Gear Reviews

Gear Review: Exped Mira II Hyperlite Tent

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Exped Mira II HL tent.
Exped Mira II HL tent.

Ultralight Tent
Exped Mira II Hyperlite
$429, 2 lbs. 14 oz. (without the included stuff sack and eight sturdy stakes, at least six of which are needed to pitch the tent)
moosejaw.com

On the first of two nights backpacking with my 15-year-old son in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains, I got an immediate sense of what I liked about Exped’s sub-three-pound Mira II HL (besides its low weight): With darkness and rain rapidly approaching, we pitched the tent easily in a couple of minutes. We lived and slept comfortably inside, thanks to a design that maximizes space while minimizing weight. And when it rained through the night, we stayed dry despite keeping one vestibule door wide open to help ventilate the interior.

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Gear Review: Vitchelo V800 Headlamp

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Vitchelo V800 headlamp
Vitchelo V800 headlamp

Ultralight Headlamp
Vitchelo V800
$50, 3 oz. (with 3 AAA batteries, included)
store.vitchelo.com

On dark nights and early mornings from New Hampshire’s Presidential Range to Idaho’s Boise Mountains and New Zealand’s Kepler and Dusky tracks, and other trips, I needed a headlamp that was very light, reliable, versatile, and above all, bright. Vitchelo’s V800 met all of those standards, plus proved itself to be reliable and distinctly simple to use.

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Review: REI Motility Rain Jacket

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REI Motility Jacket
REI Motility Jacket

Rain Jacket
REI Motility Jacket
$169, 1 lb. 2 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-XL
rei.com

There are, quite literally, few environments in the world wetter than New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park: It receives upwards of 400 inches of rain a year. (Fun fact: That’s 10 times more than Seattle.) To me, that means there are few places on the planet better for testing a rain jacket. I took the Motility Jacket on a four-day trek of Fiordland’s famously wet, muddy, and rugged Dusky Track, and a dayhike to Gertrude Saddle above Milford Sound, where plenty of rain mixed with lots of exertion on my part provided an excellent measure of this well-priced, waterproof-breathable rain jacket.

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Gear Review: Aquamira and LifeStraw Water Filter Bottles

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Lifestraw Go and Aquamira Frontier Flow Filtered Water Bottle
Lifestraw Go and Aquamira Frontier Flow Filtered Water Bottle.

Water Filter Bottles
Aquamira Frontier Flow Filtered Water Bottle
$50, 7 oz.
20 oz./0.6L bottle capacity (with filter)
mcnett.com/aquamira

LifeStraw Go
$35, 8 oz.
22 oz./0.65L bottle capacity (with filter)
buylifestraw.com

Treating water in the backcountry has always been time-consuming—until now. From long dayhikes on and off-trail in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness to a four-day, 34-mile backpacking trip on the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies, I used both of these bottles to obtain treated, drinkable water by simply bending down, filling the bottle in a creek, screwing the cap back on, and then immediately sipping from a straw—that’s it.

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Gear Review: Arc’teryx Velaro 24 Daypack

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Arc'teryx Velaro 24
Arc’teryx Velaro 24 in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains.

Daypack
Arc’teryx Velaro 24
$175, 24L/1,465 c.i., 1 lb. 10 oz.
One size each in men’s and women’s models
arcteryx.com

I tend to be hard on gear, but especially daypacks, and rain or snow has never struck me as a reason to abort hiking plans. I also like daypacks that are lightweight without compromising on comfort or a basic degree of organization. Given those standards, I was intrigued by the Velaro 24’s nearly watertight and seemingly bulletproof design, and took it out on hikes from a rainy eight-miler with my family in Canada’s Yoho National Park to a 12-hour, roughly 14-mile and 5,000-foot, mostly off-trail dayhike and scramble in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, to see how it would measure up.

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