The seatbelts started appearing on the messenger bags ages ago. Your friend would show up at your house wearing one, answer a question about the airbag on his bike, and then make a grab for his falling bag after you bashed his seatbelt’s button. Only after the sickening crunch of his laptop hitting your tile floor did you feel a little bad.
You already know the excuse. “It’s too cold.” You’ve definitely heard it and probably said it yourself. But what if winter camping could be war
mer than you ever thought? The solution to cold-weather discomfort has more to do with your clothing and sleeping systems than it has to do with the weather. To fight the cold, you have to know how your body loses heat in the first place. Read More …
Despite often being mistaken for feathers, down is really the soft clusters underneath a goose’s feathers that insulate them in cold weather (who would have thought?). The lofted down filaments overlap and create small air pockets that trap warmth or body heat.
Wherever you find a down garment, you’ll usually find a fill number (such as 650-fill down or 800-fill down). Often mistaken for QUANTITY values, the fill rating actually indicates the QUALITY of the down within that jacket, sleeping bag, or what-have-you. Read More …
Let’s face it, whether you’re heading out to brush snow off the car or freezing your ass off in base camp, nothing beats the packable warmth of a puffy jacket. But all warmth is not created equal, and there’s a big difference between the box-store special you had when you were six and the plethora of ultralight compressible puffies available today. In Part I of this series, we’ve outlined the major differences between down and synthetic fills, which apply to jackets, sleeping bags, and other insulated gear. Read More …