Gear Review: Sierra Designs Flash 3 Tent

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Sierra Designs Flash 3
Sierra Designs Flash 3

Three-Season Tent
Sierra Designs Flash 3
$400, 4 lbs. 15 oz. (tent and poles only)
sierradesigns.com

Backpacking with my kids amplifies a challenge any backpacker faces: finding a tent that provides good living space and stability without being a burdensome weight or filling your backpack. My kids are young enough that they carry just personal gear (bag, pad, clothes, snacks, water). So on a recent overnight trip with my kids in the Needles District of Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, without my wife or another adult to share the family food and gear load, I took the Flash 3 for a test drive and was blown away by the amount of space it has for a sub-five-pound, freestanding shelter.

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Gear Review: La Sportiva Thunder III GTX Boots

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La Sportiva Thunder III GTX
La Sportiva Thunder III GTX

Boots
La Sportiva Thunder III GTX
$195, 2 lbs. 15 oz. (men’s US 9/Euro 42)
Sizes: Euro men’s 38-47.5, women’s 36-43
sportiva.com

Very few backpacking trips put boots to the test like a multi-day hike in the Grand Canyon. On a three-day backpacking trip with my 10-year-old daughter in the Grand Canyon, carrying up to 50 pounds—including, at one point, 17 pounds of water—down and up very steep, rugged trails, the Thunder III GTX boots delivered an impressive combination of support and protection balanced with a surprisingly nimble feel.

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Castle ruins, Aitana Mountains, Spain.

Photo Gallery: Trekking Europe’s Best-Kept Secret, Spain’s Aitana Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

By day, you hike across a chronically sunny range of mountains of endless limestone cliffs, past ruins of castles built by Moors centuries ago, looking down on bleached terracotta villages dotting the valley bottom. Every evening, in one of those villages, you feast in good Old World style on Spanish delicacies like stuffed aubergines, paella, and olleta de blat, washing it down with excellent Spanish vino. That, in a nutshell, describes the 60-mile, village-to-village trek I took across the most stunning European mountains you’ve never heard of (they don’t even have an official name), in the Valencia region on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.

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Gear Review: The North Face Banchee 65 Backpack

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Backpack The North Face Banchee 65 $239, 65L/3,967 c.i., 3 lbs. 12 oz. (L/XL) Sizes: men’s S/M (fits torsos 16-19 inches) and L/XL (fits torsos 18-21 inches), women’s XS/S (fits torsos 14-17 inches) and M/L (fits torsos 16-19 inches) moosejaw.com On the second afternoon of a tough, three-day backpacking trip with my 10-year-old daughter in the Grand Canyon, I had …

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