Deuter Speed Lite 24 daypack.

Review: Deuter Speed Lite 24 Daypack

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Daypack
Deuter Speed Lite 24
$120, 24L/1,465 c.i., 1 lb. 11 oz.
One size
backcountry.com

With the Speed Lite 24, Deuter set out to make a pack that does it all. Weighing well under two pounds—low for a pack with this much capacity—it’s marketed as an ultralight, all-around daypack for long trail days, technical rock climbing, and even snow climbing. I wanted to see if such a light pack could fill all those roles, so I tested it extensively, including a 4500-foot, eight-mile hike up Ferguson Canyon and a 3,000-foot scramble up the South Ridge of Mount Superior in Utah’s Wasatch Range.

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The Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo ultralight backpacking tent in Bechler Canyon, Yellowstone National Park.

Review: Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo Ultralight Backpacking Tent

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Ultralight Backpacking Tent
Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo
$250 ($35 extra for seam sealing), 1 lb. 9 oz. (without the optional, 2-oz. carbon pole)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-XL
sixmoondesigns.com

At around 7,000 feet in Yellowstone in September, the season can turn on a dime—and the last 24 hours of an otherwise beautiful, five-day backpacking trip on Yellowstone’s Bechler River Trail demonstrated that, delivering steady rain and wind all night and on our last day of hiking (which featured a bone-chilling river ford). The trip’s range of weather put a spotlight on the strengths of the classic, ultralight Six Moon Designs Lunar Solo tent, as well as its one major weakness.

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Fishing at Lake 8522, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Boy Trip, Girl Trip: Why I Take Father-Son and Father-Daughter Adventures

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By Michael Lanza

On a morning when the late-summer sunshine sharpens the incisor points of every peak and spire in the jagged skyline of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, Nate and I step inside the Sawtooth National Recreation Area ranger station, south of the little town of Stanley, population sixty-three. I chat with the ranger behind the counter, mentioning that my son and I are heading out to backpack the 18-mile loop from Pettit Lake to Alice and Toxaway Lakes.

The ranger sizes up my six-year-old, 40-pound kid, and frowns skeptically. “You know, that’s a pretty rugged hike,” he tells me.

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Danner Trail 2650 Mesh hiking shoes.

Review: Danner Trail 2650 Hiking Shoes

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Hiking Shoes
Danner Trail 2650 Mesh
$190, 1 lb. 7.5 oz. (US men’s 9)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-XL
backcountry.com

Want one pair of hiking shoes that do it all? Join the club. And maybe also check out Danner’s Trail 2650. Having knocked off some trail miles in the mesh version of these very light hikers, from brutal desert heat (which can do terrible things to feet) to a trail strewn with wet, slippery, large rocks (which can demand terrible things of shoes), I’m convinced that many dayhikers and lightweight backpackers would find quite a lot to admire about these shoes.

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A backpacker hiking Uinta River Trail 44 in Painter Basin below 13,538-foot Kings Peak (right), High Uintas Wilderness, Utah.

Tall and Lonely: Backpacking Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness

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By Michael Lanza As we get ready to cook dinner at our campsite on the edge of meadow and open forest a couple minutes’ walk from the shore of the Fourth Chain Lake, at 10,900 feet in Utah’s High Uintas Wilderness, the sound of approaching voices prompts all four of us to look up in surprise. It’s our second evening …

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