Winter climbing trips are often extended from one to two day affairs, or even longer. Trailhead access can be further away as only main roads remain open. And then approach hikes take longer due to difficult conditions, as well.  If we need more time out in the backcountry, and now need to set camps, we may want to haul, rather than carry in all that bulky, winter gear. The full video goes step by step building a Pulk Sled that is light and efficient enough for those local trips but also robust enough for expedition rigors.

The idea of taking off our boots and dipping our feet in water during a winter climb, hike, or camp may feel unpleasant, but it might actually be more important that we take care of our feet in winter than any other time of year.

If I'm going to be winter camping, on snow, in the same place for a while - think an expedition basecamp or a long-weekend outing - I will often make a dedicated kitchen in camp. With appropriate snow depth, a pyramid tent kitchen is my preferred version to make because it grants shelter, mobility, and better ergonomics. The full video provides more on why, and a lot more on how, I build them.

As a reminder, I do not have any product sponsors. If I talk about a product, it’s because I have spent my own money on it. Here’s a little item I now keep in my winter first aid kit because super glue in an open wound stings and this does not.

I’m not a big man. I’m 5’ 6” or a little less than 1.5 meters tall. I weigh about 140 pounds or less than 65 kilograms. While that is good for not having to take a lot of bulk up alpine objectives, it does mean that fitting into equipment can be hard. The most troubling, for me, was getting my small boots to lock in at the toe of my crampons without having room to slide around from side to side. The full video is a deeper dive into crampon toe attachment options for people with smaller boots.

Some of our winter climbs will have an approach hike in before we ever want to have our crampons on our feet. Here is a way to bundle our crampons together so that the spikes are less exposed and therefore less likely to damage our other gear.

Each new climbing season brings with it a group of climbers who are new to climbing in that season. And now it is winter. It's always someone's first time peak bagging through the snow drifts after years of dry-weather hiking. It's always someone's first time on ice. It's always someone's climb up that choss-filled gully that is now covered in an inviting blanket of consolidated snow. These new winter climbers probably have equipment questions, and the one I get the most is about why the different front-point styles for crampons? The full video goes into the details.

We are learning more about the potential health downsides stemming from the ubiquitous plastic water bottles that so many hikers, backpackers, and climbers use. New technology is allowing new, and more complete, measurements of how much plastic is degrading into the water we drink from them. The science is evolving and scientific studies are starting to triangulate around the potential health impacts. So, I’m watching this evolve and reconsidering my use of these normally standard pieces of adventure equipment.

If we only eat when we are hungry and drink when we are thirsty, we might not be taking in enough food or water to keep our energy up and to fend off dehydration. Here's why we try to eat and drink frequently and on a regular schedule.

No climbing, backpacking, or trekking expedition goes perfectly. We get some things in planning and executing the expedition just right, but we also don’t do enough of some things (like, maybe, communication) or too much of others (like, maybe, overtraining). So, this previews a facilitated retrospective on a completed expedition. What we learn from everyone's unique perspectives helps leverage strengths and avoid pitfalls when we head out on the next big trip.

I have no affiliation with the company, but I have been very happy with my purchase of the Culo Clean portable bidet. It’s a low cost, low weight item I have added to my adventures, and you can see the video to find out why. You can find the item, should you want it, here: https://sovrn.co/ph0rir7

Modern expeditions and lengthy backpacking trips often demand high effort and, therefore, massive calorie burning. In order to even come close to putting back the calories I burn on a big outdoor adventure, I make sure to bring some very calorie-dense snacks with me on my trips. As a rule of thumb, I look for some foods that have over 150 Kcal per 30g when considering a food to be particularly calorie-dense.

Most modern belay devices now offer the ability to brake assist, either through camming mechanisms like a GriGri or by pinching the load strand onto the brake strand like an ATC Guide. Should we need a brake assist and do not have a suitable belay device, one option would be to make an auto locking Münter hitch. Here’s how we construct one.

Should we find ourselves belaying or lowering our climbing partner on a Münter hitch, we may also need to lock that partner off as they either come up to the new belay stance or stop their lower, below. One option is to convert our Münter to a clove hitch by following this procedure.

While there are many considerations we climbers must address when we are making a haul system, limiting the loss of mechanical advantage due to friction is often part of that list. The materials, like carabiner types and pulleys, will play a big role in that regard, but also where we position our most efficient materials can also have a big impact.

The “quad” anchor has certain characteristics that many climbers value, but traditional ways of building that anchor rely on having only a two-piece anchor. Well, we can make a quad using three pieces by following the technique in this video.

The proliferation of new light-but-strong materials has led to some questions about just how skinny and light a tag line (a static rope used just to retrieve your main rope) can be when used for a rappel (abseil). Well, there are some considerations that we need to keep in mind if we decide to save weight by going super light with a tag line. The full video goes into the risks we add as well as how to mitigate them.

When making a friction hitch using a rope with the same diameter as the main line, we can add a fifth wrap to the bottom of a standard four-wrap Blake’s Hitch, running the finishing end through the bottom three wraps, as opposed to two. This creates more wraps bending around a two-strand section so that ropes with a wider bend radius, like most climbing ropes, can have that wider, two-strand section to grab.

If we have a single point of damage on our climbing rope and need to rappel (abseil), two climbers can work as a team and use two different instances of fixing the rope to perform two different single-strand rappels. We then avoid having to use time-consuming knot passing techniques by avoiding, rather than passing, that knot. The full video goes deeper into how we do this and shares some risks to watch out for.

It used to be the case that ascending the climbing rope was done using two soft goods wrapped around the rope with two friction hitches. That method requires that we put the waist prusik further up the rope than the leg loop. But modern tools have inverted that configuration. The major benefit of that setup is more than efficiency of ascent; it's much simpler to overcome a lip of rock or ice, now, and the full video more deeply explores why.