When we’re hungry for a look at the upcoming year’s brightest gear innovations, we head to the media show, a biannual hands-on preview between the people who sell and market gear and the folks who cover it. Our look at 2025’s haul did not disappoint, with fashion-forward hiking apparel, featherweight sleeping pads, and some awesome new car camping tech. Here’s what’s on our release radar for this fall and early spring of 2025.

, hands down. The major downside? They take ages to inflate and deflate. A few years ago, they came out with the Widget Pump, a battery powered pump, lamp, and powerbank all in one. It was a vast improvement, but it’s relatively slow, and doesn’t help with deflation, which often looks like a one-sided wrestling match given all of the mat’s foam and air capacity.

The Mega Pump is faster and has both functions, making the process relatively painless. With some included adaptors, you can use this pump for most non-Exped car camping pads, too. The best part? .

Seniq Apparel (Available Now)

focused on fashion-forward hiking apparel. It really stood out at OMA, where the cut, colorways, and features of apparel and outer layers are almost indistinguishable across outdoor brands. Seniq’s co-founders and lead designer are women, which is important for an all-women’s hiking apparel company, and it donates one percent of sales to outdoor equity and mental-health focused foundations. Really, though we just think this stuff looks rad. There’s a careful balance of fashion and function going on here that we’ll be excited to test out on the trail.

Rossignol Vizion Ski Boot (Fall 2024)

Skiers who are tired of wrestling to get their ski boots on and off (and let’s be honest, that’s most people) should get excited about Rossignol’s new Vizion ski boot line. A new proprietary buckle and spine mechanism on these boots allows the cuff to open much wider than a traditional four-buckle overlap boot, allowing skiers to slip into the boot easily and hands-free.

In terms of getting the boot on and off, it’s like a rear-entry boot; but once buckled up, it feels like a traditional alpine boot that you can actually ski in (as opposed to most rear-entry options). Rossignol’s new Vizion boot family ($650-850), which comprises 10 models ranging from 130 flex down to 80 flex, will hit shelves this fall. .

Thule ReVert Bike Rack (Fall 2024)

Thule is finally releasing a hitch-mount vertical bike rack that comes with the kind of smart design features the Swedish brand is known for. The new ReVert, launching in September, will come in a four-bike ($900) and six-bike ($1,100) model.

Each carries bikes via wheel baskets that require zero frame contact (so carbon frame owners can chill out). The ReVert’s Dual Tilt Assist tech in the arm is also sweet, providing weight assistance on the way up and down to make it easy to lower and raise the rack even when loaded down with six mountain bikes. Both models of the Revert can fit 20- to 29-inch wheels, though you’ll need to purchase wheel adapters (sold separately) to accommodate 20- to 24-inch tires. Thule will also offer accessory wheel baskets for plus-sized tires.

La Sportiva Prodigio Pro (Spring/Summer 2025)

We were amazed at how light La Sportiva’s new trail racer felt when we picked it up, weighing in at a scant 8.9 ounces for the men’s model and 7.9 for the women’s. Touted as a “super shoe for the mountains,” the Prodigio Pro ($195) promises super shoe performance for tricky terrain. That’s been a tough guarantee to live up to for competing models that try to use bouncy foams and plates off-road.

The shoe has a blend of nitrogen-infused TPU and EVA foam (lighter and bouncier than that in the highly-praised Prodigio), paired with La Sportiva’s signature, deep-lugged, sticky rubber sole and a crazy-looking “Power Wire” mesh upper made from polyester, TPU, and nylon. It lacks a rigid plate, allowing it to adapt to uneven surfaces underfoot, while the aggressively rockered geometry looks like it’ll keep you rolling quickly down the trail.

Diorite Gear Trekking Pole Attachments (Spring/Summer 2025)

Diorite makes some of our . They telescope out long enough to support a pyramid tent without a weight penalty and are incredibly sturdy for carbon construction. They’ve always been very field-repairable (including the tips,) but now Diorite is coming out with interchangeable EVA handles built for mountaineering and skiing.

Using some simple-but-sturdy hardware, you can attach things like Skimo picks and potentially even whippets at home without special tools. Put simply, Diorite is designing modular, quiver-killer poles that you can use year-round. That means spending less money on specialized poles and the ability to repair your set indefinitely.

MSR Switch Stove (Spring/Summer 2025)

We love integrated “Jetboil-style” backpacking stoves for their speed and wind-resistance. But you can’t do much more than boil water in those superheated cookers. MSR recognized this was a bit of an annoyance with folks who wanted to occasionally do some actual cooking on its WindBurner and Reactor stoves. The Switch is basically a WindBurner pot that’s been redesigned to work on a specialized canister-stove. (Bonus: the stove is pressure-regulated for cold weather and half-empty canisters.)

A ring on the canister stove locks into the hard-anodized aluminum pot—which has a convex bottom for maximum surface area—for the usual speedy, water-boiling purposes. Flick a few arm extenders out, though, and you can set an actual pot or skillet on top for measured cooking. While Jetboil already sells an accessory that has a similar function, it doesn’t work particularly well in practice.

NEMO Tensor Elite Sleeping Pad (Spring/Summer 2025)

In the race to design the lightest-but-still-comfortable sleeping pad on the market, Therm-a-Rest has always lead the pack. Now NEMO is taking a stab at a boundary-pushing inflatable pad with its Tensor Elite. Unlike the rest of the brand’s Tensor line, the Elite comes in just regular and short mummy sizes. Allegedly, it weighs just 8.3 ounces, has an R-value of 2.4, and packs down to the size of a pint glass. That’s a few grams shy of TAR’s discontinued, extra-lightweight (and easily-punctured) .

In the comfort department, the Elite looks better than its defunct competitor. It has 3 inches of thickness and uses the brand’s Apex Baffle construction, which is an improvement over horizontal baffles. We won’t know until testing whether the Elite is an ultralight game-changer or just another extra-delicate pad to stress about on long backpacking trips.

Deuter Hiline (Spring/Summer 2025)

At first glance, Deuter’s new mountain biking pack looks like it has the usual feature set: helmet-holder clips, bike pump attachments, and plenty of space for hydration and spare tubes. But the Hiline, which comes in 8 and 14 liter sizes, has some real tech on the inside.

It’s got a removable memory foam SAS-TEC multi-impact spine protector “for enduro fans.” The new hotness is a 3D-printed breathable back panel for airflow. Not only does 3D printing reduce material waste in the production process, but it allows for multiple levels of texture—essentially a complex honeycomb structure—that looks like it’ll work better than most airflow-improving designs on the market during intense climbs. (It could be a total gimmick, too.)

At $375 for the 14-liter version, the Hiline’s tech ain’t cheap. Deuter’s rep hinted that it might be headed for the brand’s backpacking packs, as well.

The post Release Radar: The Coolest New Outdoor Gear of 2025 appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

When we went hunting for a place to hold our annual last year, we had a few requirements. It had to be gob-smackingly beautiful. It had to be extremely challenging. And critically, it had to be close to an exceptional post-hike hamburger. , and its surrounding wilderness hit all three marks.

Our gear-bashing extravaganza is something the editors at șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű look forward to all year long. After a long season of testing from dozens of expert category managers, our small team of specialized editors assembles to try the best of the best. Anything that proves exceptional in its class—a standout rain jacket, for example—or moves the goalpost entirely for a category—like a backpack that utilizes a trailblazing ultralight material—is eligible.

(Disclosure: Explore Asheville sponsored our Editors’ Choice trip, but opinions expressed in this post are purely those of our Gear team.)

The Pisgah National Forest, which sits just 30 minutes northeast of Asheville, is one of the most remarkable wild areas in North America. Part of the Southern Appalachian mountains, it’s a place of endless expanses of old growth forest and thundering waterfalls. It’s also historic, as the very first national forest established on the east coast.

Of all the trails in Pisgah, the most iconic might be . We wanted to see the Art Loeb’s famous panoramic views, but we’d also heard that the trail was a brutally steep, gear-destroying hike. So naturally, that was the one we picked to put our editors’ choice candidates through their paces.

(Gaia GPS is owned by șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc.)

With help from the local Appalachian guides at , we headed southbound, setting out from Camp Daniel Boone and eventually ending up at Davidson River Campground two days later. It didn’t take us long to confirm that the Art Loeb deserves its reputation. This trail is hard—even by Appalachian Trail standards, with roughly 8,000 feet of elevation gained and over 9,000 lost. Gnarly roots and slick rock were ideal testing conditions for footwear and trekking poles, while dense thickets of mountain laurel along the ridgelines separated the durable packs from the pretenders.

As any backpacker knows, the views are better when you have to earn them. That was definitely the case when, after a day and a half of climbing through dense forest, we reached the above-treeline stretch of trail from Shining Rock Mountain to Black Balsam Knob. Big patches of exposed white quartz were the perfect place to take in the views of the entire Pisgah National Forest, which stretches for countless miles of rolling green hills.

After three long, hard, sweaty days in the Pisgah National Forest, we set out to explore the city of Asheville and everything it has to offer.

First, we feasted. Our editors made a beeline for just north of the River Arts District, which makes the platonic ideal of a double cheeseburger, complete with American cheese, bread and butter pickles, and a Martin’s potato bun. Post-hike mission accomplished! The next morning, still aching from our challenging trek, we grabbed breakfast at Montford Area Historic District’s , where consummate breakfast sandwiches, a fried chicken biscuit, and spicy tomato shakshuka gave us fuel for the rest of the early morning.

Next we headed to the , where we explored 434 acres of beautiful gardens, a wild collection of very old trees, and a massive Bonsai exhibition. The ten miles of hiking trails are mostly flat, which our team appreciated after the calf-burning week we’d had.

Not yet sated, we visited , a celebrated, old-school barbecue joint in the River Arts District and a favorite haunt of the Obamas. We walked off our ribs and corn bread on the multi-use paved trail along the French Broad River, which runs for over 200 miles from North Carolina down the Tennessee.

Downtown, we stopped by the Friday night drumming circle in Pritchard Park, an improvised public gathering of drummers and dancers who ranged from professional to total beginners. (We came back later that night to find it still going strong.) For dinner, we stepped into a next-level Spanish tapas restaurant that slings specialty Spanish goods and freshly-baked bread by day. To cap the night off, we visited the , where you can play almost 70 different classic pinball and arcade games to your heart’s desire.

As a home base for exploring Pisgah, and Great Smokey Mountains National Park to the west, you can’t do much better than Asheville. We’ll be back for the wilderness and the city’s vibrant, eclectic culture, food, and music.

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Here are some features I genuinely never thought I’d see on a watch: subaquatic topo maps; a dive-readiness tracker; underwater text messaging. Shockingly, all of these features exist on the , the most lusted-after top-of-the-line smartwatch and dive computer on the market. After two months of using the Mk3i for running, hiking, and diving, I can confidently say it’s the only watch I’ll ever need for the foreseeable future, and, apart from the significant pricetag hurdle, a no-brainer for anyone who spends time underwater.

How Is It as a Regular Smartwatch?

I’ve found that most dive watches that also profess to work as daily smartwatches are not worth the cost. There are almost always tradeoffs, like poor app integration, bulky or technical looks, and hard-to-read screens, especially underwater. (Luxury “dive watches” are not helpful for fitness on land or underwater).

The Mk3i has the same operating system and features as Garmin’s high-end smartwatches, like șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű favorite Fenix 7X, or the extra-fancy epix Pro. It has outstanding GPS accuracy and comes with preloaded maps, excellent fitness tracking, painless integration with third-party apps like Spotify, and easy-to-navigate menus. Importantly, it also looks sleek: apart from the larger, 51-millimeter face, the Mk3i wouldn’t look out-of-place at an upscale restaurant.

Welcome to the Future

As a basic dive computer, it does everything exceptionally well. Its BĂŒhlmann ZHL-16C decompression algorithm works as it should. Air integration (in the “i” models) using Garmin’s new T2 transceiver never skipped a beat or lost connection. Setting bearings and navigating underwater are easy with the compass. Critically, screen brightness and sharpness are next-level. The Mk3i has a 454×454 pixel AMOLED color touch-screen display, an upgrade from the , which had a light-reflecting MIPS display. Even for a far-sighted person, I had no trouble reading my watch sitting on a dive boat in midday sun.

Now to the James Bond stuff. Yes, you can send messages underwater. Six basic preloaded messages (“Are you okay?,” “Come to me,” etc.) travel via “Subwave” sonar to anyone else using a T2 transceiver. I didn’t have the chance to test it out since my dive partner was using an older Mk2 and T1 transceiver, but fellow divers tell me it works as advertised. It seems mostly helpful in low-visibility scenarios where hand signals are impossible, but for regular dive buddies who invest in the equipment, it’s a very cool perk.

Despite the inability to message my partner, I was still able to see his tank pressure, distance, and depth on my watch, which meant I never had to worry if he was running low on air or drifting too far away. The ability to track up to eight different transceivers is a game-changer for dive instructors with big groups.

Other futuristic features? DiveView Maps, a highly detailed topographic underwater map that lets you see exactly where you’re jumping in (it doesn’t track you below the surface, unfortunately). A “readiness score,” similar to a training recovery score on other tracking devices, judges your alertness and physical health for diving based on how well you’ve been sleeping, heart rate, jet lag, and other indicators. This was, however, the only Mk3i perk I found superfluous. If I refused to dive after every red-eye, I’d never dive at all. Lastly, the watch has a super bright flashlight that I initially thought was a bit gimmicky, but proved very useful for peering into dark nooks and crannies for octopuses and other reclusive creatures.

The most miraculous thing about the Mk3i is its battery life. Garmin claims up to 66 hours in Dive Mode. I spent three full days diving in Cozumel, Mexico and another day cave diving in cenotes outside of MĂ©rida, and still had 89 percent battery life. For reference, the Mk2 had roughly half that battery life, and some competitors can hardly make it through a day of diving. If you took the Mk3i on a two week-long liveaboard and forgot your charger, you’d probably last the entire trip.

The High Price of Perfection

Predictably, the Mk3i has one major downside: price. At $1,600 for the 51mm version (or $2,100 if you need a new transceiver), this is one of the most expensive smartwatches Garmin makes. It’s far too expensive for someone who only goes diving once or twice a year. If you need a top-end fitness-tracking watch and you’re a regular diver, however, the exceptional performance in both use cases makes it a reasonable splurge.

Need a great smartwatch and only dip your toe in the water? The Apple Ultra 2 ($800) offers a very basic dive computer via the Oceanic+ app. And, if you just need a simple, reliable dive computer separate from your watch or fitness tracker, will do the job—just don’t wear it to dinner.

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At a certain point, the human body can no longer differentiate between very hot and extremely hot. I discovered this firsthand while loading a decade’s worth of furniture, dog accessories, and magazines into a U-Pack shipping container in 116-degree heat. It was June 2021 in Portland, Oregon—a usually temperate city, with an average high at that time of year of around 74 degrees. If it was hot outside, it was borderline lethal inside that metal container, and possessions of mine that were made of plastic began to melt where they touched the walls. If nothing else, the once-in-a-millennium heat dome felt like a cosmic shove out the door, and hellish confirmation that my family’s move to the East Coast was probably the right thing.

Our decision to relocate to ten sleepy acres in central Vermont was made a year earlier, in the middle of one of Oregon’s worst wildfire seasons. In September 2020, thanks to a confluence of blazes in the northwestern part of the state, Portland’s Air Quality Index topped 500, the worst on the planet. When I walked out my front door, I couldn’t see past my neighbors’ houses in any direction. In our creaky, drafty old Craftsman, breathing was labored. Exercise was impossible. Temperatures hovered in the mid-fifties during the day, with a thick layer of smoke blotting out the sun, Cretaceous extinction–style.

If you don’t live in the West, this probably sounds like amped-up climate paranoia. Unfortunately, it’s no exaggeration. I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2010 for its wild beauty, accessible trails, and bold, scalable mountains. (And yes, for its coffee and food trucks, too.) But outdoor recreation became increasingly difficult during the summer, which historically was a brief and beautiful respite from the region’s famous sogginess. Instead, wildfire-fueled smog now regularly makes hiking—or doing anything outside—sooty and unpleasant. Critically, buying or building a home adjacent to many of Oregon and Washington’s wild areas has become a liability. Dreaming of an off-the-beaten-path cabin near Mount Hood? Think again. In 2020, wildfires razed four cities in a uniquely viridescent part of the Willamette Valley.

And the claim that this heat was a rare anomaly may need updating. According to in November 2021, a heat dome like the one that baked the Pacific Northwest is likely to occur every five to ten years if we reach the warming threshold of two degrees Celsius roundly considered the planet’s cataclysmic tipping point.

Vermont doesn’t have the same kind of natural beauty found in the Pacific Northwest, but it’s plenty gorgeous all the same, from its bright fall foliage to the deep blanket of snow that often persists from December into March. The mountains in New England may be a good 7,000 feet shorter, and the skiing a bit icy, but we can strap on a light alpine-touring setup and head far enough out on the Catamount Trail to feel like we’re the only ones around for hundreds of miles.

It was the chance to build a home on secluded, forested land that wasn’t under imminent threat from wildfires that sold us. We can hike out our back door in all seasons without wearing a mask to protect us from smoke—something we’ll never take for granted again.

New England isn’t immune to climate change: the region is warming even faster than much of the country, with heavier rainfall, hotter summers, and growing tick populations. We will inevitably have West (and East) Coast wildfire smoke wafting across our lawn in certain years. Our plan isn’t to ride out the apocalypse with our heads in the sand, but can you blame us for at least enjoying our maple syrup and flannel with the windows open?

The post Why I Gave Up the Pacific Northwest to Move Back East appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

This article was originally published on .Ìę

Welcome to , a monthly taste-test of dehydrated backpacking meals. We’ve surveyed the market, sampling both big, corporate brands and tiny cottage operations in our search for the very best. While we certainly take note of caloric value, food weight, and the use of unhealthy dyes and stabilizers, this is first-and-foremost about taste. Is it delicious? Does it have texture? Would you happily eat this rehydrated pouch if you weren’t starving in the backcountry? 

Mac ‘n’ cheese is a common sight on the trail: There are few off-the-shelf comfort foods as accessible and ubiquitous as a box o’ Kraft or Annie’s macaroni. But their complexity and caloric value leave much to be desired. That’s where these upgraded takes on the classic come in.

Unlike most dehydrated food categories, which are often freeze-dried interpretations of meals containing meat and vegetables, the trail-ready versions of dehydrated macaroni and cheese aren’t that different from what you’d cook at home: It’s basically just powdered cheddar, powdered butter or milk, and annatto extract (for color). The only thing that sets dehydrated mac apart from regular mac is that the pasta is par-cooked or “instant,”meaning you don’t have to waste 10 minutes and several cups of precious water on boiling noodles. ( and other big brands use the same shortcut, which makes them suitable for backpacking).

Pasta type, ratio of calorie-rich cheese and dairy to noodles, and flavor-boosting extras are what set a stellar backcountry mac apart from the Blue Box. Six cheese delivery services went head-to-head. Only one earned our top slot.

First Place: Right On Trek Bechamel Style Mac and Cheese

Score: 5/5

This mac is like a from-scratch Kraft with the volume turned up to 11.Ìę, a meal- and trip-planning operation based out of Montana, is serious about its culinary offerings. For starters, we love the ridged elbow mac, which holds onto sauce better than regular pasta. A hacky sack-sized pouch containing cheddar, whey, buttermilk, and whole milk powders makes for a traffic cone orange, uber-gooey and luxuriant cheese sauce that positively epitomizes what this dish is all about. An optional seasoning packet containing dried onion and parsley, black pepper, and mustard seed powder adds a nice level of heat and Funyuny goodness to the equation. As a bonus, Right on Trek offers discounted pouches for larger group sizes. The only downside? It’s not a true cook-in-pouch meal, although no draining or straining is required, and it has a very short cook time.

1080 calories for a 2-person pouch; 8.7 oz; 3-5 minute cook time
$14;Ìę

Runner Up: Farm to Summit Green Chile Mac

Score: 4.5/5

Farm to Summit’s chile-spiked dehydrated mac ‘n’ cheese is the freshest we tried. The fire-roasted green chiles (also known as Hatch chile or New Mexico chile to Southwesterners) have terrific crunch, even heat, and a smoky, blackened edge. Bites of fresh tomato, onion, and garlic are also integral to this pouch of macaroni and cheese. The combination of spiral egg noodles and dehydrated sweet cream butter made this dish rich without making us feel ill, as we often do after too much mac. It does, however, take a full 20 minutes to rehydrate. Farm to Summit also sells a  with white cheddar, zucchini, squash, kale, chard, and spinach for those hoping to get a full dose of greenery.

890 calories; 6.1 oz; 20 minute cook time
$13.50;Ìę

The Rest

Backpacker’s Pantry Hatch Green Chile Mac & Cheese

Score: 3.5/5

After Farm to Summit’s take on green chile mac, Backpacker Pantry’s entry felt a bit like the poor man’s version of dehydrated macaroni and cheese, but it certainly held its own in our taste test. We appreciate the diversity of powdered cheeses (cheddar, parmesan, romano) and buttery (dehydrated butter sauce) flavor. It’s a good deal spicier than our other macs, thanks not only to powdered smoked Hatch chile, but also jalapeño powder. The extra-long elbow pasta is a bit gummy and overcooked.

450 calories; 3.7 oz; 15 minute cook time
$7;Ìę

Mountain House Creamy Macaroni & Cheese

Score: 2.5/5

As much as we tout Mountain House as our preferred budget brand, its mac is not a banner example. The nearly flavorless cheese sauce has an odd, airy texture, almost like marshmallow fluff. That, in combination with extra-thick elbow noodles, reminded us strongly of cafeteria mac straight from the chafing dish. If that type of macaroni gives you the nostalgic feel-goods, this pouch might be worth consideration. One upshot: It packs a whopping 138 calories per ounce—the highest in this test.

620 calories; 4.5 oz.; 9 minute cook time
$9.25;Ìę

AlpineAire Forever Young Mac & Cheese

Score: 2/5

These noodles do not, in fact, live up to the 80s synth-pop quality we hoped for given the name. Just barely a hint of cheesiness adorns this overcooked fusilli pasta. Random flecks of carrot, corn, and pea make this dehydrated macaroni and cheese taste like a sad macaroni salad at your aunt’s weekly bridge game.

400 calories; 7 oz.; 10-12 minute cook time
$9;Ìę

Outdoor Herbivore “Cheddar” Mac

Score: 1/5

We rarely dole out a ranking like this, but Outdoor Herbivore’s gluten-free, dairy-free “mac” is borderline inedible. We’re not sure if it’s the nutritional yeast, turmeric, or quinoa-corn flour-based pasta, but the otherwise flavorless pouch has a slight ammonia aftertaste. Vegans deserve better.

530 calories; 4.8 oz.; 10 minute cook time
$9;Ìę

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and mass coral bleaching off of Mexico, Central America, and North America is terrifying stuff. In June, when I warned that 2023’s impending El Niño might be the beginning of a massive die-off, I didn’t imagine quite how extreme it would be. It’s even more of a reason to get in the water and see these reefs first-hand—doomscrolling doesn’t do our warming oceans justice.

Choosing your first kit is daunting, whether you’re already hooked, or considering your first dive trip for a better perspective on what’s happening below the surface. Scuba gear can be expensive, and much of the equipment is overkill for casual divers. At the same time, you’re better off avoiding some rental equipment. Buying these five pieces of diving gear first is the smartest way to get into the sport.

Dive Mask

There’s nothing more personal than your dive mask. The “perfect fit” is totally subjective, based on your face shape, facial hair, and visibility preferences. I wear a , which is technically a spearfishing mask, but it works perfectly for my needs; it fits my face shape, blocks out peripheral light, and takes just a small huff through the nose to clear, thanks to its low volume. To find your best mask, go into a dive shop and try several on in-person. Move the strap aside, press the mask against your face, and gently suck in through your nose; if it stays put without you holding it in place, you’re good to go. Not only is a leaky mask super distracting during a dive, but it’s also one of the germiest pieces of equipment you’ll rent. Snorkels are a nice added bonus for beginners, but as you’ll learn, most divers don’t bother to pack them.

Wetsuit

Wetsuits don’t necessarily require the same level of attention to detail as some other equipment—a little extra gap in a rental suit won’t give you hypothermia. They are, however, the grossest piece of equipment to rent from a dive shop. Without question, almost every rental suit has been peed in. And while most shops do a thorough job of cleaning equipment between uses, there’s no guarantee that you’re not stepping into a soiled, skintight leotard. A 5-millimeter thickness wetsuit is a solid choice for many U.S.-accessible dive locations, unless you run particularly warm or are headed to the Maldives. I’ve used a cheap everywhere from Hawaii to Bermuda and never been chilled or overheated.

Dive Computer

Why buy a dive computer if you’ll have one attached to your rented regulator setup? Familiarity. You want to be able to look at your wrist and know exactly what your depth, dive time, and decompression limits are at a glance. And while higher-end computers can be exorbitantly expensive, entry-level options are abundant and relatively bullet-proof. I use an old , which retails for roughly $300 and tells me everything I need to know in a large, high-contrast font. Folks who use the Apple Watch Ultra can simply download the Oceanic+ app to transform their smartwatch into a user-friendly dive computer for around $10 a month—a pretty sweet deal if you dive infrequently.Ìę 

Drybag

Unless you’re exclusively doing shore dives, a drybag is a must. All of your essentials—phone, wallet, keys, dry clothes—will likely get soaked wherever the boat is headed. On all my dive trips during the last year, I’ve been using —a 420-denier laminated roll-top sack with a shoulder strap. A small 20-liter bag is all you need to safely carry a fresh towel and personal belongings for the ride.

Fins

Fins are another very subjective purchase, although I typically advise divers who travel lightly to buy them last. Why? They’re too big, in many cases, to fit in carry-on luggage. That said, cramping and blisters are a major bummer on a highly-anticipated dive trip. Depending on how cold the water is at your dive destination, you might opt for closed-heeled fins, which saves you from packing booties. Beyond the closed vs open heel decision, your ideal fins will vary depending on your preferred swimming style, and whether or not you love diving in confined spaces like wrecks and caves. I rock a pair of , which have a bungee heel for easy on-off, are small enough and lightweight enough to jam into a carry-on bag, and feel agile during wreck dives.

The post New to Diving? This Is the Gear You Should Buy First. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, I started hankering for an epic expedition. Like many cooped-up, law-abiding city-dwellers, I wanted fresh air and a sense of adventure after months of the same old thing. As a Backpacker editor, my top picks were predictable: would it be a remote corner of the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico? Summer mountaineering in ? Over a distanced beer with a marine ecologist friend, she offered an alternative: go diving in Hawaii, where the coral reef ecosystem had just been hit hard by a die-off event.Ìę

I followed her advice . Diving off the Big Island, I saw that there was plenty of life: giant mantas feeding on phytoplankton at night, dolphins gleefully playing in protected bays, and healthy reefs—tall mustard-hued antler coral to deliciously nobby rice coral. There was death, too: football field-sized graveyards of eerily-beautiful stony coral gleaming white below the surface. It was a shocking reminder that as bad as things are on dry land, from drought to wildfires, it pales in comparison to what’s happening just below the surface in one of our planet’s most fragile environments. And , we may be on the cusp of a massive die-off.

For the uninitiated, coral reefs, the eye-popping tropical marine ecosystems home to 25 percent of all known marine species, are actually the result of two very cozy organisms: a skeletal invertebrate that provides a reef’s structure and a microscopic algae that lives inside the coral, providing nutrients and vibrant hues. When the water temperature rises just one degree celsius above the typical threshold for a period of weeks, the stressed corals expel their symbiotic guests and turn bone white. If it lasts for long enough—often eight weeks—the coral dies, causing ecosystem collapse, fish and all.

Why the urgency to put your hut-to-hut trek in New Zealand or ski trip to Switzerland on hold? o, a climate pattern that can drive years’-long warming trends, has verifiably arrived. Historically, that’s very bad news for our oceans. While mass bleaching occurred naturally just a few times over the 20th century, it’s now happening every few years thanks to climate change. The last time we experienced a significant El Niño event, between 2014 and 2017, over 75 percent of the planet’s tropical reefs experienced bleaching events. Over 30 percent reached mortality extremes. Imagine if 30 percent of the planet’s tropical rainforests perished in just three years. Scary, right? 

It’s not all doom and gloom. We don’t know for certain what this upcoming warming period will look like—2019’s mass bleaching was much less severe than the culling between 2014 and 2017. And, though they are undisputedly very fragile, tropical reef ecosystems are proving more resilient than scientists initially thought. showed that some ecosystems handled the last El Niño particularly well thanks to the weather pattern’s nutrient-rich upwellings in certain parts of the globe. But that doesn’t change my recommendation. If you don’t already have one, ($200-300, and it happens just once!)—or borrow a snorkel and some fins from a friend. Yes, there’s a part of me that selfishly wants to see psychedelic mantis shrimp in Indonesia and six-foot-tall brain coral in Australia for fear that they’ll disappear forever. But more importantly, there’s nothing that inspires me to be a better climate activist more than a few days swimming in our planet’s most fragile and spectacular natural environment.

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There’s no reason to cook in the backcountry anymore

By Benjamin Tepler, senior gear editor

I’m a former professional chef and food writer, and I used to agonize over my backcountry meals. How much water-laden fresh produce was I willing to haul into the wild? How many microcontainers of smoked paprika did I dare toss into the jumbled void of my pack? Beyond the weight factor—which included schlepping a proper pot, stove, and skillet—cooking was the last thing I wanted to do after hiking 15 miles, caked in dirt and aching through my lower back.

The calculus used to be simple: Would I rather eat a glorified military ration (and suffer the gastrointestinal consequences), or spend an hour cooking and cleaning up? Some of the dehydrated meals of the past decade weren’t that bad, in a guilty, Kraft mac and cheese sort of way. At that point, there was a 50/50 chance I’d bail on a bowl of home-cooked pad Thai for crumbly beef Stroganoff.

But times have changed. With improved freeze-drying technologies and the backpacking world’s growing culinary IQ, dehydrated meals have become exponentially more appetizing. They are so good, in fact, that I doubt I could make a better version in the wilderness myself. Take , a salmon-and-tofu-filled Japanese rice porridge that’s as good as any I’ve had in a restaurant. Nowadays there’s no question in my mind: dehydrated meals from top-notch brands like and win every time. I’m unlikely to bring more than a Jetboil on my next backpacking trip, as long as I can sit on my haunches while the Platonic ideal of hominy stew can be reconstituted in under 15 minutes.

Variety and cost savings are worth a few extra ounces

By Adam Roy, executive editor, Backpacker

Here’s a hard truth: no one outside of a military lab has figured out how to make a dehydrated pizza. There’s no denying that backpacking meals are better than ever before. The pouches of yesteryear contained the kind of glop you’d swallow just to keep your belly full and your legs moving; as Ben rightly points out, today’s gourmet options sometimes rival restaurant meals. But for all that improvement, dehydrated entrĂ©es are still limited to things you can eat out of a plastic bag with a spoon. If you’re willing to cook it yourself, you’re limited only by your creativity. It requires less gear than you might think: in 15 minutes, I can cook up a hot, cheesy pizza with nothing more than an eight-ounce frying pan, a canister stove, and some portioned-out ingredients. I’ve baked cakes in titanium camp mugs and improvised crumbles with wild berries, sugar packets, and leftover oats. Let’s see your packaged meal conjure up that kind of magic.

Then there’s the price: that Miso Salmon Okayu will set you back $16.95, and some pouches run to a whopping $20. If you’re planning a hiking trip for your next vacation, that may seem reasonable—who doesn’t indulge in a few fancy meals while traveling? But when the backpacking bug bites, it bites hard, and those “vacations” quickly turn into a lifestyle. When a twice-a-year outing becomes an every-weekend habit, the dollar signs pile up fast.

Yes, dehydrated food makes packing easier. There’s no chopping, blending, or Tupperwaring—you just grab and go. But backpacking isn’t about getting from point A to point B as quickly as possible. It’s about immersing yourself in the experience, with all the mud, sweat, and bacon grease that goes with it. Just like walking, feeding ourselves is an elemental part of being human. Shouldn’t we take the time to savor the process instead of looking for a shortcut?

The post Is Camp Cooking Better than Dehydrated Meals While Backpacking? appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Cooking in the backcountry is a delicate balance of luxury and weight-savings. Will a plastic, $5 spork suffice? Probably, but we’d rather dine in style. We gorged on cozy pasta dinners, sipped canned rosĂ©, and poured cold brew all summer long to bring you our favorite camp meals and kitchen accessories of the year.

How We Test

Number of Testers: 4

Vertical Feet Hiked: 12,800 ft.

Number of Dehydrated Meals Sampled: 93

Number of Burnt Tongues: 3

We spent the summer season testing backpacking kitchen gear in the Tetons, the foothills of the Wind River Mountains, the high peaks in Colorado’s Uncompahgre National Forest, and the wandering trails in Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness. Our four testers, spanning in age from early 20s to late 50s, hit the trail in search of packable, durable, lightweight, unique, and easy-to-use products that made their lives infinitely easier (and more fun!) when it came to feeding and watering hangry hikers.

Meet Our Testers

Category manager Lily Krass is a Jackson-based freelance writer in the outdoor industry who spends summers hiking, mountain biking, trail running, and camping in the Tetons. As the co-author of Beyond Skid: A Cookbook For Ski Bums, eating outside is (almost) as important as playing outside, so putting camp kitchen accessories to the test in the field is the perfect marriage of food and adventure.

Benjamin Tepler is °żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đ’s gear editor in charge of all things hiking, backpacking, and car camping. A former food critic and professional cook, he takes his backcountry dining experience very seriously.

The Reviews: The Best Camp Kitchen Accessories of 2023

Opinel Picnic+ Cutlery Complete Set with No.08 Folding Knife ($35)

Weight: 3.5 oz
Pros: Versatile; sturdy; good-looking
Cons: Heavy

The antidote to plastic sporks that snap in half and chip their tines, the Picnic+ set made our freeze-dried meals feel like a real dining experience thanks to the sturdy wood handle, which securely holds both a stainless steel spoon and fork insert. The same wooden handle also hides a folding, 3-inch stainless steel blade that proved useful while slicing up cheese for a breakfast quesadilla on a hurried morning in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. The microfiber carrying case doubles as a napkin, which we used to wipe garlicky pesto sauce off our puffy jackets. At 3.5 ounces and roughly the size of a LaraBar when folded up, it is a slight bump up in weight compared to sub one-ounce plastic cutlery, but given the sharp, capable blade and multi-use napkin, it was a trade-off each tester was happy to accept.

Bottom Line: The Opinel Picnic+ Cutlery Set is a good-looking utensil set sturdy enough for a proper picnic

UCO ECO 4-piece Mess Kit ($20)

Weight: 8.3 oz
Pros: Made with recycled materials; watertight seal
Cons: None

What’s more environmentally-friendly than eating off of a reusable mess kit? Using one made of recycled plastic, like this kit from UCO. The all-in-one setup is now made with the brand’s ECO Ware recycled plastic, a proprietary blend of post-consumer recycled polypropylene. Compared to the brand’s previous mess kit, this one ditches the two-piece utensil design for a single spork (we didn’t miss the butter knife with a pocket knife in our packs), and it’s cheaper, too. “I like that there’s a watertight seal,” said one Wyoming-based tester after a three-day trip to Sinks Canyon in Lander. That tight seal came in handy when they used the Mess Kit as a tupperware to keep noodles warm while prepping pasta with veggies and vodka sauce. A silicone tether loops through the spork and cinches the 8-by-8-inch kit tightly, keeping it secure even while getting jostled at the bottom of a backpack.

Bottom Line: The UCO ECO mess kit is an all-in-one setup with a tight seal for leftovers

GSI Outdoors 2-Can Cooler Stack ($30)

Weight: 12.8 oz
Pros: The ultimate backcountry party trick
Cons: Impractical for long trips

How many times have you wished for a cold beer to crack after a long day of hiking? For a small, three-quarters of a pound weight penalty, the GSI Outdoors 2-Can Cooler Stack can fulfill those dreams. Admittedly, it’s a luxury item, but testers agreed that the extra load was well worth it after the double-wall insulated cooler kept two 12-ounce cans of sparking rosĂ© perfectly chilled for 12 hours on an overnight trip in Wyoming’s Gros Ventre Range. The roughly 11-by-3-inch tube slots easily into the water bottle sleeve of a pack, but one hiker in Washington opted to carry it in his hand with the removable silicone handle for the 2.5-mile walk to Snow Lake near Snoqualmie Pass. “A little unnecessary, but definitely fun,” summed up one Wyoming tester. “Laugh if you will, but you’ll be eating your words after you crack open a can of chilled rosĂ© at camp.”

Bottom Line: With the GSI Outdoors 2-Can Cooler Stack, you’ll be the most popular person in camp, as long as there’s only two of you.

Sponsor Content
Jetboil Stash Cooking System ($144.95)

Take your camp kitchen to the next level with the lightest and most compact Jetboil stove yet. The Jetboil Stash cooking system weighs only 7.1 oz, making it 40 percent lighter than the Zip. Plus, with FluxRing technology that ensures a rapid 2.5 minute boil time and a nesting system for easy storage, the Jetboil Stash is your ticket to faster cooking and cleanup.

Miir Stainless Steel Cold Brew Filter ($15)

Weight: 1.6 oz
Pros: Sleek; durable
Cons: Proprietary vessel required

For backpackers that find regular ol’ rocket fuel insufficient, this stainless steel cold brew filter is the key to a highly-caffeinated hike out of camp. It’s efficient, too: You’ll save time and fuel by drinking cold brew—as long as you’re not married to a hot cup of coffee in the morning. Setup is dead-easy: Pour grounds into the filter, fill a 32- or 42-ounce wide-mouth Miir bottle with water, and let it steep overnight. One tester even slept with it right next to her pillow so she could sip coffee as soon as she opened her eyes. Bummer: The featherweight filter only fits the brand’s proprietary double-walled thermoses, which are on the heavy side.

Bottom Line: Use the Miir Stainless Steel Coffee Filter for one of the easiest ways to make cold-brew in the backcountry.

Editor’s Choice: Stowaway Gourmet ($13-20)

Pros: Category-defining flavor, texture, and diversity
Cons: Expensive, vertical orientation hard to eat from

In 2023, with more artisan backpacking food brands than ever before, . Even some of our favorite all-star brands don’t have a perfect batting average. And many of the old-school backpacking food offerings? You’re playing Russian roulette with your digestive tract. That long-held apprehension changed when we tried the offerings from Stowaway Gourmet, a tiny Oregon-based operation that slowly came onto the scene in the midst of the pandemic three years ago. After extensive testing, Stowaway is the only dehydrated food brand in the country worthy of this absolute statement: of the brand’s 13-odd flavors, there isn’t a single bad apple.

One of the easiest ways to describe the difference between Stowaway’s offerings and what we’ll call “first-gen” backpacking meal brands is to say that it tastes like the difference between instant coffee and freshly-brewed pour-over. That’s due, in large part, to texture. Stowaway owner Dan West is tight-lipped about his freeze-drying process, other than to say it’s been entirely reinvented from the ground up since the days of mass-produced, shelf-stable military rations. The shrimp in a Thai curry are plump and juicy. Penne in a tomato-mushroom sauce is perfectly al dente. Sage-flecked scrambled eggs curds in a soon-to-be-released sausage and goat cheese-laden breakfast bowl are shockingly luscious and whole—a far cry from the soupy, powdered egg creations we’re accustomed to. On a testing trip up New Mexico’s Mt. Taylor, one șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű staffer literally had his face stuffed inside the zip-top bag in an attempt to suck down every last sweet, porcine morsel of breakfast sausage.

Ingredients and recipes have a worldly fluency that goes far beyond the token pad thai offering. You’ll find carefully-researched culinary representation from India, Italy, Russia, France, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Japan, just to name a few. Miso Salmon Okayu, a salmon and tofu-filled Japanese rice porridge that works well for just about every meal, is simmered with daikon, miso, fresh ginger, kombu, and bonito flakes. The fact that salmon, a notoriously expensive and texture-challenged protein, can be rehydrated back into its original flakey, unctuous glory is an achievement. Benjamin Tepler, one of șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű’s gear editors, found himself eating this particular meal for lunch on busy workdays, even after spending a fraught year taste-testing nearly a hundred different dehydrated backpacking pouches.

Our only criticisms: The pouches themselves are oriented vertically, making it hard to scoop up the last few bites of a meal with a normal-length spork. Stowaway’s meals aren’t cheap, either, averaging around $16 a pop. But when you’d rather eat a dehydrated backpacking meal than make a run into town for french fries, as one of our thru-hiker testers claimed, $16 starts to feel like a bargain.

Bottom Line: Stowaway Gourmet simply makes the best dehydrated backpacking food on the market.

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If you don’t live in a part of the country where mud season is a thing, consider yourself blessed. In New England and some other snowy states, it typically occurs between March and May, when dirt and gravel roads begin to thaw out from the long, brutal winter, causing extended pandemonium on roads and trails alike. In Vermont, the mud can get so thick and deep that it’s generally considered more dangerous to drive during the thaw than it is during the iced-over winter season. For a few months, people stop hiking altogether to prevent trail erosion. But for the days when there’s no avoiding it, these are the kicks to get you through the muck.

For Walking: ($145)

One of the worst things about mud season is the variable temperatures. You might be walking in frozen slush one day and wallowing in warmed-over sludge the next. Muck’s Chore Classic Xpresscool is the sweet spot, temperature-wise, for this time of year. That “Xpresscool” tech is basically just a wicking liner, but it does the job well, keeping the inside of the boot dry (impressive for a neoprene and rubber construction) and providing some cooling action when you’re standing around in the sun. At 18 inches tall, that 5-millimeter-thick neoprene layer is pretty much impervious to mud and water, making it my boot of choice during downpours and while navigating foot-deep ruts on the road. A steel shank adds much-appreciated stability while gathering firewood, but as a result, it’s not the most comfortable boot for longer dog walks.

For Hiking: ($240)

Burly waterproof boots that can keep out slush and wet mud are typically sweaty and overbuilt. Hoka’s Kaha 2 GTX, however, is one of the most comfortable-out-of-the-box above-ankle boots I’ve ever worn. It’s as cushy as a recovery shoe thanks to a dual-density compression molded midsole and generous padding around the ankle and heel. The Gore-Tex membrane, which stood up to full immersion in slush puddles, never chafed or felt clammy. Most critically, the five-millimeter lugs with serrated edges and—love it or hate it—oversized heel provided extra surface area, flotation, and traction in the mucky stuff.Ìę

For Running: ($150)

A variant of Saucony’s wildly popular Peregrine trail runner, the ST (soft terrain) excels in slop. Six-and-a-half millimeter wide-spaced lugs were a dream during long runs down country roads, where conditions ranged from wet sand to oozing concrete. Even in the nastiest conditions, I never lost traction—nor did the lugs ball up with dirt—thanks to the generous spacing. A speedy quick-pull lace system anchors the shoe snugly and tucks up into a mesh pocket on the tongue. During early season slush runs, a stretchy ankle gaiter and protective film above the outsole kept water from sneaking in. And while there’s more cushioning and a softer rubber compound than in the normal Peregrine, the ST still felt precise on technical trails.

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