Holiday Shopping Guide: B&W Zeppelin Review

I’m a bit of a speaker nerd, I believe in big speakers, powered by big woofers.  These big speakers need to be fed by amplifiers that run on grain alcohol instead of mere plebeian electricity.  The cables that connect the speakers should be thicker than my thigh and should look like pythons laid across a rain forest floor.  When a speaker system is turned on I think it should greet you with a hum and crackle like a city’s power substation.  I should want to rock out just by looking at a speaker system.  I’ve long believed that in order to accurately reproduce sound you need to move air the same way that the instruments or loudspeakers that made the original sound did.  That’s why I’m a bit frustrated with the B&W Zeppelin.  It’s too cool and too accurate to be real.  I feel like it’s a well crafted separates based stereo setup with 3 way speakers and a beefy amplifier hidden by some sort of holographic projection of a sleek lozenge shaped thing.  Read more

Learning From Mistakes - Minimalist Winter Backpacking

I thought I’d dig up an old trip of mine for this week’s post.  Several years back I was feeling pretty stir crazy in October, it had been over 40 days since I’d spent a night outside and that particular year I seemed to have the camping itch even worse than usual.  So early one Saturday in late October I tossed a handful of things into a backpack and drove up to the snowy Rockies. Read more

5 Best National Parks in the Continental US for Photography

5.  Rocky Mountain National Park - Taking photos of alpine mountain settings usually involves a very heavy pack that gets heavier with each foot fall, once you’ve packed up a tent, food, stove, sleeping bag, clothes, and other extras, by this time the camera either doesn’t fit or you just can’t bear to add the extra weight of lenses, tripods, and multiple camera bodies.  Rocky Mountain National Park has the solution for this.  Trail Ridge Road runs for ~30 miles above tree line providing loads of access to trail heads that start above tree line allowing you to get right at the alpine goods.  The park opens early too so you can come in to capture the alpineglow at sunrise.  The parks lakes and stark mountain peaks are so varied that people will often ask “Where did you take that?!?” Read more

Burn off Fat in the Cold; Go Snowshoeing

Winter is always a problem, during spring, summer and fall there’s more than enough stuff to do in the mountains or even around town that’s outside and physically challenging.  Once the cold rolls I want to fire up the xbox far more than I want to step on the scale.  Winter just didn’t seem to provide a lot of opportunities for exercise.  Skiing is expensive and there’s always congestion traffic in order to get up there and most back-country sports require a huge dollar and time investment in order to get started.   Several years ago I stumbled upon a craigslist ad for some snowshoes and found them surprisingly cheap.  My original idea was to rip the crampons (metal spikes that go under your feet for walking/climbing on snow) off of them to make some cheap mountaineering boots.  Instead I discovered the best winter activity out there. Read more

How to buy hiking boots that fit

For nearly any sort of prolonged outdoor activity your footwear is the most important gear you’ll own. Good boots make long backpacking trips sightseeing bliss, and make any sort of tricky scrambling seem intuitive vs terrifying.

Most people never get the true pleasure out of their footwear. Many people complain about boots having to “break in” despite going on multiple trips in them. Often people buy boots based on their styling or color, vs lightness or construction.

Differences between synthetic and leather boots

In the past decade most boots have undergone a massive change. Most boots of yesteryear were heavy leather tanks, nearly indestructible and about as light as an anchor. Now most manufactures have abandoned that style of boot making in exchange for lighter boots that use synthetic materials. These boots have some serious advantages, first off they’re crazy light easily weighing half to a third of a full leather boot of the same size. Second because the synthetic materials are also much flexible than leather, many of them don’t have a “break in” period, you just pull them on, and go. They often cost less than full leather boots as well. Read more

Wild Caves: Nature’s Sensory Deprivation Chambers

There’s something special about being in complete darkness.  You’d expect it to feel claustrophobic, full of tension and anxiety, after all humans have feared the dark as long as we’ve been around.  Oddly enough being in complete darkness is astonishingly peaceful.  When you’re deep underground in tight cramped conditions and you’re trying to avoid thinking about the uncountable tons of rock precariously suspended above your head your heart pumps pretty fast.  Turn off the lights and just sit in total darkness and silence and instead of feeling trapped and enclosed you feel like you’re in a void more expansive than space and overwhelming you instead you just feel peace.

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of excessive that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing. Read more

Top 5 Show Caves

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of exercise that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing.

If you’ve never gone caving before and if you don’t know if you’re claustrophobic or not you should try a Show Cave first.  Show caves commonly have lights strung up in them and marked paths.  Often you can go as part of a tour group or walk the paths at your own speed.  You do not need specialized equipment for most of these caves and if you do they are typically included with the cost of entry.  Although a guided tour dosen’t sound all that exciting show caves have a lot of nice features.  Many of the tours bring people through areas where there is no light pollution or turn off the lights for a bit so you can experience true darkness. Read more

How to Go for a Fall Color Drive

Seems pretty simple right?  Hop in the car, navigate to the nearest road out of town, apply some pressure to the right pedal, and it’s all taken care of right?

Here’s some tips on how to ensure you get the most spectrum for your gas dollars. Read more