America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
By Michael Lanza
Finding a sleeping bag that’s right for you may be the most confusing gear-buying task. Getting the right one is critical to sleeping comfortably in the backcountry—and in an emergency, your bag could save your life. But with the myriad choices out there, how do you tell them apart, beyond temperature rating and price? This article will explain how to evaluate the key differences between bags to make your choice much more simple.
By Michael Lanza
Let’s start with two truths about mittens: 1. We know they’re warmer than gloves. 2. We often choose gloves over mittens, anyway, for some reasons that make sense and some reasons that, well, don’t make much sense. Whether you need them for resort skiing or snowboarding, hiking, walking, snowshoeing, bike commuting, trail running, clearing snow, or something else, this review covers the best mittens for a wide range of temperatures and cold-weather activities.
Skiing and Riding Bib
Flylow Baker Bib
$440, 2 lbs. 2 oz./952g (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, with tall and short sizes
backcountry.com
Skiing in Utah’s Wasatch mountains virtually every single time it snows exposes me to a wide range of inclement weather conditions: from subzero temperatures and cold smoke to warm, humid clouds dumping wet snow that can soak outerwear in minutes. Moreover, skiing as often and hard as I do exposes my clothing to a serious amount of wear. For these reasons, I went on a quest for a bib that would keep me dry through wet, seven-plus-hour days of skiing and have the durability to last hundreds of ski days. That search that led me to the Flylow Baker, which I’ve found ideal for resort skiing and colder, wetter days in the backcountry.
Daypack
Gregory Kiro 24L
$120, 24L/1,465 c.i., 1 lb. 12 oz./793.8g
One non-adjustable unisex size
backcountry.com
I can say this about Gregory’s Kiro 24L: I made a genuine effort to hike too far for its comfort limits, but I failed. From a 12-mile (19.3-kilometer), 4,400-foot (1,340-meter) dayhike in New Hampshire’s Southern Presidential Range in late May to a nine-mile (14.5-kilometer), more than 5,200-foot (1,600-meter) dayhike of 12,662-foot Borah Peak, Idaho’s highest, in July, and a roughly 19-mile (30.6-kilometer), 4,500-foot (1,370-meter) October dayhike and off-trail scramble up and down 10,716-foot Mount Cramer, the second-highest peak in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, the Kiro 24 had the capacity and all-day comfort for it all.
Backpack
Mystery Ranch Radix 57
$299, 57L/3,635 c.i., 3 lbs. 11 oz./1.67kg (men’s small)
Sizes: men’s S-XL, women’s XS-L
rei.com
With the Radix 57 backpack, Mystery Ranch challenges backpackers with this thought experiment: How light is just right? I had plenty of time to ponder that question, carrying the Radix 57 on backpacking trips in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains and southern Utah’s Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon, plus two classic New Zealand hut treks, the Routeburn and Milford tracks. While I confess a bias toward ultralight backpacks (and I’ve used many), I found criticisms as well as much to recommend about the Radix 57.