Gear Review: Three Sleeping Bag Liners

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Insect Shield Cocoon Safari Bag
Insect Shield Cocoon Safari Bag

Sleeping Bag Liners
Insect Shield Cocoon Safari Bag
$80, 6 oz. (with included stuff sack)
cocoon.at

Sea to Summit Premium Blend Silk+Cotton Liner
$55, 5.5 oz. (regular, with included stuff sack)
moosejaw.com

Sea to Summit Coolmax Adaptor Travel Liner
$53, 10 oz. (mummy style, with included stuff sack)
moosejaw.com

Sleeping bags liners are essential gear for hut trips and a useful supplement to a sleeping bag, increasing a sleeping bag’s temperature rating by several degrees and keeping the inside of your bag cleaner longer—and it’s easier to wash a liner than a bag. I took several bag liners on a weeklong hut trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park using them under thick, wool blankets, and these three emerged as my favorites. Each has strengths that will appeal to different personal preferences.

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Gear Review: Marmot Variant Hoody

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Marmot Variant Hoody review
Marmot Variant Hoody

Hybrid Cold-Weather Jacket
Marmot Variant Hoody
$185, 15 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-XXL, women’s XS-XL
marmot.com

Whether a fast-forward winter sport like skate-skiing, or a pack-carrying activity like hiking, ski touring, and snowshoeing, many cold-weather outdoor adventures demand a jacket that doesn’t quite fit into the traditional definition of insulation, hard shell, or soft shell. Short story: You need more insulation in front and breathability on your back and arms. Enter the Variant, a hybrid cross between lightweight insulation and a soft shell. I’ve really grown to like it for my two primary winter sports, skate-skiing and ski touring, but it would function equally well for hiking and snowshoeing.

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River of Many Stories: Canoeing New Zealand’s Stunning Whanganui

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By Michael Lanza

Within minutes after launching our canoe into the chocolate-brown and, at the moment, tranquil Whanganui River, in the southwestern corner of New Zealand’s North Island, I begin to get a sense of why the native Maori people believed that every bend in this striking waterway had a mauri, or “life force.” We’ve entered a nearly unbroken gorge of sheer sandstone and mudstone cliffs soaring up to 200 feet straight out of the water, draped with jungle-like foliage in infinite hues of green. Cicadas buzz and rattle almost deafeningly. Ribbon waterfalls pour in straight, pencil-thin lines down walls so oversaturated that they weep tears from every fern and leaf.

The Maori are right: this place is very much alive.

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“Before They’re Gone” wins National Outdoor Book Award

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My book, Before They’re Gone–A Family’s Year-Long Quest To Explore America’s Most Endangered National Parks, has received an honorable mention in the Outdoor Literature category, the top awards category, from the prestigious National Outdoor Book Awards. In it, I write about spending a year taking wilderness adventures with my wife, Penny, our nine-year-old son, Nate, and our seven-year-old daughter, Alex, …

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Chasing Summer’s Tail Climbing in Idaho’s Sawtooths and Castle Rocks

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By Michael Lanza

In the dead-calm, 30-degree, predawn chill of a fall morning, our headlamp beams bore into the enveloping darkness on a trail through lodgepole pine forest in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. Stars salt what we can see of the sky through the trees. We’re not saying much, a little tired after having driven out here too late last night to camp, and not slept quite enough before rising at 5 a.m.

But then, it’s probably wise of us to hoard our energy in reserve, given the day laid out before us: at least 14 miles of hiking, with roughly two of those miles off-trail and nearly 4,000 feet of up and down, plus a couple pitches of rock climbing to a summit neither of us has stood on before.

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