Whether you’re dealing with wired headphones at home, or guy-lines and ridge-lines on the trail, there’s an antidote for all of your cord headaches: the Figure 8 Wrap. It’s simple to learn, and can be the difference between pitching your shelter in record time during a downpour and struggling to untangle knot after knot.
Resources
A collection of posts focusing on various resources—skills, courses, and tools for the trail (and life!).
Wilderness First Responder
The wilderness is—news flash—a wild, and scenic place. The fact that it occupies a romantic place in our brains outside the familiar is, in large part, the essence of its appeal. It also explains the sheer terror that many people associate with being out in that wilderness.
The Residentially Challenged Life
Ever since June 2020, when Mountain Man and I embarked on our hike of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) we have been what some may call “location independent,” “nomadic”, “wanderers”, or even “homeless.”
We prefer to call ourselves “residentially challenged.”
Shortcuts in the Wild
Automation is having, shall we say, a moment. Spreading its tendrils through our lives everywhere from our homes to our cars and to the supercomputers disguised as smartphones stashed in our pockets, its promises are many. More efficiency, less time wasted on the perfunctory tasks of daily routines, and more focus on the things that really matter.
The Path Taken
It’s a daunting question: if someone asked you to sum up the past year of your life, what would you say? What have you done, and why? Perhaps more important than any of that: what has it meant? When I had the chance to summarize not one year, but the past 16 years of where...
Navigation: Getting from A to B
How do you know where you're going? It's a pretty simple (and important) question, and one that's among the most common we hear (perhaps second only to “Have you seen any bears?” Answer: yes). So, here goes—a crash course in finding your way along the CDT, with something to keep both the new school and the old school happy.
The Modern Day Adventures of Ulysses
As previously published on the Ulysses app blog Truth be told, I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. Homer, I most certainly am not. As an engineer, numbers have always come more easily to me than words. Safer. More predictable. Less apt to be used carelessly. Perhaps not surprisingly then, my relationship with writing...