The North Face just dropped a bomb on the world of backpacking. It’s an ultralight bomb, and it’s incredibly helpful, not harmful. The Casimir 36 backpack has one of the most easily adjustable hip belts (The North Face’s Opti-Fit Technology) in the industry and wears comfortably when filled to the brim. The Mica FL tent uses a single-pole system with vertical tent walls to ensure comfortable living space while remaining incredibly lightweight. The Hightail 3S sleeping bag made from 850-fill Hungarian goose down maximizes warmth and comfort without increasing weight. Together, the combination of tent, sleeping bag and backpack weigh just over 5.5-lbs!
Fast Packing, Peak Bagging and Distance Running Backpack
Volume: 36 liters
Weight: S/M: 2 lb, 4 oz ; M/L: 2 lb, 5 oz
Also comes in a 27-Liter women’s version
Ultralight Backpacking and Camping Tent
Total Weight: 2 lbs, 5 oz (1.24 kg) Fastpack Weight: 1
Floor Area: 16.9 square feet (1.6 square meters)
Also comes in a two person tent
Tahoe Mountain Sports and Boreas Gear are teaming up to get real feedback from users like all of you! We’re looking for five outdoor adventurers from around the country to travel with and hike, camp, bike, climb, use and abuse these awesome new travel backpacks. Testers get to keep the pack after they reviewed it!
2012 tester Michael Detwiler took his Boreas pack all over the place.
What do you have to do to get a free Boreas travel backpack? Post a proposal on our Facebook page explaining which Boreas travel pack you think would be best for your adventure(s) and why you would test your pack the best, and we’ll select our favorites by June 6. Planning a two-week game of hopscotch across the Caribbean? Take a Boreas Sapa Trek along for the journey. Wear it as a pack, easily access all your goodies and save weight without compromising organizational features. Hopping trains from one hostel to the next across Europe? The Erawan 50 or the Erawan 70 could be your new favorite travel companion. They’re a new favorite duffle-style pack for international backpackers.! Pack choices will be subject to availability.
The selected testers will submit reviews (500 – 1,000 words) and at least three pictures of themselves using the Boreas Pack by August 6. Do this, and the pack is yours!
We’re working with Boreas to get the word out about their brilliant, award winning backpacking packs, daypacks and cycling packs. Last summer our focus was on backpacking backpacks and day packs. This year it’s the new Boreas travel line. If you’re not familiar with Boreas Gear, they recently set out to create functional, comfortable, clean (less bells & whistles) and reasonably priced backpacks for all sorts of different users: backpackers, cyclists, climbers, mountaineers and minimalists.
We recently sat down with one of the founders, Anders Johnson, to get an overview of their new travel packs.
This post comes from Pam Jahnke, owner and purchaser at Tahoe Mountain Sports. Pam leads an active outdoor life and she’s all about durable, reliable equipment. She also has a fabulous sense for fashion, so she’s highly skilled in picking the top-performing and best-looking outdoor gear. We asked Pam what she thought would make the best Mother’s Day gifts for moms who love outdoor sports and travel. Here’s the useful motherly advice she had for us:
Flowers are nice, but they die. Give the wonderful outdoors loving mother, wife, grandmother, or partner in your life something they can enjoy everyday and use to keep themselves healthy! I’ve looked through everything in the store to come up with the top three products for runners, hikers and travelers that I think would put a huge smile on someone’s face this Mother’s Day.
There’s Pam, smiling about something she loves dearly.
For the Hiker ~
My friend Dayna and I are planning a weeklong backpacking trip in September so I’m all about hiking and camping gear right now.
A good hydration backpack is a must. I had the same Gregory Backpack for 10 years and just upgraded to the Camelbak Day Star Hydration Pack. Wow, what a difference! This pack feels so good to wear and provides more support than my old pack, plus at 18-liters there’s enough volume to carry everything you need. I also love the Camelbak hydration bladder with Bite Valve.
Sun protection is also a must. That means a good hat and lots of sunscreen. We have tons of great hats right now so I suggest you take a look and pick one that matches your mom’s style. For hiking I like the Prana Sally Sun Hat. It has a medium brim that provides nice coverage without getting in the way of a backpack and it’s lightweight, cute and dries quickly. I recently tried (and became hooked) on Sierra Summits Apres Ultra Light Daily Facial Moisturizer. It has a super light, silky texture and works well to protect, which is very important living at 6,200 feet with never-ending exposure to sun, wind, snow and water.
Now for a cute layering piece. The Patagonia Piton Pullover is a great deal at 30% off. It’s a more techie fleece in a cute package with a smooth face fabrication, so it’s ideal for layering and offers an athletic fit for warmth. This is a great year round piece.
For the Runner ~
There are so many fun and cute things for runners right now!
The Salomon XR Sensibelt is super lightweight with this amazing mesh Velcro belt that adjusts and molds to your body for an exact fit that doesn’t move around. It’s easy to reach your water and the bottle won’t fall out while you’re running.
Yurbuds – These little ear buds are amazing! They have completely changed my running. They come in different sizes so you get a custom fit that’s way more comfortable than one-size-fits-all buds, and they lock into place so you don’t have to adjust them while running. Click here for a useful article with more info and videos about Yurbuds.
Stand Up Paddling is getting more popular each year, and Tahoe Mountain Sports finally jumped on-board. We now carry the Shubu, an inflatable stand up paddle board from Boardworks SUP. Shubu stands for “Show Up and Blow Up”, and that’s literally what you do with it. When deflated, it rolls down and fits into an included stuff sack with shoulder straps, so you can wear it as a backpack while you walk or bike to the water. When you get there, pull it out and blow it up with the included pump. Then simply set it on the water and step on. That’s all there is to it!
We decided to carry the Boardworks SUP Shubu because we love how easy it is to transport, yet it’s still an actual board. It doesn’t feel soft like you think it should for being a blow-up board. This inflatable stand up paddleboard is perfect for lake or river camping trips because you can pack it in your trunk, and it’s great for quick jaunts to your local water when you want a good morning workout but don’t have racks on your car to support a 10-foot hard board. For now, we carry them in three different sizes: 9’2″ and wide, 10’2″ and wide, and the regular width Shubu 10’7″. They pack down to less than three feet in diameter, and they provide great support for hours on end without refilling.
Since our selection of stand up paddle boards is so travel-friendly,
we figured it best to also carry collapsible SUP paddles and keep packing and stuffing to a minimum. The 3-Piece Carbon Fiber Paddle from Boardworks SUP weighs only 1-lb., 12-oz. and breaks into sections so you can stash it in your pack along with your SUP, or toss it on the front seat and reassemble it quickly. This Carbon Fiber SUP Paddle is so lightweight you barely notice it, making paddling distances less strenuous on the arms and upper-body. The whole point is to have fun while you’re out there, not suffer from over-exertion.
The military grade UV-resistant rubber Boardworks uses for their inflatable SUPs is very durable and more firm than most would expect. You can make your SUP pretty stiff with the included pump, especially since it features a pressure gauge to help you fill it to the appropriate level, but Boardworks recommends topping it off with their K-20 Finishing Pump (sold separately) to get the best possible performance. The K-Pump only weighs two pounds and is less than two feet long, so it’s also easy to transport.
Tahoe Mountain Sports also has Stand Up Paddleboard accessories, so if you were to misplace or break something like, say, your plastic center fin, you can get a replacement fin from us and get right back out on the water. Each inflatable SUP comes with a rubber patch kit for do-it-yourself SUP repairs, but we thought it would be a good idea to also stock up on other things; things that some people consider necessities, and others may call ‘excess’. For example, a Rubber Coiled Calf Leash that secures your board to your body. Depending how you choose to use your board, a leash could be a good idea, or it may not matter so much. River and ocean surfers may appreciate the added security of a leash, but it could get in the way if you were doing SUP yoga or riding more powerful surf where you’d want to be free of any constraints. River surfers would probably also see more use in the Boardworks SUP PFD, which deflates so small it fits in a comfortable waist pack. Call it a fanny pack PFD, if you will. Only this waist pack looks much cooler than the type your mom used to wear to the amusement park.
If you’re into stand up paddling and you haven’t had the chance to try out a Boardworks SUP inflatable stand up paddleboard, do yourself a favor and give one a shot. You may realize how much easier leisure travel is when you can pack up your SUP and wear it on your back or store it in the backseat. And if you’re just getting into Stand Up Paddling, this could be your golden ticket. Save yourself the trouble of dealing with car racks and trying to carefully transport your fragile board to and from the water. Get an inflatable SUP, show up, and blow up!
This post comes from Pam Jahnke, owner of Tahoe Mountain Sports and healthy eating connoisseur. Pam is always on the prowl for tasty new treats, but she holds a few prerequisites: they must be all-natural, provide good energy, and pack a solid punch of flavor. Here’s one of her most recent creations, which takes little effort and whips up quickly so you can grab-n-go, and keep going all day.
Living an active life with kids, work and outdoor adventures, I’m always looking for healthy snacks that I can make or grab quickly. I’m one of those people always trying new food plans – one month I’m gluten-free, then I’m going Paleo or doing the Blood Type Diet. I think I drives my husband a bit nuts because one month there’s no meat, then the next it’s all about the meat! I look at it as a process that I’m constantly refining to learn which foods provide my body with the best fuel.
One great easy go-to snack, or even a meal for me, is a smoothie. Sometimes I use a protein powder and add fruit and almond milk, other times I just blend up some greens with ginger, lemon and banana for a nice veggie boost. While looking for a new protein powder I decided to try a Fruit & Vegetable Smoothie mix from Sherwood Valley Juice Co. because it’s sugar, gluten, soy and dairy-free. They come in lots of different flavors; I tried Citrus Sunrise and it came out an interesting bright green color! You can blend it with water or add your own frozen fruit and milk/soy products for extra flavor and nutrition. I recommend adding some ice cubes or liquid to thin out the texture just a little bit. Each smoothie is packed with lots of fiber, potassium, and vitamins A and C, but only 5 grams of protein.
What are your go-to snacks while on the run or when you’re backpacking or camping?
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the smoothie mix for free from Sherwood Valley Juice Co. as coordinated by Deep Creek Public Relations.
Being the ski and boot buyer here at Tahoe Mountain Sports can be a daunting job as I have to sift through literally tons of product on a regular basis to pick out what are going to be the best options for our customers and what companies are truly making the top-of-the-line gear. I have to balance fit, durability, comfort, price and of course graphics when deciding what to bring in to the shop. One of the best parts of this decision-making process is when the companies and sales reps give us a chance to test their gear in the field. This past March, I was fortunate enough to be invited on a trip down to Bishop with Sierra Mountain Guides at their hut in North Lake to test out the latest from La Sportiva, Scarpa and Arc Teryx. Just one week later I headed out to Lost Trail Lodge, outside of Truckee, to ski and test with the Tecnica and Blizzard crew. Here is a short recap of both trips and the gear I got to use:
Trip 1: North Lake, Lamarck Col, Paiute Pass – Outside of Bishop, CA
I joined this group that consisted of buyers from four shops from all over California, three guides from Sierra Mountain Center and our La Sportiva and Scarpa sales reps. It was a lively group with folks of all ability levels, and since there were a few of us that were there for the uphill skinning and steeper downhill skiing, we quickly broke off from the less experience skiers. We gained some great vert and had some pretty awesome turns all day long, both powder and hard snow. This was an area of the Sierra Nevada I had never toured in before so it was exciting to check out new terrain, especially the Lamarck Col and Paiute Pass areas.
As for the gear, I have positives and negatives to share (more…)
This post comes from Pam Jahnke, owner of Tahoe Mountain Sports and mother of a very energetic young daughter. Pam spends her (free?) time actively seeking fun times outdoors on her bike, skis and feet. Whether it’s her lifestyle or her daughter that requires the most healthy and sustained energy, we may never know. But we do know this: Pam knows healthy snacking – maybe even as well as we know mountain sports. This week she unveils her latest discovery: the perfect protein snack for time on the trail and a life on the move.
I’m so excited packing up for my first bike trip to Moab! I can’t wait to sleep in a tent under the stars and wake up to the birds chirping and sounds of nature all around. Whenever we go on a camping trip I’m responsible for packing all of the food and everything related to cooking and preparing it. I like things to be easy when camping, without a lot of mess or waste yet still healthy and all natural.
Since we’re going to be biking and hiking around all day long I want to make sure we get enough protein. The best snack for high protein (in my opinion) is beef jerky. Well, so is cheese but since I’m trying to eat Paleo cheese is not appropriate right now. When I saw The New Primal jerky with added nuts and dried fruit I thought, “Bingo! This will be the perfect healthy snack for my family. It’s tail mix with beef jerky!”
I checked out The New Primal company online and, wow! After reading about this grass-fed natural jerky endorsed by my favorite Paleo blogger at PaleoOMG.com, nicknamed the Paleo Pocket, I was completely sold! Finally, real healthy food with just the right amount of protein and sugars for a fuel fix that’s easy to grab and go in one small pouch. The beef is grass-fed, the flavors all-natural, the nuts are raw and the dried fruit isn’t sweetened – what’s not to love?
The New Primal Company makes different flavors for different tastes. My four-year-old daughter likes the Trail Pack with Mango the best while I prefer the Trail Pack with Cranberries. I think the cranberries are just the right size and tartness to match perfectly with the beef jerky. They also have one called Just Jerky for those who just want to enjoy the nice smokey flavor of the beef. I think you should go out and try The New Primal Trail Packs and decide for yourself though.
Time to get back to packing. I’ve already ordered my favorite ener-treats from Kaili’s Creative Kitchen and got a case of The New Primal Trail Packs ready to go. Now it’s time to chop the fresh veggies and marinate some meat for the grill and we’ll be all set for our Moab mountain biking trip. Enjoy Spring!
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the beef jerky for free from The New Primal as coordinated by Deep Creek Public Relations.
Snowshoes should be that one piece of gear that once put on won’t let you down. They need to be as reliable in uphill and downhill travel as they are walking across a field. Presenting the Atlas Aspect 28″ Snowshoes.
The first thing you’ll notice about these snowshoes is their extensive suspension system. Their ReactiV-Trac construction and SLS straps allow for the frame to flex while the binding and crampon conform to the terrain directly underfoot. That adds up to superior traction in constantly changing conditions one would encounter in the backcountry. The Spring-Loaded Suspension (SLS) makes for easier maneuvering by keeping the snowshoe close underfoot and allowing for more natural foot flex. The SLS also helps enhance the shovel-shaped crampon’s penetration into the slope while their sharp ice tips are ready for any ice you’ll encounter. The heel lift bar also comes in handy on steeper ascents by forcing your lean forward, thus reducing the amount of stress on your legs. (more…)
Sick of your earbuds not staying put when you’re trying to workout and jam out at the same time? It sure is annoying when I’m constantly tweaking with my ears instead of focusing on the trail or obstacle ahead of me. But now I’ve got a pair of Yurbuds sport earbuds and I no longer have that problem. They help me flow through my workout without distraction, and that makes a tremendous difference. It’s no wonder they’re the official earphone of the Ironman Triathalon.
I think back to lifting weights at the gym before I moved to the mountains, and how frustrated I would get when one earbud would fall out halfway through a set and I’d be forced to listen to a horrific combination of my hard rock and whatever Kanye West song was coming through the gym’s sound system. Their music selection was the whole reason I would bring my own tunes in the first place, so it would have been really nice to have these sport earbuds back then.
Here’s a funny video of people looking ridiculous trying really hard to shake Yurbuds out of their ears:
Yurbuds are sweet because you insert them at a 90-degree angle, then twist them into place and they won’t fall out if they get caught on something like a zipper or an elbow when you’re moving around a lot. (more…)
Under-rotated a front flip. Binding shredded to bits (see remaining puck). Board, plates and hardware remain completely in tact.
I have been fortunate enough to tour with an awesome splitboard this season and during the second half of last season: the K2 Panoramic Splitboard. Given the far-below-average snowfall the Sierras have received this winter, the Panoramic has been ideal. In powder it surfs like a dream. In corn it rips and lays down hard slashes that move even the heaviest snow, so I can fake “face shots” when they’re really more like “ankle shots”. In crud and chop, it handles like a beast. Not like the yacht that most powder boards resemble when they encounter rough n’ tough stuff, either. This feels more like a wakeboard boat that turns on a dime and weaves in and out of trees as if they were other boats on crowded water. Nothing has changed about the Panoramic Splitboard since last year besides the top-sheet graphics, so this review of the 2013 Panoramic Split equally applies to the 2014 K2 Panoramic Splitboard.
Includes everything you need to shred.
This board is lightweight yet strong, making crusty and sticky snow easier to manage. The graphics are also pretty sweet, and the colorful deck-bottom stands out in flat light and in white-out conditions, which should stoke the photographer you dragged up the hill with you.
On a scale of 1-10, 1 being flexible like a park board and 10 being as stiff as they come, I give the Panoramic a 7. It’s stiff enough to be dependable on steep terrain and in no-fall zones, but flexes enough that it’s fun to drive and you can still ollie out of pow and execute clean 180-switch-nose-butters.
The Panoramic is set back one-inch so you float even better when the snow gets deep, and has a sintered base so it’s that much faster. I’d say this board is good pretty much all across the board: steep chutes and hard-packed, slick traverses; trees, both dense and lightly scattered; sun-baked crust, dirty early-May crud, and even groomed runs in-bounds (you can make some mean carves on this badhawk).
The K2 Panoramic Splitboard Kit comes shready! When you get the splitboard package deal you get hardware (mostly installed, besides stance) in addition to K2 touring skins, so it’s ready to shred straight outta the box!
The new climbing skin technology that K2 is using are also super freakin’ sweet! Rather than having to worry about skin glue losing its grip between trips or when exposed to wet snow, we can now depend on the K2 skin clips (nose and tail) to keep our skins taught, thus reducing the need for excessive glue. This also greatly reduces frustrations often experienced at the summit, when all you want is to switch from tour-mode to ride-mode as fast as possible. K2 climbing skins will not stick to your gloves, nor to one another, so you can re-assemble your board with ease and begin ripping much faster than with traditional split skins that lack tail clips. To top it off, the folks who design K2 splitboards colored their skins bright green, which automatically boosts your style points when you’re trudging around in the middle of nowhere with nobody in sight.
I brought this board into some of the best powder of the season, as well as some of the crummiest, heavy and chunky snow. In both scenarios I was thoroughly impressed with the Panoramic’s all-around excellent performance. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give K2’s splitboard technology (board & skins) a 9. It doesn’t get a 10 because I’m leaving room for improvement. Keep your eyes peeled this coming fall for a ladies version of the Panoramic, the K2 Northern Lite splitboard. It features a female-specific flex and width, but offers all the great characteristics of it’s big brother.
I snapped this pic from the sled on our way out, after shredding the center chute a ‘new one’.
You too can be (almost) this cool with a board that performs as well as the Panoramic.
