America’s Best Backpacking and Outdoor Adventures
Ultralight Wind Shell
The North Face Apex Lite Jacket
$130, 6 oz. (men’s medium).
Sizes: men’s and women’s XS-XL.
thenorthface.com
An ultralight wind shell can save you from a serious chill and is all but mandatory gear for a long trail run or ride, especially in damp, windy, and cool spring and fall weather.
Westcomb Cayoosh LT Sweater
$260, 10 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: men’s XS-XXL, women’s XS-XL
westcomb.com
From Idaho’s Sawtooths to Oregon’s Eagle Cap Wilderness and Washington’s Olympic Mountains, this full-zip down jacket proved surprisingly warm for its weight in temperatures from the 40s down to a hair below freezing (with only one or two base layers underneath).
Kids Rain Jacket
Marmot Storm Shield
$65, 14 oz. (L/10-12)
Sizes: boys and girls XS-XL
marmot.com
It can be challenging to find kids outdoor apparel that delivers the quality and performance for adult-size backcountry adventures. So I was delighted to come across the Storm Shield. My 12-year-old son got a lot of use out of this jacket all summer. In Idaho’s City of Rocks, he wore the jacket through hard rain and gusts over 40 mph.
Ultralight Rain Shell
MontBell Torrent Flier Jacket
$249, 8 oz. (men’s medium)
Sizes: Unisex S-XL
montbell.us
When a violent thunderstorm caught me on the 9,595-foot summit of Eagle Cap Peak in Oregon, and the skies opened up with booming thunder, lightning, and pounding rain and hail, I was certainly glad to have this shell handy. It fended off strong winds and kept me dry through that tempest, as it did in extended, wind-driven rains in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, and when I got caught in a sudden June snow squall a pitch off the ground while rock climbing at Idaho’s City of Rocks.
Trail Running Shorts
CW-X Pro Shorts
$72, 6 oz. (men’s small)
Sizes: men’s S-XL
cw-x.com
After numerous hilly trail runs in my local Boise Foothills—ranging from six miles to a 25.5-mile, 4,600-foot, seven-hour July morning trail run-hike—I’m completely sold on the physiological benefits of these compression running shorts. Even on that 25-miler (running about three-quarters of the distance, walking the rest), a distance that would typically leave my quads feeling very worked and bloated with lactic acid, I felt strong right to the finish. My recovery from that run was faster, too, with much less stiffness and residual fatigue than I’m accustomed to after that long an outing.