Features

Get Thee Behind Me, Gear

Get Thee Behind Me, Gear

by Joey Ernst September 20, 2010 Features

Ever since some caveman spent a lot of time fashioning a fancy hunting club, and, subsequently, spent more time admiring and maintaining the club than actually using it for hunting, the human species has encouraged a Cult of Gear — gear for gear’s sake. Thousands of years after that caveman (c’mon, you know it was [...]

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Everything Must Go

Everything Must Go

by Jeff Osgood September 20, 2010 Features

I thought I had the edge. How many people could be shopping for camping gear at 10 a.m. on a Thursday? But as I pulled into the parking lot of Backcountry Escape, an outdoor equipment and apparel store, my advantage whittled down to nothing: I was not alone. Every parking space was taken and a [...]

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Panuelo

Panuelo

by Nathan Boddy September 20, 2010 Features

Douglas Adams may have taken it a bit too far in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” when asserting that a towel was “the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have.” He was certainly onto something, but I’d argue that it’s hard to discretely wrap up a chunk of hair-studded pig fat for quiet [...]

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Why Our Gear Represents Our Personality

Why Our Gear Represents Our Personality

by Devon ONeil September 20, 2010 Features

Looking back, it makes sense that I found the jacket the day after college. I had just gotten my psychology degree and was ready to try and figure people out. Myself, for starters. The jacket was hanging in our living-room closet: a high-end red North Face coat, lined on the inside, with Gore-Tex on the [...]

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Anchored, But Never Tied Down

Anchored, But Never Tied Down

by Elizabeth Miller September 20, 2010 Features

When my boyfriend gave me my personal anchor system, it came in a series of Christmas gifts wrapped in newspapers, positioned so a photo filled one side of the box, with humorous thoughts and proclamations written over the heads of the people depicted. On the box with the PAS inside, a grinning woman in aviators [...]

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Gear Mania Comes Home to Roost

Gear Mania Comes Home to Roost

by M John Fayhee September 20, 2010 Features

Illustrations by Keith Svihovec Two years ago, just before Mountain Gazette senior correspondent B. Frank and I embarked upon a two-week pack-shlepping trip to Mexico’s rugged Copper Canyon, I did something I had not done in almost 20 years: I bought a whole slew of new backpacking gear, most of which I test drove on [...]

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Calendar September 2010

Calendar September 2010

by Dawne Belloise September 20, 2010 Features

Ooom pah! Billings, MT, Sept. 4-6. Can you dance for three days and nights? Youíre in luck if you like to polka, because the Big Sky Polka Festival keeps you three-steppiní high with, yes, beer, and German food and several fine polka bands, including Julie Lee and Her White Rose Band, Matt and the Dakota [...]

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