Month: November 2025

There is great inexpensive gear out there.

IMUSA cups

For example, instead of a titanium you can get an IMUSA mug. It comes in this large size and the larger 1.1 quart size.

Work gloves

Or take gloves. At most hardware and ranch stores there are a lot of gloves for working men to use for outside winter construction and ranching tasks.

Warm. Inexpensive. Some waterproof. It makes sense. After all, Showa gloves are sold for fishermen and cannery workers. You can browse a display like this one and find just about any solution you might need. For ten dollars or so.

Paradox base layers

Gear review: Paradox DriRelease thermals from Costco

I wear the t-shirts tops as daily wear. As PMags says:

So, how do these gussied up polyblend thermals work in the real world as opposed to laboratory settings or on a spreadsheet?

First, they wick well enough. No better or and no worse than any other poly layer I’ve used. Odor? I’m sorry, but if you are sweating, all the clothing is going to stink at some point esp on multiday trips. Even the wool layers it seems.  That’s what I found anyway.

And though too much spandex in thermals in a significant amount can be counter-productive for cold weather clothing, I found the small amount of spandex in these layers to be a non-issue for real-world use.

The layers themselves are a touch heavier fabric than a light base layer, but not quite as thick as a true mid-layer.  Perfect for hiking in the typically cool and dry Rockies when the weather turns. Even in summer, I’ve worn the thermal top by itself on many early mornings starts. Probably overkill for say the Southeast Appalachians in prime season. A lighter layer shirt is likely to be excellent for a chilly evening. But for the backpacking and outdoor activities I do, it is a versatile layer for three seasons and beyond uses.

A men’s medium top is about 6oz, and the bottoms (men’s large) are 7 oz. I like the zip-top, and take an ounce or so weight penalty, as I find a zip top is a more versatile piece over many conditions over a crew neck top. 

About nine dollars which is much less than many other base layer pieces.

Hiker poles

Foxelli hiking poles

https://www.amazon.com/Foxelli-Trekking-Poles-Collapsible-Shock-Absorbent/dp/B01IC7XYXM

Specifications:

• 100% Carbon Fiber
• Lightweight – only 7 oz
• Retractable from 24” to 55”
• Shock and noise absorbent (as any other carbon pole)
• Ergonomic 100% natural cork grip with extended EVA foam sleeve
• Extra padded adjustable wrist straps
• 4 Season accessories

Gear from hiker boxes

Or gear from hiker boxes.

On the PCT I discovered that long power cables really were an improvement over the 6” ones I used on the AT (where they were perfect). I just didn’t have one.

The hiker box at Shelter Cove had this one (with all its flaws). It saw me through many more miles since I got it in July of 2022.

My wife bought me a phone that doesn’t use this type of cord so it is being retired. It was ugly but worked.

Other inexpensive gear

https://pmags.com/budget-camping-gear

https://pmags.com/300-gear-challenge

There are two pinned budget lists on the r/ultralight front page.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/s/GSKz92SXCy

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/s/vXLJ8FJstA

https://whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php/5594-300-Challenge

My favorite inexpensive gear

• Stanco grease pot. Price and performance.
• Costco hiking socks—they last a long time, mild compression, great padding and very inexpensive. I like thick padding on my socks.
• Inexpensive carbon cork poles. I’m especially pleased that they adjust easily (you can adjust the locks without a screwdriver).
• Inexpensive hiking shorts. Twelve dollars instead of sixty.
• Durston products.
• Silkweight baselayers. Milspec Capilene—great performance but less than a quarter of the price.
• Inexpensive hats. BuiltCool baseball caps and Mutkis beanies. Washable. Even better is the Athletic Works Men’s Baseball Hat from Walmart for under $5 for moisture wicking and nice colors.

I’m not adverse to paying more when it is warranted but I confess to really liking to save money too. Now, if there were a cheap long handled titanium spoon or cheap DAC aluminum tent stakes I’d be listing them as well.

This follows up on https://adrr.com/d20/2025/11/12/trying-a-new-stove/

GasOne

Hilltop Apex

Comparison

The Hilltop Apex is a little heavier but is much more robust. The “Apex Giant Micro Stove” is 1.7 ounces and is much more robust and tighter in fit and construction.

It had a slightly more direct and focused flame contact but it also will output a much stronger flame. I was impressed. Not sure how it translates in real life.

The fold outs are a little larger and the stove is a little more stable. Much more stable than the Snow Peak stove.

I haven’t tested to see if it uses less fuel and boils faster as claimed.

Bottom Line

For $19.98 it was worth the experiment. It may end up on the trail with us next year.

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Other gear/gloves

Zpacks is selling NRS Hydroskin Gloves. I’m still looking for better gloves for cold weather.

Amazon and REI are also selling them.

Maybe these will be my next gloves. I’m going to give them a shot. They are wet suit gloves repurposed for backpacking.

That said, I’ve tried a lot of gloves. I keep looking. Getting just the right glove seems to be a constant quest.

What is needed varies by season and trail.

I’ll report on these when they show up. Same for the new camp shoes, I’ll report on those.

Happy6 has tried everything I have and a pair of Showa gloves.

The Showas are kind of bulky and heavy (ok. Under two ounces if unlined, about four when lined. The bulky makes them seem heavier). https://andrewskurka.com/review-showa-281-gloves-temres/ for more on them.

Also see https://andrewskurka.com/review-showa-282-gloves-cold-wet-conditions/

Things I’ve tried:

• Polyester fleece gloves + rain shells. Warm. Dry. The gloves were inexpensive at Home Depot. Will melt if you aren’t careful when drying them near a fire.
• Possum fur gloves + rain shells. Warm and comfortable enough. Lost one pair on the Pinhoti.
• Various water resistant work gloves and painter’s gloves from Home Depot and Dollar General. Great to protect your hands and improve grip on granite climbs. Not warm or waterproof enough for other uses.
• Ski gloves from Costco. Bulky.
• Military style wool gloves + shell. The shells I have are long in the tooth as I’ve had them since 2018 or so and they are no longer sold. The wool gloves aren’t bad.
• Convertible glove/mittens. I really wanted to like these but they were never warm enough. The glove and coat drive in the community was glad to get them.

Convertible glove/mittens have a lot to recommend them but they just did not do it for me. They are only $12 so they were not the most expensive miss-step I’ve made with gear. Need to be worn with a rain shell. Another shell review.

Some people really like convertible gloves. They have wear pads on the palms, a mitten top that flips over and it is easy to get your fingers out to manipulate things.

As for the rain shells they can be a bit clunky and it is hard to do anything with them on other than hold a hiking pole. Not my favorite for setting up a tent.

Fifteen shells evaluated.

Bottom line. The perfect glove or glove system is light, warm and doesn’t need a rain layer. It also allows you to use your hands and fingers for more than a clumsy grip on your hiking poles and is reasonable in price.

I still haven’t found it. The NRS seems close. I’ll know more after Christmas when I get my pair.

FarOut Maps I have

Costs

I’ve only bought maps, not used the subscription. Subscription gets you access to everything for $100 a year.

That came up in a recent discussion—I did not realize it was so much.

That means that if I had subscribed I’d have paid seven hundred dollars or more.

Instead I’ve paid a lot less. Even buying sections outside of the yearly sales, I’ve still paid a lot less for an awful lot of trails.

Changes

It used to be that you bought FarOut for trail details and a guidebook (like AWOLS, Whiteblaze, ALDHA, or Yogi’s) for towns and off trail information.

Several things have changed.

First. AWOL was sold. Yogi hasn’t released a new edition since 2019. Other guidebooks have often lagged in being updated.

Second, FarOut has expanded to cover the trail towns and more.

Other guides/maps

Other maps are “just” maps. Often they have specific uses and can be significantly justified.

Especially away from the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, the maps are often very useful and have extra information not otherwise in FarOut and may have annotated tracks available.

An annotated track is a map of a trail with notes overlaid that show water, camp sites and other factors of note.

They do have a learning curve.

Online materials (with an example)

The amount of “official” online material varies dramatically by trail. Each trail has a trail association that provides some resources.

The Arizona Trail breaks up the entire trail into roughly twenty mile sections (called passages) with dramatic amounts of detail, enough to be suitable for use by day hikers.

For example, for each “passage” on the AZT there is the following information:

LOCATION

• Mexico Border to Parker Canyon Lake Trailhead

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LENGTH

• 20.3 miles

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RESOURCES

• MAP
• PROFILE
• TRACK
• Waypoints: GPS | MP
• Arizona Euro-American History
• USGS Topographic Maps: Montezuma Pass, Miller Peak and Huachuca Peak.
• Coronado National Forest Map, Sierra Vista Ranger District.
• BLM Information Center maps.
• “Trails of the Huachucas” by Leonard Taylor.

Access

Trailheads

TRAIL ROUTE DESCRIPTION

DIFFICULTY

• Moderate to Difficult.

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SEASON(S)

• Spring, Summer and Fall
• Current weather forecast

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WATER

NOTES/WARNINGS

FOR MORE INFORMATION

CURRENT PASSAGE INFO

—For every one of the 43 passages.

The Appalachian Trail has multiple online resources in addition to the official site. The Trek is the most notable. None are as detailed as the AZT material. The traditional site is Whiteblaze.

The PCT has significant resources beyond the official ones that are managed by Yogi at https://www.triplecrownoutfitters.com/pct-local-permits (and other pages) and her self proclaimed opposition at https://www.halfwayanywhere.com/pacific-crest-trail/ provides other resources.

Halfway Anywhere also has Continental Divide Trail resources to supplement the official site. There are also Reddit and Facebook groups for almost every trail.

Reddit and Facebook groups have taken up all the bandwidth that used to go to online forums like Postholer. You can track the change by looking at when the last posts were made.

Or, by checking when their link to their forums was replaced by a link to a Facebook group.

Beyond that there are blogs (more below) and all the usual online posters.

Beware. Many “backpacking” or “gear” sites are first and foremost affiliate marketing fronts seeking kickbacks.

You can spot many by looking to see if they rate sun hoodies and if they do, is https://jollygear.com/ mentioned.

1. Jolly Gear is probably the current dominant provider for sun hoodies in use on long trails.
2. Jolly Gear does not, as of this writing, offer affiliate marketing kickbacks.

If the site is legitimate then they will include Jolly Gear. If they are focused on selling you gear for kickbacks regardless of what is best or popular then they will skip Jolly Gear.

The Blogs and Trail Journals

Sometimes you can find someone who hikes at your speed and their story can really provide some perspective.

https://www.trailjournals.com/ is the premier source though their advertising has gotten pretty heavy.

As for the websites I do find that someone who does 30-35 mile days may be impressive (99% of hikers don’t go that fast) but they are kind of useless to me in getting a feel of what it will be like for me to hike the same trail.

As a result some sites do not connect for me.

I like some blogs. For example, PMags has a great blog with great resources as do others.

Books and YouTube

Amazon has books and movies. The books can be interesting. Some offer great historical snapshots as well.

I’ve recommended some documentary movies which you can get from Amazon or from the source. https://www.tbwproductions.com/

YouTube has a flood of videos. Dixie, Darwin and lots of others can all be found there with videos of their hikes.

Age will eventually affect some sources but currently while the videos and documentary sources aren’t a guide to gear, they still provide an excellent feel for what the trails are like.

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Bottom line

Aside from buying FarOut trail guides for the app instead of subscription access, there is a lot out there, some of which I find useful.

FarOut is reasonably priced.

The official sites aren’t bad.

• https://appalachiantrail.org/
• https://www.pcta.org/
• https://cdtcoalition.org/
• https://aztrail.org/ (an incredible site).

The free materials can be good and the movies are worth paying for. While the Appalachian Trail has by far the most resources, other trails have significant resources available.

Stove(s)

This is what I just bought followed by a short summary of contenders in the space.

1.6 ounces (46 grams). Aluminum and copper. Looking to be domestically produced in the US. Supposed to be more stable.

BRS 3000 is 26 to 27 grams or .95 ounces. It is titanium. Reliability is reported much better the past few years. It is the leader in discount backpacking stoves.

The Fire Maple T 300 weighs about 1.6 ounces. Titanium. It has a surprisingly large internet footprint.

The GS-7900 or GS-7500 is sold via Tractor Supply as well as Home Depot. Weights are listed between .05 and .1 pounds. Weighed it appears around .95 ounces.

Not sure which we own. Happy6 and I have had excellent experiences with it.

The LiteMax was our first lightweight stove when we moved away from the Windburner. 56 grams, 1.9 ounces. Perfect warranty service. About $44-$45. Titanium.

Just adding this in for completeness. REI used to carry it but it is currently out of stock. Costs almost $50 which is too much for curiosity purchasing.

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My thought is that unless the Apex‘s extra stability is impressive, or unless the improved burner design is really impressive or faster, we will probably hike with the GasOne.

But I decided to check out it out as an alternative. Maybe it is a real improvement. Update to come when it arrives.

Campshoes

https://jimmiesfootwear.com/

I will have to see how they work out. But they look like they will be lighter and take up less space.

I’ve tried doing without and between showers and other wet shoe times I’ve given into hiking with camp shoes.

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Both of these items will get full reviews after they arrive.

We finally drove out to do this on the 10th of November.

The trail starts pretty mildly.

But it starts climbing, up to a 38% grade.

Eventually you can see from the peak tops and it is a great view.

Not a loop trail at all. Just an out and back, about eight and a half miles total.

Video of our hike.

It was a nice training hike. I wasn’t as sore over all as I expected and not at all the next morning.

Just wanted to share these maps which are from the Original Post by Keebler: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CRgowJCy1/

This route is:

186.1 mi with 25,517 ft Total Ascent or about 137 feet a mile, 1,370 feet for every ten miles, which is fairly mild.

He saved it all to a GPS map: Gaia GPS Map Link

BIG SKY ALTERNATE / BUTTE SUPER CUTOFF- West Yellowstone > Big Sky > Whitehall > Butte

We just completed this route, and here is a link to a Gaia Map we created piecing together previously drawn routes. However, I included waypoints for water, camping, junctions, and other miscellaneous items along the way.

I used waypoint specific icons and color coded the water sources based on reliability(to the best of my judgment). If you prefer using CalTopo, you should be able to download the GPX from Gaia and import it into CalTopo. I believe the waypoints will show up as a generic dot though. We found Gaia to be more user friendly on IPhones.

Whether you are in a time crunch, racing winter, or just want to do something a bit different, this may be a good option for you. We went into this alternate with a bit of trepidation. Not having access to all of the crowdsourced water reports and info on campsites for a 186 mile stretch made us a bit nervous.

We also didn’t particularly want to do one long lousy roadwalk just as a means to a quicker end. Fortunately, this was not the case. There were a couple of highway roadwalks that weren’t great, but you should be used to those by now on the CDT. We were pleasantly surprised by a fair amount of well maintained trails and OHV roads.

The scenery was also amazing along the Highline Trail, among the Spanish Peaks, and throughout the Tobacco Root Mountains. The water was not an issue either(as always, look ahead). If given the choice, I would definitely take this route again.

If you have any questions about the route, feel free to ask. Good luck on your hike!

-Keebler

Combined with Soggy’s Guide and I think you have a good route. Note as to who hiked what:

• Big Sky/Super Butte Cutoff: 23.8%
• Anaconda Cutoff: 53.5%

Links:

• https://adrr.com/d20/2025/06/08/soggys-guide-to-the-super-butte-cut-off/
• https://adrr.com/d20/2025/01/15/some-useful-videos/
• https://www.facebook.com/share/14nDnizDjVe/?mibextid=wwXIfr (Soggy)
• https://adrr.com/d20/2023/11/12/cdt-alternative-routes/
• https://adrr.com/d20/2023/12/03/cdt-more-on-the-big-sky-alternative/
• (system crash took out a number of links)
• Avenza Maps for t he Cut-off(I bought a set for myself)
• “roughly 178 miles long, bypassing 498.7 miles from the CDT. That is, near as I can tell, fairly close to the shortest route possible between West Yellowstone and Butte“

Will it be cold this winter?

AccuWeather reports that the West Coast and Southwest region will have a warmer than usual winter season with low precipitation due to warmth from the Pacific Ocean.

What will winter 2025 be like in Arizona?

The Southwest’s temperatures should run historically higher than usual due to warmth in the Pacific Ocean. According to AccuWeather’s map, central and southern Arizona’s temperatures will run an average of three degrees and higher, based on historical temperatures in this region.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-weather/2025/10/09/accuweather-winter-weather-predictions-arizona/86582436007/

Because of this warmth in the Southwest, this also creates a drier than usual season, with precipitation expected to be 50-74% lower than usual, making out-of-season wildfires possible, according to AccuWeather.

However, January will most likely bring rainfall for the Southwest, bringing Arizona out of the winter drought. Yet come February, Arizona with return to being warm and dry, potentially bringing near-record temperature highs for February.

Of course I know that the real weather can be dramatically different.

But it is looking good for an early start.