For an alpine start at 3 a.m., a technical trail run in the dark, or a ski descent under headlamp, a basic light is not enough. You need serious output and a beam that keeps up with you. The Petzl Swift RL throws 1100 lumens from a 100-gram headlamp and, thanks to a light sensor,…
Not every hike needs a three-hundred-dollar pack. When you are just getting into day hiking, or you want a featherweight bag that stuffs into a pocket for the summit push or the flight over. The WATERFLY 35L Packable Daypack does the job for the price of a couple of trail lunches. Our field rating ★★★★★4.3…
Strap on a heavy multi-day pack and point yourself at steep, rough, rooty terrain, and a light trail shoe stops being enough. Your ankles and feet need real support and protection. The Salomon Quest 4 GTX is built for exactly that: a supportive, waterproof backpacking boot engineered to carry a load over hard ground trip…
On an exposed ridge in a stiff wind, an ordinary canister stove flickers, wastes fuel, and takes forever to boil, if it boils at all. The MSR WindBurner is built to ignore all of that. Its enclosed radiant burner and pressure regulator keep boiling fast and efficient in wind and cold that bring lesser stoves…
Almost nobody’s first backcountry stove needs to be expensive. The BRS-3000T is the tiny titanium canister burner that has introduced more people to hot meals on the trail than almost anything else. It weighs about as much as five sheets of paper, costs less than a takeout lunch, and boils water fast. Our field rating…
A hollow-fiber filter handles the backcountry streams of North America beautifully, but point it at a questionable tap in a developing country, or a stagnant pond after a flood, and it meets its limit: viruses. The Grayl GeoPress is built for exactly those consequential situations. Fill it, press it like a French press, and drink…
Once you hike enough miles, the little frustrations of your first water filter start to matter: the slow squeeze, the clogging, the fiddly cleaning. The Platypus QuickDraw is the filter for the hiker who has moved past all that. A fast, versatile hollow-fiber filter that flows quickly, threads onto the bottles you already carry, and…
Cold ground steals more warmth than cold air, and in winter it will end a trip fast. The Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm NXT is the pad alpinists and mountaineers trust to put a thick layer of insulation between them and frozen, snow-covered ground, a 7.3 R-value in a mattress that still packs to the size of…
Once you start counting ounces and caring about a good night’s sleep, the sleeping pad becomes one of the most important, and most personal. Pieces of gear you carry. The Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT is the pad committed backpackers keep coming back to: three inches (7.6 cm) of insulated air that packs to the size…
When the forecast turns hostile and you still have to sleep out, an ordinary three-season tent is the wrong tool. The MSR Access 2 is a lightweight four-season shelter built for exactly those nights: ski tourers, winter backpackers, and shoulder-season alpine trips where wind and snow load are the real test. Our field rating ★★★★★4.6…
