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There's a big difference between the Inside Passage and the Northwest Passage. The Inside Passage is basically the west coast of B.C. to Alaska alongside a temperate rainforest. The Northwest Passage is basically from Hudson Bay around northern Nunavut and NWT to Alaska through a treeless...

I use clothes in a large stuff sack, whatever is not on my body. However, I usually take a down jacket (light weight on short summer trips, beefier on longer northern trips), and I arrange it in the stuff bag, flattish, so all the down is on one side for my head. Makes all the lumps and...

I use my breath. I have a Klymit insulated mattress, and it's held up at least 6-7 years with several 4-6 week trips, and a number of other shorter canoe and backpacking trips. I've never heard of a noticeable reduction in insulating capacity with breath--it makes sense theoretically, but...

Sorry, 2001, corrected.

And sit and switch for the win! My bent shafts never touch the gunwales of my heavily tumblehomed fast boats!

FYI, five years ago I had NRS replace neck, wrist, and new booties for $240. Or you can buy parts and do it yourself. This was a drysuit bought in 2001 and not used much, and not maintained. Seals had rotted, but so have I over the last 20+ years.

And the Chitina River.

Snake River in Grand Teton NP, but the banks are usually a bit high.

I just read reviews of it, and several said it was bad in wind. How bout yours? Did you just add bug net? And how many people could function under it?

I use a deck on my PakCanoe for expeditions where the boat is always loaded, and we're running whitewater or big lakes. Bailing the boats in both instances would be difficult, and the covers keep a lot of water out. I've used a short bow deck (Visqueen) on my DR solo canoe in whitewater--it...

Sorta like going to a Ford website and saying "buy Chevy".

Gotta read "Sleeping Island" by Downes. Good stuff.

Anything by James Lee Burke. He has novels and crime fiction. All are superb. Edit: Re-read and saw you're looking for adventure. These aren't it, but the writing style is wonderful, especially if you have southern or western roots (yeah, I know, Illinois is neither). Alan's...

Oooh, tell us more!

Could be worse--just north of Thompson Pass they got 6 feet in a day with that 8 November storm, close to the 6.5 feet record from 1963.

Glenn, I just sent you a donation via PayPal, but it might have been to the wrong address (your name was there from a purchase I made from you before). Let me know if I screwed up.

I just saw this, and the Mantis is the best Barrens bug tent out there. It is rainproof, bugproof, and very wind resistant, more so than the CCS lean. Of course it has been discontinued. I've used both up north (Alaska and Canadian Barrens), and I like the Mantis better as it seems more stable...

I developed medial epicondylitis (golfers elbow) over 20 years ago climbing and training for climbing. It's a very common injury among climbers. One of the best resources is Dodgy elbows, which shows eccentric exercises which really help. I've found stretching and warming up the forearm a bit...

I've seen (and mostly abhor, and commonly knock down) cairns throughout the western US--sometimes as something "cute", other times misplaced and leading the follower places he/she really doesn't want to go, and also as legitimate trail demarcations on rock trails where there are no alternatives...

Rob Lesser, of the first descent party back in 1981 I think, was a friend of mine about that time, and represented the "hair boaters", with first descents of the Rio Bio Bio and others. I was NOT one of his paddling partners! (although I did fish him out of the water once after going over in a...