backpacking gear reviews

Gear Review: Exped DreamWalker 450 Sleeping Bag

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Exped DreamWalker 450
Exped DreamWalker 450

Sleeping Bag
Exped DreamWalker 450
$349, 2 lbs. 1 oz. (medium)
Sizes: medium (fits up to 5 feet, 11 ins.), large (fits up to 6 feet, 5 ins.)
moosejaw.com

On a cool, early morning at Numa Creek camp on the Rockwall Trail in Canada’s Kootenay National Park, I told my wife I was heading for the camp’s cooking area to fire up our stove for breakfast. She responded in her way of letting me know she wasn’t getting up yet: “It’s cold out there.” I said, “That’s why I’m staying in my bag.” And I was: Within seconds, I converted my DreamWalker 450 bag into a long down parka and proceeded to wear it walking and sitting around in camp.

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Gear Review: Oboz Scapegoat Mid Boots

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Oboz Scapegoat Mid
Oboz Scapegoat Mid

Lightweight Boots
Oboz Scapegoat Mid
$145, 2 lbs. 2 oz. (US men’s 9)
Sizes: men’s 8-14
moosejaw.com

Like all categories of outdoor gear, footwear has grown increasingly specialized, with models designed to fill just about every imaginable user niche—except perhaps one. While there are plenty of options in non-waterproof, low-cut hiking and scrambling shoes built to maximize breathability, when you move up the continuum of mid-cut boots into models with the support for backpacking, most have some kind of waterproof-breathable membrane. With the Scapegoat Mid, Oboz is treading into somewhat unexplored terrain by offering a non-waterproof, lightweight boot designed for multi-day hikes. Because I like the concept behind this approach, I took the Scapegoat Mid on a three-day, entirely off-trail backpacking trip in the Panamint Range of Death Valley National Park to see how they perform.

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Gear Review: Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO and Fly Creek HV UL3 Ultralight Tents

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Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3 in Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3 in the Panamint Range, Death Valley National Park.

Ultralight Backpacking Tents
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO
$440, 2 lbs. 1 oz. (not including stuff sacks and stakes)
Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL3
$450, 2 lbs. 15 oz. (not including stuff sacks and stakes)
moosejaw.com

As we searched for a campsite while backpacking in the canyon of Utah’s Dirty Devil River in late March, the wind picked up. Then the rain started. My wife and daughter pitched the new Big Agnes Fly Creek HV UL2 mtnGLO in minutes without having even looked at it before—a testament to its simplicity. Once darkness fell a little while later, they turned on the lights—the tent’s built-in LED lights, that is—and I think they promptly forgot there was a storm just outside their nylon walls.

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Gear Review: Black Diamond Spot and Cosmo Headlamps

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Black Diamond Spot and Cosmo headlamps.
Black Diamond Spot and Cosmo headlamps.

Ultralight Headlamps
Black Diamond Spot
$40, 3 oz. (with 3 AAA batteries, included)
Black Diamond Cosmo
$30, 3 oz. (with 3 AAA batteries, included)
moosejaw.com

A headlamp doesn’t have to take a big bite out of your gear budget—in fact, as these two models demonstrate, you can score a multi-featured backcountry lamp for as little as 30 bucks, and a high-performance model for less than you’ll probably spend on food and gas for a weekend trip. From backpacking trips in Idaho’s White Cloud Mountains in October, Utah’s Dirty Devil River canyon in late March, and the Panamint Range of Death Valley National Park in May, to a four-day climb of the Mountaineers Route on California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney in mid-April and dayhiking the 32-mile, 10,000-vertical-foot Pemi Loop in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in August, I put the Cosmo and Spot through many hours of use. Both shined at the usual tasks, like lighting the way when pitching a tent or hiking off-trail in the dark, but my testing also spotlighted their differences.

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The Western Mountaineering Summerlite sleeping bag.

Review: Western Mountaineering Summerlite Sleeping Bag

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Western Mountaineering Summerlite sleeping bag.
Western Mountaineering Summerlite sleeping bag

Ultralight Sleeping Bag
Western Mountaineering Summerlite
$420, 1 lb. 3 oz. (regular)
Sizes: short, regular, and long
backcountry.com

The lightest sleeping bags for summer camping—meaning for temperatures from the 50s Fahrenheit to around freezing—rarely include features like a hood, a draft tube, and a two-way, full-length zipper. The Summerlite has all of those while weighing in at barely north of a pound and remaining true to its 32-degree rating. On a weeklong, late-March trip in southern Utah, I slept in it for nights of car camping and backpacking in the Dirty Devil River canyon, when the low dipped into the high 20s, and found it warm, spacious enough, and supremely packable.

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