An icy wind stings my cheeks as I sprint from my warm Subaru to the front porch of a stranger’s home in my suburban neighborhood. I look between the milk delivery box and a patio chair and locate my prize, wrapped in a plastic grocery bag.

Back in my car, I pull up my phone, open Venmo, and send $30 to someone named Julia. I unwrap the bag and marvel at my loot: a purple and pink pair of girls rubber snow boots, dotted with a stylish flower print, in child’s size 12.

These are no ordinary boots—they are a pair of . Parents everywhere, including yours truly, have come to appreciate the brand for keeping our kids’ feet cozy and dry on the coldest winter days. We also love Bogs’ extreme, eye-popping durability. In my experience, Bogs rubber-soled winter boots are virtually impervious to the highly destructive forces that a typical child can muster. Bogs can survive the harshest sandbox grit and cheese-grater-like playground equipment. Take a belt sander to the sole of your kid’s Bogs and the vulcanized rubber may still grip icy pavement.

I want to stress how unusual this is to all of the child-free readers out there. Should you someday welcome a small human into your life, then you—like me—may marvel at your child’s ability to immediately transform new apparel or footwear into thread-bare rags.

Bogs’ extreme durability creates a dynamic that fans of the boots know well.  Your kid will outgrow his or her Bogs long before the boots wear out. Thus, you can sell them online when they no longer fit your kid’s feet and fetch a good price.

A thriving secondary market exists for Bogs on websites like Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. If you check out the “Kids’ Bogs” page on the , you will scroll past hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of used pairs for sale.

My wife and I began buying and selling our daughter’s used Bogs on Facebook Marketplace a few years ago. Our five-year-old is on her fifth pair. Here’s the thing: we’ve only purchased one pair new. The MSRP on a pair of Bogs kids winter boots is $85, but you can easily score a set with plenty of life left in them online in the $30-50 range.

For years I wondered whether this dynamic was hurting the company’s bottom line, since so many customers, like me, simply buy them from other parents.

I posed this question (does Bogs’ extreme durability hurt sales?) to Megan Vinton, Bogs’ senior director of product, during a recent phone call, and I got a murky answer: probably not, but honestly, who knows?

“We’ve never really analyzed the secondary marketplace that way,” she told me. “But the price that people can command for a used pair is pretty impressive.”

Vinton told me that the company has long known that used Bogs are sought-after items online. A few years back, she said, there was an internal conversation among company officials about creating Bogs’ own re-selling marketplace for used boots. But employees struggled to find the right e-commerce infrastructure and model to pursue. Plus, there was a decent argument that Bogs’ popularity on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace actually boosted the brand’s popularity. So the whole project was scrapped.

“We’re content and happy to let the online community of used sellers thrive,” she said. “So many people’s entrance to our brand is from word-of-mouth and community purchasing.”

Bogs Neo-Classic Solid Kids’ Boots

Instead, Vinton said, Bogs has found ways to lean into its reputation for longevity. Each pair of Bogs kids’ boots comes with a name tag inside that has room for three different names. And a few years ago, Bogs started a program called . The company will cover the shipping cost for customers to mail their used boots to the Portland, Oregon headquarters. Employees will then freshen up the footwear and donate them to outdoor kids’ programs and preschools.

“We want to keep them out of landfills,” says Chris Enlow, the company’s head of sustainability. “Creating a plug-and-play method to give them to a charity is how we prefer to engage in re-circulating boots.”

So, why do these kids boots last so long, when a typical child may only wear them for one or two seasons? Vinton said that, years ago, the company committed to using the same durability standards for a toddler’s boot as for the ones it manufactured for ranchers and dairy hands. Employees lay vulcanized rubber strips by hand over a neoprene sock to construct the waterproof lower. The company seeks out the strongest rubber compounds that won’t crack after a year spent in the sun, wind, and rain.

The company applies its latest technology to all of its boots, not just the ones made for lumberjacks or ranch hands. The newest models are made from vulcanized rubber that’s injected into a hard mold to create a seamless sole and lower area. And yeah, your three-year-old nephew can stomp through puddles in rocket ship-emblazoned boots that are made this way

“You don’t want people saying ‘Oh, these boots used to last longer,’” Enlow said.

The lifespan of the pink and purple Bogs are far from my mind as I park in my driveway and hurry indoors. I find my daughter scribbling in a coloring book, and I slip her feet into the new boots to make sure they fit.

Then I step out of the way and let her gaze at the color scheme and the fancy flower print. It’s somewhat similar to the design of her older pair, which sit near near our front door, ready for me to post online.

“Good,” she says, and then returns to coloring.

Fred was the editor-in-chief at VeloNews from 2016 to 2021. Prior to that he was a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times. Fred is the proud father of his five-year-old daughter, Magnolia, whose feet are growing like weeds. 

The post These Boots Will Last Longer than Your Child Can Wear Them appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Anyone who’s watched Cody Townsend’s The Fifty series, which documents his multi-year attempt to climb and ski North America’s 50 most iconic ski lines, knows he’s a big fan of large-lens sunglasses—not the type of giant, round-lens glasses commonly worn by celebrities, but outdoor-focused, wrap-around glasses that look like goggle lenses without the goggle frames. Townsend says he’s adopted these large glasses for several reasons. For starters, they keep out more of the sun during his 12-hour days on the skin track. And because they’re big enough to shield his face on most descents, they make for a lighter and less cumbersome option than goggles.

Townsend isn’t the only one choosing glasses over goggles. If you show up to your local ski area before work, you’ll find plenty of uphill skiers wearing large-lens glasses. Same thing out in the backcountry. When it’s not hammering snow, skiers love to wear glasses instead of goggles.

For years Townsend wore various models of large-lens glasses from Smith, one of his sponsors, and this year he launched a Smith model of his own design called the . “I’ve now spent more time skiing in the Pursuit than any other glasses I’ve ever worn and because of their coverage I find myself leaving my goggles at home more and more,” Townsend told us via phone while he was driving home from a recent ski tour in California’s Sierras.

I got my hands on a pair in January, skied with them in Jackson Hole, and then brought them back to New Mexico for the rest of the winter. And as big-lens glasses go, the Pursuits are definitely a step above and, in my opinion, worth the eye-watering price tag of nearly $300.

Townsend thought of everything. First, they come with photochromic lenses that change their tint based on the amount of sun hitting them. They adjust from a category one (allowing 43 to 80 percent of visible light through) to a category four rating (allowing only three to eight percent through). This means I can wear them at 7 a.m. on the skin track just as the sun is rising, and keep wearing them comfortably all the way through high noon when the New Mexico sun and white snow collude to try and destroy my retinas. Category four, the highest level, is often what you’ll find in traditional glacier glass lenses.

For extra sun protection, Townsend also included side shields (like you’d find on glacier glasses) that keep sun from poking in peripherally. The side shades snap into and stay in place when they connect with magnets on the frames, but they fold down easily when you want to pack the glasses away. The shields are removable, but I leave them on because they’re so well-designed that they never get in the way.

“I wanted the side shields because light has a way of leaking in from all angles, even with large-lens glasses,” Townsend says. “If there are gaps where light gets in, it causes eye strain, so I knew I needed more coverage.”

In terms of size, the lenses are on the bigger side even for large-lens glasses. That has been fine by me because the extra size makes them truly big enough to replace my goggles in nearly every instance. Since getting the Pursuits, I’ve only returned to goggles for a big inbounds day when I was ripping groomers at speed, or when fighting off snow during a blizzard—both places where I needed the extra protection offered by goggles that seal to your face.

Some users have complained that the Pursuit will fog because they provide such extensive coverage and don’t allow enough airflow when you’re huffing up the skin track. But I never found this to be the case. It might be because I have a large nose and the glasses sit off my face enough to breathe, but I suspect most other people won’t have problems either, because there’s plenty of room at the top of the glasses for airflow.

Townsend told me that while geeking out in the design phase, he and the Smith designers spent a lot of time thinking about how far off his face the glasses would sit. He wanted the lower part of the lenses to sit closer to his cheek to cut down on light coming off the snow, and he was fine with a larger gap at the top for airflow. That upper gap didn’t present as much of a light leak problem because he, like most people on the skin track, usually ski with a hat that shields the sun.

Thanks to rubber grippers on the nose and temples, the glasses always stayed put, even when I was a sweaty mess. Townsend says that the arms are customizable and can be shaped to match the shape of your head and ears. “When you’re wearing sunglasses for a long time you want them to have the perfect fit or they’re going to start to hurt,” he says.

One other detail I love: the Pursuits ship with a smartly-designed case. It’s not a traditional hard case that takes up too much space in my pack, or just a fabric sheath that only protects from scratches but not breaks. This case is somewhere in between. It’s built with a rigid front that should protect the glasses if I accidentally sit on them (I haven’t yet), and a soft back that allows me to wedge the case into the sunglasses pocket of my backcountry pack. Included in the case is a clear lens that I could swap in if I wanted to use the glasses at night.

The glasses also come with a removable nose guard, which I took off and promptly lost. It’s the kind of guard you’d wear if you were climbing Everest and sunscreen wasn’t enough. I chose to take the guard off because, even though my nose eats sun, I didn’t want to deal with carrying an extra piece. Reapplying sunscreen works for me.

șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű of skiing I’ve used the glasses on bike rides and loved the coverage they provided in this context as well. During a windy spring of riding gravel, the side shields kept dust out of my eyes, and the frames fit well under most bike helmets. True roadies will think the glasses are too heavy and cumbersome, but the rest of us who ride gravel, trails, or just commute to work, will find them useful. Anyone worried about the shields affecting peripheral vision on the street can snap the shields off.

I’m also looking forward to wearing the glasses while driving on long summer road trips because the extra coverage will cut down on eye fatigue. And I’ll be wearing them when I run, hike, backpack, or do just about any outdoor activity I can think of. The only places I won’t use them are while hunting—because I constantly have my glasses off when I’m looking through binoculars—or when hanging out, because they make me look like a total poser. While some of you younger folk can get away with wearing large-lens glasses in social situations, I’ll stick to regular dad glasses when poolside or at work.

Townsend says the aren’t just something he put his signature on but glasses he helped design from the ground up to solve problems he encounters in the mountains. “I never want to just throw something onto the market,” he says. “I want to make something that I use every day—and that’s totally true with the Pursuit.”

The post Cody Townsend Just Designed the Perfect Quiver-of-One șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Glasses appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

I love my backpacking buds, but route-finding isn’t their forte. Nor mine. So in retrospect, it’s not surprising that the “trail” we thought we were skinning to Peter Eiseman Hut in the shadow of Colorado’s Gore Range was actually a set of random ski tracks leading to nowhere.

That’s how I found myself bushwhacking along a ridge at 10 p.m. on a February night, staring holes into the conifer forest for signs of light and life. Four hours past the point of exhaustion, I caught the scent of woodsmoke; the hut was ahead. We staggered into the fire-lit living room in a fog of fatigue, and I fell onto a couch, shivering. I was still wearing my Scarpa touring boots, too weary to pull them off.

A few minutes later, an Irish lilt called me out of my coma: “Sure but you’d like a wee cuppa?” a Gaelic angel said, as she handed me . Her smile could have melted glaciers. 

Outdoor adventurers know the feeling well: A transition from hard boots to down booties, from cold wind to warm sleeping bag, from suffering to safety. The Danish have elevated it to a national obsession, in fact. They call it hygge, the Danish art of coziness and connection. 

You’ve no doubt heard of the concept, put forward in endless hygge posts on Pinterest, and hygge appeals from the Danish tourism bureau. Fuzzy slippers. Firelight. Throw blankets. Steaming mugs. Purring kittens. Goose-down duvets. But hygge also applies to hardy outdoorspeople like you. 

So says Meik Wiking, CEO of the —my new dream job—in Copenhagen, and author of The Little Book of Hygge. As Saint Francis of Assisi was to asceticism, Wiking is to cozy. 

“Hygge is about enjoying the simple moments in life,” he says. “The ones that bring us feelings of gratitude, togetherness, pleasure. Hygge has often been associated with log fires, woolen blankets, and candles, however these should be seen more as mediators of hygge. Getting outdoors offers plenty of opportunities to enjoy those simple moments: the sounds of nature, the wind in our face, the view of the trees.” 

On my tortuous route to Eiseman I’d had enough of trees, their frozen sap creaking in subzero temperatures. (Or maybe I was hearing my own knee joints, hard to say.) But the hut was a temple of hygge: wood stove, warmth, friendship, and candles casting their magic. If all that cozy combustion doesn’t burn down the  hut, it’ll be warming cockles for centuries. 

Are your cockles, in fact, a bit chilly? Put these five Fs—all portable forms of hygge—in your backpack, and you’ll maintain a hygge-glow wherever you wander this winter. 

1. FNUG

That’s the Danish word for fluff or fuzz, and residents of that country need plenty of both to help them through the wet, chilly, dark period between September and salvation (May). But that doesn’t mean they’re suffering; Denmark continually ranks among the happiest places on earth. Hygge gets them through, along with wrapping themselves in fnug. As Wiking puts it, “In Denmark, we say there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes.”

Kelvin Meeks, a senior material specialist with Marmot, advises that you to “think about snuggling in front of the fire—the classic hygge. Until the fire gets going, you need your cozy blanket. Once the fire’s roaring, you might be cozy in a tee-shirt.” Planning for outdoor cozy isn’t that different. The trick is to stay flexible: cozy is the right amount of the right clothing for what you’re doing right now. And you can pack to prepare for that.

He proposes this mnemonic to max out your fnug factor:  Dress in TRP on your TRiP. 

Transport—: A synthetic, wool, or wool-blend shirt that’s soft, comfortable, and easy to move in, with quick-dry and wicking properties to move sweat away from your skin so it can evaporate. Cotton is the anti-fnug—clammy, clingy, cold. 

Regulate—Lightweight fleece, stretch fleece, down, or synthetic insulated layering jackets have enough loft to hold body warmth, but they are breathable so you don’t overheat. 

P°ùŽÇłÙ±đłŠłÙ—Your shell keeps out rain and snow and wind. Breathability is also a benefit here. It should protect you without turning into a sweat terrarium. 

HYGGEAR: Kelvin Meeks gets his fnug on with . “It’s light and warm for layering,” he says. “It also works alone on cool days at moderate activity or on freezing days for high aerobic output like snowshoeing or trail running.” 

2. FLASK

I left the trailhead below the Mount of the Holy Cross in full sunshine and optimism. It was late September, the aspens were aglow, and the sky was the limit. But this being Colorado, the weather turned once we hit about 8,000 feet. As the graupel doinked off my skull, I became sullen and silent, and my buddy Dave grew concerned. “Peter,” he said, “let’s stop and have some cocoa.” 

Moments later his Svea was roaring, the water boiling soon after. When I brought the warm mug to my lips, hypothermia turned to happiness. His kindness warmed me as much as the hot drink did—another key lesson of cozy. 

In The Little Book of Hygge, Meik Wiking writes: “Hygge is about being kind to yourself—giving yourself a treat, and giving yourself, and each other, a break from the demands of healthy living. Something sinful is an integral component of the hygge ritual. Especially if we all share the same bowl.”

HYGGEAR: Last winter I skied near Colorado’s Cameron Pass, where the Never Summer Range meets the Medicine Bow, for Backpacker. My favorite vessel from that trip: The Stanley Classic Trigger-Action Travel Mug, which can keep your hygge hot for up to seven hours. Add a nip of something sinful and share it with a friend for extra human warmth. 

3. FEEL

Hygge has heart. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word is derived from the old Icelandic “hugga,” which means to embrace or to soothe. If your down sweater is giving you a warm hug, you should hug it right back. 

As Wiking writes in The Little Book of Hygge, “Letting your fingers run 
 through the hairs of the skin of a reindeer is a distinctly different feeling from being in contact with something made from steel, glass, or plastic.”

I haven’t petted a reindeer recently. But I instinctively know that touch is important, like when I walk through L.L.Bean obsessively running my hands across the fleece, the sweaters, the ski socks. Now I know: I’m feeling for hygge, and you probably are, too.

“The human body doesn’t know when it is ‘comfortable,’” says Ray Davis, comfort and durability research associate for W. L. Gore & Associates. “That is a learned trait. You have trained your brain to associate . So when you are shopping for gear, eliminate potential non-thermal factors of discomfort before you proceed to checkout.” 

He’s talking about fit, functionality, stiffness, weight—even the noise a zipper makes, or the swishing sound of arm friction when you walk. (You can’t unhear some things!) According to Davis, these psychological factors add as much to comfort as the loft of the insulation. 

For maximum hygge, you must actually visit the outfitter, rather than just clicking through your gear list online.  “Pick up the garment, feel it, wear it, stretch, and move around in it for a few moments in the store,” Davis advises, nerding out on cozy. “Assess your ergonomic and sensorial comfort.”

HYGGEAR: Backpacker gear testers assessed their ergonomic and sensorial comfort in various puffies, while preparing for the winter of 2022-23. Their hyggeligt (adjectival form of hygge) pick: “ Mythic Ultra removes the usual trade-off between warmth and packability. Thanks to a generous amount of 900-fill down in offset box-wall baffles, as well as a heat-reflective aluminum scrim (think gauze, but with the ability to bounce body heat back at you), the Mythic Ultra was warm enough to be one tester’s go-to ice climbing belay jacket in the , even on zero-degree days.” If I was single, I’d marry that jacket.

4. FEET 

For want of a nail the shoe was lost. 

For want of a shoe the horse was lost. 

For want of a horse the rider was lost. 

For want of a rider the battle was lost. 

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. 

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Swap in “sock” for “nail,” “foot” for “shoe,” and “hygge” for “horse,” and you get the picture: , the backpacking battle is lost.  

Owen Rachampbell is a product line manager for Darn Tough—a kind of in-house expert on all things cozy. Not surprisingly, he sees hygge as a sock thing: “Your feet are not going to be happy if you are wearing a crappy pair of socks.”

Rachampbell thinks everything from the shins down is a system, and merino wool makes it run optimally. His logic: “Sheep have been hiking and running in wool for 10,000 years. Synthetic fibers cannot beat this track record.” 

Darn Tough engineers comfort with soft, wicking, and anti-stink merino wool up top, merino “terry loops” to cushion the foodbed, and spandex to keep from rubbing you raw. Rachampbell alternated two pairs of Darn Tough while through-hiking the AT, and he claims his dogs never barked. in your boots. Socks can wander, stretch, bunch, and slouch. Buy a pair that will hug your feet, not hurt them.

A further tip from Wiking, to warm you from your soul to your extremities: Associate gear purchases with a happy event. Go sock shopping when you schedule that much-anticipated snowshoe adventure with friends, or just before you take the correct trail into Eiseman hut. Elevated emotion + elevated gear = hyggemotion, which is the best kind of warmth.

HYGGEAR: Rachampbell cites a notoriously cold-footed woman (know anybody like that?) for his sock recommendation: “My wife swears by our for chillier nights on the trail or even at home.” We also love pairs from Smartwool, Kora, and Swiftwick. Just remember: Try before you buy.

5. FIRE

Much of the mountain west will enforce fire bans next summer, so the classic hygge . But there are other ways to kindle warmth without it. 

“In its more contemporary usage,” Wiking writes, “‘hygge’ emerges in nineteenth-century Danish literature as part of a more integrated sense of community and belonging, especially following the Prussian-Danish wars in 1848 and 1864.” I have no idea what those dastardly Prussians were up to back then, but the point is clear: There’s real warmth in camaraderie, so you can produce it even if your matches are wet. 

Wiking identifies the ten key factors for hygge as atmosphere, presence, pleasure, equality, gratitude, harmony, comfort, truce, togetherness, and shelter. Alpenglow can supply that, as can your attitude when it’s time to filter water for dinner. And what my hiking buddies lack in map skills, they make up for in lightweight guitars and singing. Friendship has been the best part of backpacking for me, and it’s at the core of the Danish art of cozy. 

Wiking defines the hygge hiker as “one who is intentional about how they enjoy the now and make the best of it.” Or to put it proverbially: It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

HYGGEAR: “No recipe for hygge is complete without candles,” says Wiking. “When Danes are asked what they most associate with hygge 
 85 percent will mention candles.” The is designed to operate safely in a tent, and can even help to heat it. All that, and the glow is blissful—the very essence of hygge. 

Be cozy out there. 

Peter Moore, the former interim editor of Backpacker, is a contributing cartoonist to the , and he posts other fun/weird/adventurous stuff at .

The post Want to Make Your Next Hike Cozy AF? Embrace the Art of Hygge. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.