Trailspace Blog

Nine years ago, Trailspace.com started out as a backcountry community and independent gear guide. Today we turn nine years old and have grown to a community of 7,694 members with 18,240 gear reviews, 59,468 forum posts, 2,201 user-uploaded photos, and 771 published articles and blogs. You, our community members, are the...

Read more

Litter, dog poop, invasive species, trail and campsite erosion, polluted water, names carved in trees, filthy campfire rings, cigarette butts along a trail, damaged cultural and historic sites, toilet paper “flowers” around campsites, pets chasing wildlife. Yuck. Sometimes the result of humans recreating outdoors is more destructive than protective. If you know of a...

Read more

I love chocolate. I like salt. But salted chocolate? When Salazon Chocolate, a brand new company, sent me samples of their salted chocolate bars last month, I was a little skeptical. I love good chocolate, but I don't like when people mess with it too much. Salazon (which means salted...

Read more

Having repeatedly seen and enjoyed Steep, the documentary on big mountain skiing, I recently read William Kerig's The Edge of Never. Kerig's book, which is the precursor to the production of Steep, follows 15-year-old Kye Petersen to Chamonix to ski the run that killed his father, extreme skier Trevor, nine...

Read more

"The days are long, but the years are short." That's my Friday afternoon thought to share. I read it recently in The Happiness Project, a book by Gretchen Rubin....

Read more

Among other outdoor organizations I belong to is the Audubon Society. Their excellent magazine, Audubon, has an article in the March-April 2010 issue about the extensive use of phony wildlife photos. I had been vaguely aware that many wildlife photos, movies, and TV programs were staged, including some very famous...

Read more

It's easy to find facts on your favorite parks online, but until recently it wasn't so easy to find them all at the same site. That's changing with the rise of Oh, Ranger.com, American Park Network's online companion to its series of "Oh, Ranger" guides to America's most popular national...

Read more

Have you written an essay about life in the mountains of the Northeast or want to? The Waterman Fund is seeking personal essays about stewardship of wild places in the northeastern U.S., whether through a scientific lens or an encounter with wildness. Enter an original work in the Waterman Fund's annual essay...

Read more

Do you have outdoor plans for the weekend: hiking, backpacking, camping, skiing, snowshoeing, or climbing perhaps? If so, will any kids come along on your outdoor adventures? I know that getting just one child dressed for the conditions, equiped with snacks, water, and gear, and out the door, can seem...

Read more

If you've hiked or backpacked, you've probably observed someone breaking one of the exalted but unwritten rules of hiking and trail etiquette. Whether an infraction is the result of innocent ignorance or deep character flaws can be debatable, as are the rules and codes themselves. The American Hiking Society recently...

Read more

(photo courtesy of AHS) College students who want to make a difference during spring break, can join American Hiking Society on a Volunteer Vacation. Participants help construct and maintain thousands of trail miles and only need to bring camping gear and a willingness to get dirty. March trips include destinations like...

Read more

A lot of people come to Trailspace to learn from and share advice with fellow outdoorsy people, one might call them experienced people. Well, as Oscar Wilde put it: “Experience is the name every one gives to their mistakes.” And sometimes it seems like there's no better personal teacher. Here...

Read more

One of my favorite outdoor shots, which I'd enter if I was eligible. Trailspace's members hike, climb, ski, backpack, and explore around the world and in their own big backyards. Many take amazing pictures of those adventures, which they share in trip reports, the forums, and albums in their profiles. To...

Read more

In case you've been asleep (or better yet, off in the backcountry beyond the reach of modern communication, magazine covers, and advertising campaigns), the 2010 Winter Olympics open tonight (7:30 p.m. on NBC). While the Olympic coverage can be overly hyped and at times formulaic (X athlete overcomes X adversity...

Read more

Currently, there are two main locators available to the backcountry traveler: the ACR 406 series and various SPOT devices. While ACR and SPOT share some capabilities (like new, non-emergency messaging functions), the ACR and SPOT units operate under significantly different paradigms, as discussed in my SPOT gear test article. ACR SARLink 406 View ACR's...

Read more