Recent content by Glenn MacGrady

Know what's happening upstream. Nepal/Tibet flood today:

Jon posted another video after the trip showing how his wife refurbished his pinned canoe, and talking about things he should have done differently to prevent the pin. He at least admits he should not have run the rapid, and only did so because he has a tendency to be subject to a "weird social...

Depends on what you enjoy doing as a hobby. If you like restoring canoes, and you seem to, then why not. At any point in life, you gotta know when to bold 'em, or hold 'em, or fold 'em. Someone like me, who only enjoys paddling canoes and is winter weak, wouldn't restore it because I couldn't...

I didn't realize there were two different videos of the same pin incident. Having watched them both, I feel I should offer a different and candid perspective. The best insurance against pinning and wrapping a canoe in rapids is not getting a canoe made from a particular material, but to learn...

I don't have any empirical tests or comparisons but, in general, I believe Royalex can recover from the same severity of creases and wraps better than any composite laminate. Once the fabric/resin matrix any laminate cracks, it is cracked forever. I have seen Royalex recover from very severe...

The REI Base Camp tents and footprints will be 25% off during the REI Labor Day Sale, which will run from Aug. 28 to Sept. 7. Here is the link to an advance copy of the sale catalog: https://catalogs.rei.com/Labor-Day-Sale/1/ Because the upcoming sale is so close to my purchase date earlier...

I forgot one significant feature, or add-on, in my previous response about the REI Base Camp tent. You can add the Base Camp Vehicle Connector to either the Base Camp 4 or 6. If I didn't have a 10'x12' Cooke silnylon tarp that I set up outside my tent door, I'd seriously consider getting the...

A good question. The Westward tent is brand new, the store didn't have one, they seemed to be on some sort of back order, and there weren't any particularly informative reviews yet of the Westward about two months ago. Now there are a couple on YouTube. So, I couldn't really get any first hand...

I've had a Nemo Roamer single XL pad for over a year now, which is a 4" thick foam-air mattress. It came with an air-capture bag pump, but even that is somewhat of a hassle since you have to breathe moist air into it. Deflating the mattress to fit in the stuff sack is an even bigger hassle for...

Well, if there were concrete kayak competitions, would they be allowed to be posted here? Who runs this joint, anyway? I was curious and I looked it up. Europe also has a concrete watercraft race called the Betonkanorace—and, ironically, it is held every year somewhere in . . . the Netherlands...

You don't like concrete? Where would the 22,500 km of Netherlands dikes be without concrete. Oh, maybe a lot more canoeing water. The concrete canoe competition has been going on among U.S. universities for about 30 years. It is an engineering competition for the students, who likely don't...

How freakishly unusual for @recped! He may rarely "get the worm," but like the equally famous Gary Cooper, he usually begins the blazing action in his stories sometime after "High Noon." And this story sounds like it will be a good one, guys. Lots of interesting detail. Thanks for taking us along.

The REI six-person tents have evolved over the years. The Kingdom 6 was introduced in 2011 and was a very popular tent. It was replaced in 2022 by the Wonderland 6, which I sense was less popular. The Wonderland 6 was just replaced in the spring of 2026 by the Westward 6 tent. Overall, I like...

"A New Zealand man said his solo paddling adventure through Canada’s wilderness taught him about the Great White North’s majestic landscapes and the beauty of human nature." "Tom Hudson boarded a canoe in the Rockies and, over the course of 216 days, discovered Canadians keen to help him...