Journal

Hand-loading For All-purpose Use of Big Game Rifles (Written in 2000)

HANDLOADING Discussion: the usual condition of starting well below the following Big Game and Dangerous Game loads should be observed; some of them are a mite hot. My approach is to make my ...

Winter Hunting

Before we look at my journey in developing heated shelters for man carry let's pause for a discussion on hunting in winter.  I've practiced the skill and art of living off the land in the backcoun...

Snow Shelters

Snow caves are neither fast nor easy to build. They are by no means the preferred snow-based shelter solution for daily travel, or even for stranded, emergency shelter. The builder must have a shov...

Shelters, A History

Shelter. We humans need it. Not blessed with fur, fat or any of the other animal protective designs we are on our own; it's up to that big brain of ours to figure out how to deal with the elements....

Testing Shelters

It was twenty below inside my new Stephenson tent. I had been using the cutting edge Model 2R since summer. This, instead of my long practice of lean-to shelters with a fire out front. Military she...

Shelter From the Storm

Greetings and Happy New Year to my colleagues and readers here on the Blog  My freezers are packed with moose and deer and elk—the results of a long and plentiful autumn of hunting and wandering m...

Patrick's Possibles Pouch

I'm finally getting around to revising my twenty year old essay on what constitutes a rambling man’s Possibles Pouch,,,,what it is, and what goes into it,  The concept is to store close at hand ev...

Most Significant Improvements To Backpacking In The Last Sixty Years

I looked at my Favorite Designs List, above, and had to admit that Lists are fun! So let's make some more!  In over sixty years of backcountry rambling I've used an ever-evolving array of equipment...

Designs From The Field

Our Road Trip has taken a turn into the past. It's a wandering road, revealing nuggets of events that inform the present. We've had a glimpse at the Roots of a life-long passion for wild places, a ...

Avalanche!

May, 1981. Colorado High Country. Paul Ramer and I are course-finding for the proposed Colorado Haut (High) Route for backcountry skiers along the Continental Divide; we are skiing a section west ...