Gear Review: Sierra Designs Flash 2 FL Tent

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Sierra Designs Flash 2 FL.
Sierra Designs Flash 2 FL.

Three-Season Tent
Sierra Designs Flash 2 FL
$400, 3 lbs. 10 oz. (not including stuff sacks and stakes)
ems.com

The rain started as we searched for a campsite by Utah’s Dirty Devil River. Then the wind kicked up. My son and I quickly pitched this tent and stashed our gear inside without anything getting wet. And as we lounged inside, the Flash 2 FL withstood gusts of 30 to 40 mph—even when the swirling winds hit the tent broadside. But its stability is just part of the strong story of the Flash 2 FL, whose features and performance will appeal to many backpackers who want a lighter shelter, but can’t abide the cramped quarters of many ultralight tents.

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Mount Rainier National Park.

Will the National Parks Bring Their Backcountry Permit System Into the Digital Era?

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By Michael Lanza

Last month, a storm caused a power outage at Mount Rainier National Park during a two-week period when rangers received about 2,000 requests from backpackers and climbers for backcountry permit reservations for 2016. (One of those requests, coincidentally, was mine.) The outage sparked a “critical failure” of the park’s reservation system, forcing management to abandon it and announce they would issue permits only first-come, first-served for all of 2016—not convenient for anyone traveling a distance to explore Rainier’s backcountry or thru-hike the Wonderland Trail.

Rainier’s crisis throws a spotlight on a larger dilemma facing the National Park Service: In an age when we can swipe and click to purchase almost any product or service, many national parks have plodded into the Digital Era with an archaically 20th-century system for reserving and issuing permits to camp in the backcountry—a system involving snail mail and fax machines. (If you’re not old enough to remember the 1980s and 1990s, Google “fax” on your smartphone.) At some parks, you must actually still show up in person, stand in line, and hope for the best.

Finally, though, it appears the national parks are making a bold leap into the 21st century, a change that should make exploring the backcountry of most parks—or at least getting permission to do so—much easier.

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Review: Arc’teryx Atom SL Hoody

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Ultralight JacketArc’teryx Atom SL Hoody$280, 9 oz./255g (men’s medium)Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, women’s XS-XLrei.com Here’s a testament to the versatility of this partly insulated, lightweight wind shell: I’ve probably worn it more than any other layering piece I own over the past several months, for virtually everything I do outdoors, in every season: backpacking in August in Kootenay National Park, in …

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Horstman Peak, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Climbing Horstman Peak in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

Unless you’ve done a fair bit of peak scrambling in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, or have looked up at the seemingly infinite row of granite teeth rising above the Sawtooth Valley, or you are a local in one of the few, scattered little towns in the area, you’ve probably never heard of Horstman Peak. But for my friend Chip Roser and me, Horstman had developed into a mild obsession by the time we set out at first light one morning last September to make another attempt on its 10,470-foot summit, which had eluded us a year before.

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Gear Review: Oboz Teewinot Hiking-Approach Shoes

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Oboz Teewinot
Oboz Teewinot

Hiking/Approach Shoes
Oboz Teewinot
$120, 2 lbs. (men’s 9)
Sizes: men’s 8-14, women’s 6-11
moosejaw.com

Tagging the top of 10,751-foot Thompson Peak, highest in Idaho’s Sawtooths, is a full day: 12 miles and 4,000 vertical feet, more than half the distance and elevation off-trail over big talus and loose scree, including scrambling steep, granite slabs and some exposed third-class onto the summit block. When I did it in July, there was still a bit of firm snow to cross in the morning. It’s a good test of any approach shoe, and the Teewinot handled it without flaw, just as the shoes performed well on dayhikes in a variety of terrain.

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