Skills
River Crossings and the Three Questions
Before crossing the Hollyford in late autumn, Imogen Reece spent twenty minutes on the bank asking three questions she has asked at every crossing for fifteen years.
Section
Skills
Navigation, repair, packing, knots, weather-reading, and the dozen small competences that make a day on the trail go.
Skills
The Art of the Rest Step
On the steep upper third of Mount Hood's south side route in late May, Tomas Lendvai climbed for ninety minutes without stopping. He used the rest step on every footfall.
Skills
Weather Reading From a Ridgeline
From a small summit in the Bridger Range one afternoon in late May, Wendell Foss watched a thunderstorm form, mature, and dissipate over the course of seventy minutes. He made the decision to descend at minute twelve.
Skills
The Bowline and Three Other Knots You Actually Use
After a decade of teaching knot classes, Astrid Pereira concluded that most hikers need four knots and that one of them is not the one they think.
Skills
Reading a Topo for Water Sources
Before a four-day route through the Glass Mountains of west Texas, Wendell Foss spent an evening at his kitchen table identifying every dependable spring on a 1973 USGS quadrangle. Six of seven were still flowing in May.
Skills
Packing a 30L for Shoulder-Season Backpacking
For three nights on the Long Trail in early May, Margaret Holcomb carried thirteen pounds in a thirty-litre pack and slept warm every night. The list is shorter than most.
Skills
Field-Repairing a Broken Trekking Pole
On a long carry out of the Wind River Range in September, Tomas Lendvai spent forty minutes splinting a snapped carbon pole with a tent stake, a strip of Tyvek, and four feet of duct tape.
Skills
Navigating Fog by Sound
On the Rhinogydd in May, Astrid Pereira lost the path between two cairns and found her way back to the col by the noise of a single stream a quarter mile below.