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TrailGroove Blog

A Blog by the TrailGroove Team

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  • Aaron Zagrodnick 239
  • Mark Wetherington 76
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Gear | Trips | Food | Technique | Reading

Entries in this blog

Technique

10 Ways to Sleep Warmer on Your Next Backpacking Trip

It's always hard to enjoy a backpacking trip when you don't sleep well, and sleeplessly shivering throughout the night is one way to guarantee a rough next day. Here's a list of 10 tips, ideas, and considerations that should help the next time your backcountry trip coincides with those colder nights. On this frigid morning, my coffee froze in my cup before I could finish it. Luckily with the right gear I slept warm the night before. A Nalgene Bottle Trapping your heat utiliz
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

15
Technique

Lacing Tips for Backpacking, Hiking, & Outdoor Footwear

Spring has sprung and in Colorado that means drying trails and couloirs packed with stable, hard snow. In go the ski boots and from the closet come trail shoes and mountaineering boots. Sadly, my last pair of shoes died a grizzly death at the hands (feet?) of my extra-wide pinky knuckle because I was too lazy to lace them correctly. Below are my tips on funny looking lacing for funny looking feet. My 2016 Lone Peak 2.5's – ready for the trash bin thanks to a 2" long hole. F
HikerBox

HikerBox in Technique

1
Technique

Choosing the Best Wilderness Backpacking Campsite

If your next trip is taking you to a popular trail in a National Park or areas where campsites are available by obtaining a permit and making a backcountry reservation, often times there will be little to decide upon when it comes to choosing a campsite; if designated sites are all that’s available most of the deciding has already been done for you. When exploring more remote wilderness areas and in all areas where dispersed or zone camping is allowed or all that’s available however, when choosi
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

1
Technique

Tips for Hiking in Mosquito and Tick Season

Every hiking season offers up its own set of challenges, and when it comes to the seasons of spring and summer the presence of flying and biting insects and other related concerns will need to be addressed in many locales. Dealing with insects such as mosquitoes, black flies, and ants along with other concerns like ticks to name a few is a top priority for any warmer weather outdoor excursion. These pests can be anything from just that – a simple pest, or they can even ruin a trip in short
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

2
Technique

How to Wash a Down Backpacking Jacket or Sleeping Bag

After a season of hiking, sleeping and sweating in your down jacket or sleeping bag things can get a little stinky. You might even notice a slight loss of loft as body oils compromise the fluffiness of the down feathers. Or, as in my case, the jacket is just grubby. Fortunately washing your jacket or sleeping bag is a lot easier than you may fear. In this article I’ll go step by step through washing one of my down jackets but the same process can be used for nearly all down sleeping bags. The on
HikerBox

HikerBox in Technique

0
Technique

Bear Country Backpacking & Hiking: In Camp & on the Trail

Whether it’s a trip along a National Scenic Trail or a quick weekend backpacking excursion into an obscure wilderness area – when the mountains are calling, our trips to many backpacking and hiking destinations will also take us into bear country. When hiking and camping in these areas an extra set of considerations will be added to our pre-trip planning process and a few extra gear items will need to be added to our gear list to approach bear country backpacking in the proper manner.
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

2
Technique

How to Keep Your Backpacking Gear Dry

While backpacking during an all-day rain presents its own challenges when it comes to staying dry – or as dry as possible – protecting your gear and the items in your pack that must stay dry comes with its own set of considerations. Having a dry jacket, clothes, and a dry sleep system at the end of a long rainy day is not only backpacking luxury, it’s also critical to our safety on the trail. And whether rain is in the forecast or not, in most backpacking locations we still need a strategy to ke
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

5
Technique

Backpacking in the Rain: Dealing with the Deluge

While we can hope that a good forecast holds or we luck out and enjoy blue sunny skies on our next backpacking trip, inevitably a trip will fall during a stretch of rainy weather – and we all know that good forecasts don’t always work out quite as planned. Rainy weather adds a new set of challenges a hiker must prepare for, and when chilly weather is added to the equation you have some of the most challenging weather conditions a backpacker will face. But whether it’s afternoon mountain showers
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

How to Pack Food for a Backpacking Trip

Food for any backpacking trip is all about balance: a balance of meals that are lightweight yet still offer a sufficient amount of calories and nutrition, food that will likely not be of the fresh variety but will still bring flavor to the table, and finding that delicate balance between bringing enough food without bringing too much. Once you get the balances right however, planning out food for a multiday backpacking trip can be a simple process while still keeping us well fed and in good spir
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking and Fly Fishing: An Introduction

An argument can be made for keeping backpacking as simple as possible. Stuff your pack with warm clothes, a tent, your sleeping bag, and any other luxury items you wish to carry. Grab a map, hit a trail, and set off through your local woods, the red rocks and canyons of the southwest, or hike towards high alpine cirques. Unbothered by the distraction of the world back at home, you’ll have nothing but the sounds of nature to rock you to sleep wherever you decide to set up your tent. Ho
jansenjournals

jansenjournals in Technique

0
Technique

Hiking Blister Prevention, Treatment, and Care

Blisters are a very common hiking injury. Blisters can cause a trip to become very uncomfortable, and in worse case scenarios they can slow you down significantly causing unintended consequences. I find a small first aid kit with a few specific items and some practice will eliminate most foot issues, and will quickly alleviate small problems before the blisters and related problems get big. Preventing blisters from happening is the first step when it comes to backpacking and hiking bl
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Down Fill Power (FP)

Fill Power is a grading system for goose / duck down. Often abbreviated as FP. Higher fill power will add more loft and warmth to an outdoor garment or sleeping bag at the same given amount of weight. Measured using a cubic inch per oz system. 500 fill power down will fill 500 cubic inches of space per ounce used. 900 will fill 900 cubic inches of space per ounce. A high fill power down cluster. What Fill Power is Best? It all depends on the application. For use off the trai
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking Jargon: Lapse Rate, Temperature, & Altitude

Lapse rate can be used to describe several atmospheric variables, but for hikers lapse rate is generally observed as the tendency for temperature to predictably fall with altitude. In general, backpackers and hikers can expect a temperature decrease / lapse rate of several degrees Fahrenheit for every 1000 feet of elevation gain. Lapse rate occurs in concert with and due to the lower air pressure found at altitude. When planning a mountain trip, lapse rate is important to consider so that you ca
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Navigation Handrail

When navigating in the backcountry and especially when navigating offtrail, a handrail refers to a feature you can follow towards your intended destination while maintaining accurate knowledge of your location, at least along one axis. Examples of handrails include rivers and streams (the most classic example), a fence or power line, a specific altitude in mountainous terrain, the shoreline of a large body of water, a linear canyon, or even other man-made features such as roads. Combi
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Tips for Photographing Mushrooms: The Flowers of Fall

Mushrooms are the flowers of fall, and photographing them may look easy but it’s not. Here are a few helpful tips to use when photographing them. First, you’ll want to correctly identify the mushrooms you shoot, so pick up a good mushroom book to help with identification. My favorite book on fungi is Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora. I also recommend his mushroom field-pocket guide. When I photograph mushrooms, I often begin with a document photograph. This helps me identify the m
David Cobb

David Cobb in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking & Hiking with Dogs: A Getting Started Guide

Backpacking can be a challenging endeavor in itself – at times in our effort to get back to basics and simplify life by hitting the trail we find ourselves poring over gear checklists, rushing to make the trailhead at a decent hour, or planning trips that just push the mileage a bit too far. With all this in mind, adding another component to the equation might not be the best idea. But once you find your rhythm, adding man’s best friend can be a great addition to any trip – and there aren’t many
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking Luxury Items: 8 Lightweight & Favorite Items

Every backpacker should have a slightly miserable trek just once in their life. Nothing extreme – just one with a bit of good-old fashioned discomfort. Maybe a rock under a sleeping bag, or a slightly damp boot during a section of a hike – it’s during those moments of less than easy explorations that the true value of the little amenities becomes evident, and much more appreciated. The small bits taken for granted on daily basis are sincerely cherished on the trail. That being said, there is no
Claire Murdough

Claire Murdough in Technique

0
Technique

Trail Tip: Biking Access Roads & Self-Shuttle by Bicycle

Roads that lead to trailheads, particularly in the West, can vary greatly in their suitability for passenger vehicles. Some roads are passable by sedans with minimal clearance, while others are more suited for 4WD and high-clearance. Many fall somewhere in between – a carefully driven car can make it, but a small SUV would make the experience less nerve-wracking. Information about road conditions can usually be found online, in guidebooks or by calling a nearby ranger station and can
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Mud Season

Spring comes slowly to the high country of the Rockies and other mountain ranges in the western United States. As the days get longer and temperatures rise, summer backpacking season seems tantalizingly close. But between the snow melting and the summer wildflowers blooming is a period of time colloquially referred to as "mud season". Depending on elevation and latitude, mud season might last from mid-March to late May, give or take a few weeks. With snow melting and spring rains mixed in, many
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Ice Out and Ice In

For hikers in mountainous and / or northern areas, and especially for hikers that also bring along a fishing rod on their trips, there are two milestones that fairly reliably mark the start and end of the summer and fall seasons. Ice out is when lakes are free of winter ice and ice in is when they freeze over again. Ice in and ice out dates vary regionally, and in mountainous areas there are also significant variations even within the same range. Elevation and aspect are the biggest c
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

0
Technique

How to Photograph the Slot Canyons of the Southwest

Imagine hiking through a dark and narrow slot canyon. So narrow that you’re moving sideways as your chest and shoulder blades are touching the canyon walls as you go. Just around the corner you can see a glow that looks like molten lava pouring down the wall. That’s what the slot canyons of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona can offer. Slot canyons provide some unique hiking challenges and extraordinary beauty as other worldly landscapes unfold right before your eyes. The wild colors, textures a
DustyD

DustyD in Technique

0
Technique

Snow Water Equivalent (SWE): Hiking & Backpacking Jargon

Snow Water Equivalent is a measurement used to determine the total amount of water mass contained within the snowpack of a specific geographical area, usually expressed in inches of water (if the entire snowpack were to melt, this would in turn = X inches of water). SWE is a particularly useful way to measure potential spring and early summer runoff as well as a good way to predict year to year when trails will start to become free of snow. Since snow and snowpack contains a substanti
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking & Hiking Jargon: Contour Interval (Mapping)

On a topographic map, the contour interval is the physical elevation difference between each contour line, usually expressed in feet or meters. The smaller the contour interval, the more accurately landscape features and any elevation changes will be represented. Understanding contour lines and the interval when performing map and compass navigation are key skills to have, and especially useful for offtrail travel, though be aware that micro features are not always well reflected – a slope that
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Backpacking & Hiking Jargon: Topographic Map Scale

On every decent map, a map scale should be provided near the legend. Map scale can be used to determine the level of detail a map will possess and is expressed as a fraction formula, such as 1:100,000. What this means is that every 1 unit (inch, foot, etc.) is representative of 100,000 of the same unit on the ground. For example, 1 inch in this case is representative of 100,000 inches in real life. Map scale can get a bit confusing. A small scale map will have a larger fraction and a large scale
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0
Technique

Mountain Pass Terminology: Backpacking & Hiking Jargon

Humans have long sought routes through mountains for travel, trade, and warfare. Archaeologists recently unearthed evidence that suggests that in 218 B.C., Hannibal and his army crossed the Alps at a pass now called Col de Traversette. While we're less likely to travel with 30,000 soldiers, 37 elephants, and 15,000 horses and mules these days, we still seek low spots when moving through mountains. Mountain Pass in the Rockies Passes and Saddles In simplest terms, a pass is t
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

0



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