I have read in a few places about how good honey is in terms of a quick boost of energy and just being more healthy than most overly processed sugars. Taking a little honey bear on the trail is not exactly easy, so I’ve started collecting honey packets from restaurants. When I am on the trail, I can just eat one or two when I need it, and I don’t have to worry about a big mess. Plus, honey tastes much better than those horrid gel packets like Clif Shots.
A couple of places that I have found that will reliably have the packets are Starbucks and Chick-fil-A (woe to those that do not have CFA). Grab a few the next time you see them and try them out!
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By requests, I made a video about how to identify fatwood. Argo was busy off eating random crap in the yard, so he did not make an appearance.
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I like looking through the sites that link to my blog every now and then, since there are some pretty cool sites out there that I would never find otherwise. One I found today is Mungo Says Bah by a Canadian and dedicated (mostly) to the outdoors. His posts are a pretty entertaining read, and he has some great information in his archives. I invited him to join the forums, so maybe we’ll have some new blood soon.
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I know, it is shocking that I am writing about fire, but for once, I didn’t write the article! Buzzy saw one of my videos on youtube and joined the wiki to help out. His first article is about making char cloth, and has some good, detailed instructions.
Making Char Cloth
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Anyone else grow their own food? We’ve had vegetable gardens for a couple of years now, and starting working on this year’s a couple of weeks ago (seeds were planted inside months ago). We definitely could not subsist off of what we grow, but we try to grow the stuff that is either better or cheaper than the store bought vegetables. Lots of peppers and tomatoes, along with some squashes, onions, pumpkins, watermelons, cantaloupes, strawberries, and some other stuff I’m sure I’m forgetting are in there this year. I think it would be neat to have a thread where we post pictures once a week showing what the food we are growing looks like. We already have a little 3″ pepper plant that has a 2″ pepper on it! Craziness! Anyone else interested? If so, I’ll start things off this week once I finish up the planting.
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We have a lot of new merchandise on the site from MSR, Therm-a-Rest, Wigwam, and Mammut, including the elusive MSR Hyperflow. We only have four Hyperflows at the moment, but can order as many more as are needed. We have the Miniworks and Sweetwater filters as well, if you prefer your water mineral free.
There are tons of cheap Wigwam merino socks if you need to restock. We even have a couple of Mammut Pro Shell jackets that are a good bit cheaper than most Pro Shell jackets, especially after the 20% off coupon, GP20. I might have to reduce our inventory of the Mammut Transmission Hybrid Jacket by one, since I have fallen deeply in love with its softshell goodness.
MSR
Therm-a-Rest
Wigwam
Mammut
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I have been trying to find tinder fungus in the wild since I first heard about it a few years back. I could have ordered some on ebay or other websites, but where’s the fun in that when I can rip it off a tree myself? Birch trees apparently don’t like to grow in warmer climates or lower altitudes, since I would rarely come across them on a hike in my area. This is a problem, since tinder fungus grows on birch trees.
I was in the Smokies last weekend and was only able to go on one short hike, but it was a nice hike out to Andrew’s Bald. There were birch trees all along the trail, so I spent the whole hike moseying along and checking out each birch tree to see if I could find some tinder fungus within reach. This was also a great excuse to go slow since I am old and fat. Luckily, there were a few trees along the trail with the fungus growing on them. I got slightly over-excited when I saw the first two (yes, I know that I am a huge dork), so I don’t have any pictures of what mature tinder fungus looks like when on a tree. I did manage to calm myself long enough to snap a couple of shots of some young tinder fungus that had not yet developed the darker outer layer.
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Add $50 worth of Icebreaker to your cart, then add the Tech Top and use code 419 to get the Tech Top for free. Pretty sweet deal on some great clothing. I personally went for a Tech T Lite along with the Tech Top.
Icebreaker Men’s Bodyfit 260 Tech Top (Fall 2007)
Icebreaker Women’s Bodyfit 260 Tech Top (Fall 2007)
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By request, here are a couple of beamshots showing what a handheld HID flashlight can do. The first beamshot is a relatively common light, a Fenix L1D-CE (original, not new Q5 version) on turbo mode with a fresh Energizer lithium battery. The second is a Wolf-Eyes Boxer 123X, an HID flashlight that runs on 4 CR123 batteries. Both pictures were taken with the camera on a tripod, with a two second exposure at F3.5. The lights were shone at roughly the same spot in some trees about 50′ up in the air in my backyard. The Fenix did not really have a chance, it was just there to show how bright and floody the Boxer is in comparison.
If my flashlight nerdspeak is confusing and needs clarification, let me know.
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I was my usual slack self in putting together the prize for the first photo assignment, but it is finally all done. Kevin received the most votes, but he is a girly girl and is afraid of fire, so he bequeathed the fire starting kit to claraka. I included a wide variety of items in the kit, both in producing the fire (lighters, firesteel) and keeping it going (fatwood, PJ cotton balls, etc.). Hopefully the kit will help claraka become a super fire starter. Everyone be sure to harass her until she posts pictures and maybe a video of her attempts to use the kit.
I think videos are better at showing instructions that a written tutorial, so I made a video explaining the contents of the kit and their usage. It was a little over 11 minutes, which is what really delayed the whole thing, since youtube has a 10 minute limit and I had to find a free program to let me split it up into parts. The first part explains the contents and the second part shows the contents in action.
Part 1
Part 2
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