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Hard to say what's best... I've had a couple that had the requisite view, mood, and isolation... One was in the middle of nowhere in the Kisatchie Hills Wilderness. The other is an un-numbered (but legal 150' from water/trail) somewhere in the St Regis Canoe Wilderness. If I have a favorite...

I live in MD between Philadelphia and Baltimore. If I stop overnight to see my folks on the way up, I get them from Liehs & Steigerwald's on Grant Blvd in Syracuse. If I go directly north NYC and then to Albany and beyond, I get them from Binkert's, ahead of time, in Baltimore.

I tend to stick to small ponds and lots of portages with a Hemlock Nessmuk XL (carbon fiber), so all I carry is duct tape, a few safety pins, needles/threads, pliers, a couple rivets, and some buttons, plus my hatchet, knives, and saw. When I use a wood canvas canoe, it's mostly lakes/flatwater...

Mostly garbage, occasionally a half-full bottle of alcohol. Useful stuff includes a lot of fishing lures (some lost in camp, some snagged in a tree or on a log that I could get to and recover) and bobbers, sun/reading glasses, and a couple knives. My wife found a headlamp once, and still uses...

I'm usually solo, and always lazy... I hate double portaging, so it's just a food bag, and nothing perishable. I tend to go early spring/late fall anyway, when the weather's coolest without being cold, and that helps keep things like bacon, cheese, and alcohol cool.

+1 for Trailcampro.com. Good folks. I've gotten a couple Browning from them that I really like. I set them up in the woods behind my house and swap cards every couple days... all kinds of interesting stuff... some birds, neighborhood cats, etc... but mostly foxes, deer, raccoons, possums, and...

Seeker... the initiate in a vision quest, it turns out... I just knew I was looking for something, born out of an exceptionally painful chapter of my life that lost me a fortune, my faith, and pretty much stood me on my head for a couple years. Seeker fit at the time, unintentionally, and when...

I hate mornings... especially in 'civilization', but even when camping... it gets far better the longer i'm out, but that's seldom long enough... I want something warm in my belly first thing in the morning... the shortest distance between hungry/cold me and a reasonable me is what I look for...

No worries... and thank you for graciously taking it in the spirit in which it was intended... one of the things I like about this forum, people's courtesy. btw, I had to move everything out of my wife's living room to do my first Whelen on the floor... second one, I had a big enough basement...

I too need to "slouch" a bit more than normal to get comfortable while seated... car seat is way back, I use a standing desk at the office, I put my legs up on the desk here at home, and in my Hemlock Nessmuk XL, I have to scoot up a bit to get the Crazy Creek chair to work... If you move the...

Every time I complete the steepest part of the Turtle to Clamshell portage, and am resting by that big boulder at the top of the trail, I swear I will never do it again, that I'll go the other way (Long Pond to Nellie)... and by the time I'm down the hill at Clamshell, I've forgotten all about...

Not to be a pedant, but also don't want interested people looking for something that doesn't exist... Whelen talks about his lean-to in his book "On Your Own in the Wilderness". "(New) Way of the Wilderness" is by Calvin Rutstrum, and he prefers a different kind of shelter (tent with multiple...

I've learned (after almost 60 years, and still not always) to keep my mouth shut. No one wants un-asked-for advice. And people these days are liable to get mad faster. Maybe that comes from almost 6 years now, of living near Baltimore. Spoke to a Ranger once, about 'the public', during what...

Like Will Derness, I've done the hair tie thing inside the bowline, but I also use velcro computer cable ties... you can fasten them to the bowline the same way as a hair tie, then wrap them around the coiled cordage to hold them fast. On my poncho, I have a couple feet of cord on each corner...

Plowpoint is my favorite... these are both 10x10. I also have a much lighter 9x9 (smaller by 20%, lighter material). with mosquito netting, summer trip, lighter bag. Same location, colder weather, no bugs, no net, different bag.

I use a large capacity ultralight pack, line it with a 35L drybag for the 'cannot get wet' stuff (sleeping bag, clothing), and use other small drybags for the rest of it, using the pack's pockets as needed. I've tried carrying a small day pack, a thwart bag, and a pocketless drybag w/harness...

I've done a lot of things over 45+ years... carpenter's and mason's helper (my dad, and the mason next door when dad was tired of me), door installer, car salesman, janitor, business agent (trying to sell businesses), and a few others over the years when things were bad. Also owned a cleaning...

Lila's Mount Frederica, Low's Grass Pond Mountain, and the Hitchens' Pond Overlook, already mentioned, are all nice short hikes from lakes/ponds. One other I've done is Long Pond Mountain, off Long Pond in the St Regis. One I would like to do is St Regis Mountain, in the same area. This is...

This is my nomination for the "most-in-need-of-replacing" portage sign in the St Regis Canoe Wilderness... it's facing west on Lydia Pond, marking the portage trail back to Little Long Pond, which explains why it's so weathered (and you can't really see it from where you stand on the shore...

If I'm in my Nessmuk XL, just the one double paddle... it's got a solid ferrule, spruce shafts, and carbon-fiber blades, and I can pretty much fix anything that breaks, or rig up any wreckage to use one blade if it's that bad. If I'm in my other canoe (Chum), I bring two paddles (both ash)...