The Outlier guys dream up a whole mess of wonderful things in their Brooklyn, NY headquarters. From the world's best hiking pants (sure, they're meant for biking) to their Hyperlite collaboration , I'm always excited to open their emails and find out about their newest creation. Their knowledge of fabric and garment design is more than vast, and they've been nice enough to teach me a great deal these last few months, always over a few beers and a good dinner. If you're not hip to [...]
Maybe not the most interesting thing to post about (though none of this stuff is, right?), but Cold Splinters is down in Southwest Texas right now and, for the past few days, the mountain lion attack in Big Bend National Park has been the talk of the town. Well, one of the topics at least... Six year old Rivers Hobbs was attacked late Sunday as his family returned to their room from the park's main lodge. The boy's father, Jason Hobbs, pounced on THE BEAST as it clamped onto Rivers' face. Hobbs ultimately stabbed the [...]
A Desert Life is a film about Alf Randell, "a self-described 'dirtbag' who has spent nearly a decade of his life climbing amongst the soaring sandstone cliffs of Indian Creek, Utah." Austin Siadak spent last November climbing with Alf and documenting his life as a climber, living in a camper worth a dollar and making money by repairing climbing shoes and putting up fence around Moab. The film is a real beauty, so if you have nine minutes to spare, which you obviously do, I highly recommend clicking here .
In case you're at work today wondering, or if you already know and want to reinforce your "outdoor knowledge," here's a quick tutorial about bear spray from Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant of SYSK fame. What is it? Bear spray isn't unlike pepper spray that humans use to protect themselves from other humans. The main difference is that bear spray can shoot farther and casts a wider effective area. There are three main ingredients in bear spray: Oleoresin Capsicum (OC): oily [...]
Another interesting article from good ol' High Country News , this time about Richard West Sellars, a former NPS employee whose 1997 book, Preserving Nature in the Natural Parks , showed the "gaps" in the National Park Service belief that it was a preservation agency. The book is widely credited for inspiring the Natural Resource Challenge , a 1999 initiative that made resource management and preservation the agency's top priority. Read the article in full here . [...]
Whether you're a vegetarian or just looking for an alternative to tuna/salmon/sardines/freeze dried beef stroganoff, you may (or may not?) want to try Textured Vegetable Protein the next time you're on the trail. Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) is made from defatted soy flour that's been cooked under pressure and then dried. It's high in protein (12 grams per 1/4 cup serving) and, because it's soy-based, takes on the tofu-like characteristics of tasting like whatever your season it with. But unlike tofu, it's got the texture of ground meat and doesn't need to be drained. [...]
Via Boston, MA and Portland, ME, this week's Trail Mix comes from my personal King Of The Mixtape, Mr. Creepy Powers (aka Sean Turley). Sean and I's relationship goes all the way back to our younger years when he was a promising Eagle Scout with a rattail. These days, he's a gracious host and a wonderful tour guide whenever I'm hungry and traveling north and east of New York City. I've driven up the coast of Maine with Ali Farke Toure while Sean was living on [...]
"This is a scan of a slide that I took while on an outdoor survival camp in February of 1978 up north of Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was -30°C on our camp out night...We slept in quinzhees ." * I guess at that temperature (-22°F), all you can do is think warm thoughts... MP3: Delorean - Stay close
Leonard Peltier is an activist and member of AIM , who, in 1977, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the shooting of two FBI agents during Pine Ridge . Peltier's supporters (who include Willie, Joni and Kristofferson ) present him as a political prisoner due to concern over the fairness of his proceedings. His conviction is the subject of the 1992 documentary directed by Michael Apted and narrated by Robert Redford, Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story , which you can watch in full [...]
Another Outdoor Retailer show, another long weekend of puffy coats and new friends. And another long flight home with music blaring on the iPhone as I curse the heavens for my inability to sleep on airplanes. It's been a while since there was any Grateful Dead in these parts . Mostly because it creeps up in the sunshine, but after a few straight days of 3.2% beer consumption that lasted from 4pm - midnight-ish, summer needed to come early. And Harpur College? May 2nd? 1970? Dick's Picks Volume 8? [...]
Cold Splinters has a column on the New York Times style blog, The Moment . It's called The Campster , and this week, sandwiched between stories about women's handbags and a Japanese Muji store, lies a new article about a weekend excursion down in the Everglades . Enjoy it.
Cold Splinters is off to another winter version of Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City. Holler if you're around and we'll see you there.
Thank you to the Appalachian Trail Museum for posting another Appalachian Trail log from 1983. This time it's from Spring Mountain Shelter , located in Tennessee on the North Carolina border, just north of Hot Springs. The shelter is at 3,300 feet, 282.2 miles from Springer and 1898.2 from Katahdin. MP3: Henri Tixier - Les Là-Bas
Along with Andrea from Fjallraven/Armor Lux/Wool and the Gang, Cold Splinters was asked to curate an "outdoor" section of Capsule this year. The show-within-a-show is called Above Tree Line and includes brands like Snow Peak , Poler , Heimplanet , Hyperlite Mountain Gear , Juniper Ridge , Outlier , Woolpower [...]
"I'd rather be broke down and lost in the wilds of Big Bend, any day, than wake up some morning in a penthouse suite high above the megalomania of Dallas or Houston." - Ed Abbey Cold Splinters and Upstate are gearing up for a southern adventure down to Big Bend National Park towards the beginning of next month. It's an area we've never experienced, so if you're lucky enough to have spent a night or two in that " barren, sun-blasted, apparently lifeless, [...]
In 1937, Edward Weston was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a first for a photographer. He was given a two thousand dollar stipend and, with his companion Charis Wilson (whom he would later marry), he would photograph the American West from April 1937 to April 1938. Ansel Adams ( pictured above ) invited the couple to visit Yosemite, where he would take them to the High Sierra, a place that Winston had never visited. Upon arriving in Ansel Adams country, Winston wrote the following: We speculated on [...]
Yesterday, the Obama administration enacted a 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims in northern Arizona. Opposition groups claim that it will cost jobs, but according to this article in The Guardian , the measure does not affect some 3,000 existing mining claims around the canyon. In the final years of the George Bush presidency, when uranium prices were rising worldwide, mining companies filed thousands of new claims in northern Arizona, on lands near the Grand Canyon. Sadly, one creek in the park is known to be contaminated by uranium, and the government's environmental [...]
Great for the trail. Cook your lentils and rice, heat up some onions, toss with a little cumin and allspice (cinnamon is good too) and have at it. Mujadara . More complete recipe can be found here . MP3: Charles Mingus - Solo Dancer
I could try and rearrange all this info to make it look like I knew a lot about the Toyota Trekker, but since I was first introduced to these beauties from this post on Jalopnik , I'll just repost it here. One day, I will be a subscriber to this magazine , but for now, the Subaru is doing just fine. Unreal : Several years before the 4runner was introduced to the world an odd collaboration between Toyota and Winnebago produced a [...]
As a young person at summer camp in northern Minnesota, Original Corn Nuts were just about the greatest thing you could find in a package sent to you by your parents. And while these days I'd take the bargain bin variety (corn, olive oil, salt if you can find it) over the ubiquitous Planters-owned bags, it's a sure bet that you'll find Corn Nuts at one of the gas stations en route to whatever trail it is you're driving to. (And of course, making your own is always [...]
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