I call a good tough trip "recreational deprivation." That does not, nor should not, encompass macing your own man parts.
I did do five days through the St. Regis in June wearing a kilt and no bug spray one time, so I can't say I haven't done dumb s$%t.
I would paddle out into the middle of...
I got into skin-on-frames in my 30s, because I wanted to build a birch bark canoe but I lived in Virginia. So I did my damnedest to copy Adney's draughts and just started building. It coincided with me getting my life back together after a shaky decade, so I'm very fond of SOFs in general. I ran...
I'm scared of being cold, so I overpack warm stuff. I rarely dig into it, but at this point it's ingrained into me.
I've done lots of "pick out what you didn't use on your last trip and leave it next time" winnowing, but at some point, in a canoe, that extra five pounds of gear - which is a...
I've never seen a Farrimond hitch before. It's like a little walking prussik. I'm happy with a tautline for tarps and lines but the farrimond does seem like it would easy to tie with numb fingers.
I used to love learning new knots. I still carry an armspan of string around with me most days...
I saw a bunch when a buddy and I paddled the Allagash, but never very close - maybe 80-90 yards mostly. Same buddy and I saw one in Idaho fishing two years ago.
I also saw a just-happened collision in New Hampshire, driving through this summer; an f-150 had hit a cow. It looked like something...
I have no dog in this fight. I'm not even sure why it's contentious. Canoes are cool. Kayaks are cool. Building them and paddling them is a chance to learn and do and have fun. Reading up on how and why different forms of boats developed is fun.
One thing kayaks have done for me recently is made...
I think it'd be the perfect candidate for an experimental take-down beavertail.
https://www.canoetripping.net/threads/howzabouta-takedown-canoe-paddle.128727/#post-154625
Two great ones recently:
Floating Coast, by Bathsheba Demuth - a more-or-less recent economic/ecological history of the Bering Strait
As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh, the edited journals of Susan Sontag