As the weather warms and snow melts away, trails become accessible again for everyone’s favorite free way to get outside: hiking. For a day hike any time of year, you should be prepared to stay safe in the elements and in the backcountry.  But spring hiking also comes with its own specific fun, like muddy [...]

High-up mountain adventures are tons of fun—but if altitude sickness hits you, things can go downhill real quick. Altitude sickness happens because at higher elevation, there’s less air pressure and less oxygen (O2) available for us to breathe. The amount of oxygen in the air and, therefore, the amount of oxygen we can breathe is [...]

Camping in the cold makes for a very cozy campfire—but it’s not so nice once the fire is out and it’s time to go to sleep. Whether it’s full-blown winter or you’re camping in shoulder season at altitude, if you don’t set up your tent properly to keep your heat in and the cold out, [...]

Quality gear is essential to a safe and successful day outdoors—but building a comprehensive outdoor gear kit can get expensive real quick.  You don’t have to spend top dollar on brand-new items, though. A ton of websites sell used gear, often in near-new condition or repaired by in-house experts—yet costing a fraction of the original [...]

The only thing worse than having bugs swarm your outdoor festivities and drive you inside is the itch you’re left with after getting eaten up.  We’re not talking a little tingle after you feel the mosquito, ant or other creepy crawly bite—we’re talking about that relentless itchiness that keeps you up at night and makes [...]

Historically, disease-carrying ticks were mostly an issue in New England, Michigan and Wisconsin. But over the last two decades, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have seen cases of Lyme disease spread by ticks pop up in nearly every state in America. Researchers continue to find ticks in the places you’d expect—the traditional tall [...]

Camping doesn’t (always) have to be all about roughing it. For some, small luxuries like pour-over coffee or a more comfortable sleeping setup can make a weekend in the wilderness more enjoyable.  After all, the real secret for a great time in the great outdoors is to be realistic about what creature comforts you need [...]

Frozen lakes offer a whole new world of winter fun — ice skating, ice hockey, ice fishing, cold plunges. But misjudging how frozen the body of water is can be a fatal mistake. Some people will tell you if the ice is four-plus inches thick, it’s safe for you to walk on. But it’s really [...]

While some ice anglers have hard-and-fast rules about how many inches thick the ice should be to make it safe to fish – the reality is, no ice is truly safe ice and any journey across it comes with its own risks. Note that safety depends heavily on the quality of ice—not just the thickness, [...]

Learning how to layer in the winter seems simple, but can be a challenging skill to master. You want—and need—to be warm, but we’re often moving through a mix of activities and intensity levels which adds complexity, like actively hiking to a lookout then sitting still in the cold. The best way to stay warm [...]