America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
Davek Traveler Umbrella
$79, 13 oz.
davekny.com
When the skies opened up at Mt. Rainier National Park and we faced two hours of slogging through steady rain before reaching our next campsite, I was very glad to have Davek’s Traveler umbrella—not for me, actually, but for my nine-year-old son. It made a big difference in his outlook toward hiking in the cool rain.
Camera Case
Aquapac waterproof SLR case no. 455
$130, 9.5 oz.
aquapac.net
The dilemma: I was going sea kayaking for five days in Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park and needed a way to shoot with my digital SLR without subjecting it to constant sea spray and the risk of an accidental dunking. If I had to constantly pull it out of a dry bag (or two) or a watertight hard case to shoot, I’d inevitably miss many shots. The solution: this flexible SLR case from Aquapac. Several hundred photos later, I’m convinced that—from a photographer’s perspective—my trip would not have been the same without it.
Mini-Crampons
Kahtoola Microspikes
$59, 13 oz. (medium)
XS-XL (fit boots from youth size 1 to men’s 16, or insulated boots up to men’s 13.5)
kahtoola.com
Conditions on the Grand Canyon’s Grandview Trail were—as a ranger warned us when we picked up our permit—“treacherous” for our late-March backpacking trip. Hard ice and frozen snow covered the trail’s uppermost couple of miles, where you frequently traverse sloping ledges a foot or two wide, with huge drop-offs. “Microspikes are mandatory,” the ranger told us, and he was right. Without them, we’d have risked becoming tomorrow’s news—or, more likely, have aborted our four-day trip.
Backpack
Black Diamond Infinity 50
$210, 50L/3,050 c.i., 3 lbs. 14 oz. (men’s medium)
blackdiamondequipment.com
A lot of packs feel good when you first put them on; only a few are still your friend at the end of a long day. I carried this streamlined top-loader with upwards of 30 pounds on 16- to 18-mile days on the rugged Rees-Dart Track in New Zealand’s Southern Alps—and it stayed comfortable right up until I took it off every day. The key feature is BD’s ergoACTIV hipbelt that attaches to the pack via a simple ball joint: The hipbelt pivots with your hips, but the pack itself doesn’t, eliminating the side-to-side shifting with each step that can fatigue your back and rub your hips raw over the course of a full day.