Rock climbing shoes may not exactly be your most comfortable footwear even after breaking them in. Before you've broken them in, they can be downright painful. Here's a trick that some high-level, professional climbers have been using to make the break in process much quicker and pain free

My twin (now) 8-year-olds beat up their gear when they are camping, hiking, and attempting summits, but we've managed to keep them in an Outdoor Research Kids' Helios sun hat for about two years. The hats are still going strong, but like any piece of gear, they aren't perfect. The full video offers a long term review of these handy, comfortable, and durable adventure hats.

We build lots of safety systems in climbing, and gear advancements have improved our ability to make these systems both quicker and with more security. But sometimes we may run out of the best tools to do a job and need to rely upon serviceable tools. One such scenario is using opposite and opposed carabiners to mimic the security of a locking carabiner. Here’s how and why we do it.

Maybe you have kids and this will help, or maybe just thinking through carabiners more rigorously will help you think through if you want to make changes to your own rack. My twin boys are starting to take on multi-pitch rock climbing and single-pitch sport climbing leads. Both require that they handle quickdraws. In order to make sure they had as easy of time as possible with managing the rope, managing climbing, and managing the gear, I searched for specific carabiner choices for their draws. Here's the criteria we used and the carabiners we've selected.

As I keep saying, all things in mountaineering, backpacking, and camping have pros and cons. There are no perfect solutions or perfect gear. In this quick tip, we talk about how tents with tent poles designed to be pitched from the inside can be great in some circumstances but a problem in others. Perhaps this will be a consideration for you as you plan gear for your next trip.

As my twin boys' rock climbing advanced, they were ready to make the jump from an entry-level shoe to a more performance-based shoe. The full video goes into what we've learned about the Scarp Drago Kids' climbing shoes after a few seasons of use.

Ferro rods are an alternative fire starting method that may be easier to use in difficult and cold conditions. Here are a few of the reasons I take a ferro rod with me when I'm on multiday climbs or camps in the mountains.

Alpine climbing and mountaineering often happens in harsh conditions. When dealing with extreme cold, being able to do the right things in the right order when taking a rest can mean the difference between gaining strength and resolve or losing them. Last week, we did a video on packing our packs and stuffing our pockets with an eye towards efficient rest stops. In the full video, we go through a typical sequence of steps when at the rest stop, itself.

Lots of clothing, rigid gear, and stiff boots make life in a tent in the cold more complicated. Digging a simple pit at the door of your tent can make your winter camping or mountaineering experience a little easier.

When alpine climbing on a cold and slippery winter summit, being safe with your body temperature and with your gear when taking a rest stop comes down to quality management of all of those things. But quality management of those things begins with having the right stuff accessible in your pack and in your pockets. The full video goes over how to pack for efficient rest stops. Our next video will go into the sequence we often use during those rest stops to ensure we stay warm, safe, and don't lose any gear.

Sublimation of snow (moving from solid directly to gas) not only smells bad, but also robs you of the water you are trying to make (you can't drink a gas). Here's the easy fix to avoid sublimation when turning snow into drinking water when alpine climbing or winter camping.

Transferring canister fuel from one canister to another may save you money, weight, or both as you prepare for your next climbing, backpacking, or camping trip. But, it's not without its risks. In the full video, we review the FlipFuel transfer device and demonstrate how to use it.

We can conform snow to meet our backpacking, alpine climbing, and winter camping campsite needs. One of things we need is a firmer surface to hold in tent stakes and support us as we sleep. The lowest-cost way to do that is to make sure you stomp out your tent platform as soon as you arrive, giving the snow time to set.

When we go climbing in the winter, take on alpine climbs in the shoulder seasons, or go to high altitude, we are likely to face camping in the snow. If we are going to keep a camp at a single location for a longer period of time, or if we are facing whipping winds, we may want to build snow walls to better shelter our tent. The full video shares how to build them.

Since my twin boys put up their first leads last summer, they are now wanting to learn to lead belay. That's a nuanced skill, so we introduced them to it by doing mock leads on the home wall with many draws in place for practice. (They were seven years old at the time this was shot.)

Reusing those plastic bottles from a beverage purchase may leach BPA into your water (maybe a topic for another video). But I also know from many conversations that some people will do it anyway because it can save money and weight and they don't do it that often. Well, for those of you who are willing to accept the risk, there is also a practical consideration: the lips on the mouths of those water bottles can melt when pouring boiling water making them unable to be closed. So, you can take this simple, light, piece of gear to avoid at least that problem when backpacking or camping in the winter.

Climbing big mountains in anything more than a day, may demand that you cold-weather camp as well as you climb. It's the key to your recovery at the end of each day. My twin eight-year-old wanted to try winter camping in truly cold weather. It got down to -6 F (-21C). The full video goes into what I was thinking about and focused on teaching them during these 48 hours out.

Some climbers have moved away from using the Prusik hitch to the Klemheist hitch as a friction hitch on the rope because they are easier to tie (especially with gloves). Although a Klemheist can have varying degrees of bite on the rope in different directions of pull, unlike a Prusik. That has led to the question: "What if I accidently tie a Klemheist backwards?" As long as you dress it, the "backwards" Klemheist becomes a Hedden hitch, and is still effective.

The girth hitch, or larksfoot, master point climbing anchor has come into vogue, with climbers extolling the virtues of their ease to tie and untie along with the minimal gear needed to make them. But, like all things in climbing, there are pros and cons to these climbing anchors, and we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of some of our options when we construct them.

Should you damage your climbing harness, you can improvise a new one with a sling, a few carabiners, and the climbing rope. Here's one solution for a harness that will provide both seat and leg support.