GearFlogger

RNR Raider Ultra-Violet Locking Carabiner

Looking back in our personal gear history, our first memory of being fascinated by a shiny object, that eventually led to a lifetime of gear acquisition and abject poverty, was a humble carabiner. They are still in our minds the ultimate image of the climbing life.

In some ways biners have come a long way, from round-bodied steel ovals and Ds back in the day to sub-one-ounce hot-forged anodized aluminum beauties with wiregates, magnetic keylocks and exotic nose designs. But biners are still biners, oval-ish with a gate, locking and non locking as you prefer.

Rock-N-Rescue makes all sorts of biners, and their latest locker is the Raider Ultra-Violet, a sexy purple-pink oval that is even available with custom text engraved on the spine. That's right, you can order a five-pack with "Dirtbag climber" on it and give them to your friends!

Beyond the custom engraving, the Raider Ultra-Violet is a nice little locker, targeted at people who use biners like this to work at heights for a living. The colors are for more than just looks, allowing you to easily spot the biners on the side of a cliff or tree, or in your tangled mess of a rack. The symmetrical I-beam oval is plenty strong at 24/8/7kN (major axis, minor axis, gate open), and it weighs in at under 3oz, pretty good for a beefy locker. The gate opening is a spacious 0.83", and the keylock nose ensures snag-free clipping and unclipping.

The locking mechanism itself is in three stages: slide the spring-loaded locking sleeve away from the hinge, rotate the sleeve 90 degrees, and push the gate open. With a little practice it's an easy one-handed operation. The sleeve is knurled for ease of manipulation, and the beefy size of it makes it doable with gloves on, another plus for the working men and women who will be looking at this. For a combination of working practicality and high-vis good looks, the RNR Raider Ultra-Violet is a winner.

$19.99 at RNR

ORCA 12oz Whiskey Barrel Cup

We are not cool enough to be fashionable whiskey drinkers, but that doesn't mean we can't pretend, and the best way to do that is drinking from our new ORCA Whiskey Barrel double walled cup.

Sure, underneath that handsome exterior the Orca Whiskey Barrel is a basic stainless steel, double-wall, vacuum sealed cup. It keeps hot hot and cold cold for as long as you need it to, but that suit, though! The wood look is printed on the steel - it's not real wood, probably for the better - and the two black bands are soft rubber or silicone that make sure your drink doesn't slip out of your hands.

ORCA did everything right with this cup, starting with the clear, BPA-free whale-tail lid. The lid is screw-on with a gasket, so once it's on it's not going to accidentally come off, and it definitely does not leak. The lid has two little protruding wings that let you easily get a grip to screw it on and off, and the pivoting piece that covers the drink hole has a gasket to. Two of them, in fact, one for the drink hole and one for the tiny air hole above it that equalizes pressure while you drink. The whole assembly did not leak even under inversion and moderate shaking, it's really well built. And bonus: the lid fits other ORCA drinkware.

The interior of the Whiskey Barrel is seam-free, so no welds to fail or collect nastiness. Overall it's just a super solid, beautifully designed cup that will draw comments around the fire pit. So as long as you don't mind explaining to everyone that no, it's not real wood, you're good to go!

$27.99 at ORCA

Camelbak Podium Dirt Water Bottle

Fact: water bottles that live in a bottle cage on your mountain bike are going to get dirty. After one too many swigs on our basic model bottle that ended with us spitting dirt out, we decided it was time for a bottle with a cap on it.

Looking around a bit, we saw the Camelbak Podium Dirt on sale at REI Outlet and ordered one shipped to our local store. On paper the Dirt looked good: holds 21 ounces, fits in a standard bottle cage, flip-top cap that you can activate with your thumb, easy to grip, tons of 4 and 5 star reviews everywhere we looked, we were sold.

When the Dirt arrived we washed it out, filled it up and threw it on the bike. Sure enough, we dropped it in the dirt eventually. No problem, right? Pick it up, flip the cap open, take a swig and... dirt in our mouth. How? How could this happen to us? Aren't we good people? We recycle, even some things that shouldn't be recycled. We clean the damn cat's litter box three times a week, all that stuff.

So here's the flaw: the Dirt has a tiny little cap. It does not cover the entire area that your mouth will cover once you establish a solid lip lock on the nipple. Hell, we learned how to do that in high school, so we know we're not doing that part wrong. No two ways about it, the cap is just too small.

And while we're at it, why is there a locking ring on this bottle? It has a cap, and it takes a decently firm squeeze to get the water flowing, so the locking thing just seems unnecessary to us. Bottom line, we are still looking for a water bottle with a good cap design. Stay tuned.

On sale for $6.73 at REI Outlet

Bug Soother

Summer is pretty much over here in Alaska, but the last couple months we seemed to have more than our share of little flying biting critters - mosquitos, flies and god knows what else. The tiny flies were worse than the mozzies this year it seemed.

Having grown up in the interior of Alaska, where mosquitos are legendary, we have a pretty fair amount of experience with insect repellents. 100 Percent DEET is still our choice for the bug-pocalypse, with high concentrations of Picardin a runner-up. If you want to get all scientific about it, you can visit the EPA's "choose your poison" site, or check out the CDC site with links to specific destinations. DEET is proven safe, and mandatory for areas with a lot of insect-borne pathogens, but for very young infants and pregnant women it might be a good idea to avoid it if you can, and that's where the natural stuff comes in.

One other reason to be careful with DEET: it can degrade your expensive technical fabrics rather quickly, so you need to be careful how you apply it. There are a number of studies showing that lemongrass can be an effective repellent. Similar to citronella, lemongrass has been studied as a deterrent to mosquitos and flies, and the evidence shows it can be effective. We checked out Bug Soother, which comes in a handy one ounce spray bottle. We like the fact that it smells really nice, a mix of lemon and vanilla, and that it's all natural, but does it work?

On a recent hike to a dead salmon-infested beach, with low-flying swarms of no-see-ums, it seemed to work just fine. We wore low-cut socks and sprayed around our ankles to see if would collect the expected ankle-biter harvest, but at the end of the hike we were pleasantly surprised to be bite-free. We will be keeping Bug Soother in our kit for next summer and give it a shaking out in the Spring to report back, but we are encouraged by our initial test. And did we mention it really does smell good?

$16.99 at Amazon

MSR Guardian Gravity Water Purifier

We'll just say it up front, MSR has designed what may be the perfect water purifier for small groups, capable of purifying ten liters of "worst-case" water at a rate of about one liter every two minutes, and with a filter rated for 3,000 liters of lifetime service. We know you have questions, like, what the hell is "worst-case" water, and why is it in scare quotes? Fear not, we have answers, so read on!

The Guardian Gravity was designed for the US military, and they needed something capable of dealing with the nastiest water they might find in the field, which - given where they've been operating the last two decades - can be pretty nasty. The military has specifications for everything. Your skull, for example, is officially a Brain Housing Group, and if you want to know exactly what is wrong with it, join the US Army and their friendly Drill Sergeants will tell you. The specification for individual and small unit water purifiers is NSF P248, a more rigorous extension of the P231 standard.

MSR sums up the third-party testing process: "The full NSF Protocol P231 test lasts for 10 days. Five of those days challenge a filter with tap water; the other five with what’s called 'worst-case' water—containing elevated levels of organic matter, turbidity, pH and salt, and at nearly freezing temperatures. In addition, the test challenges the filter at the end of the filter’s life to ensure it’s still removing pathogens up until the last moment its cartridge is full. Every MSR filter is tested to the full 10-day protocol."

So, we have an honest-to-uncle-sam water purifier, they've tested the bejesus out of it, and we are fully confident it will take out viruses (99.99%), bacteria (99.9999%), protozoa (99.9%), sediment and microplastics. How's it work in practice?

First of all, the packaging is just right. A zippered bag with mesh sides for drying perfectly fits the purifier, which unrolls ready to use, no assembly required. Well OK, a little disassembly is required, as you follow the instructions clearly printed on a large tag inside the bag: detach the water hose, fill the clearly labeled DIRTY WATER bag, roll it shut 4x, hang it six feet above your clean water container, re-attach hose, purge it, rinse bottle adapter, attach bottle adapter to clean water container and you're good to go. You get pretty fast at it in practice, and there are also detailed instructions for storing, cleaning and performing an integrity test.

There is a pre-filter in the bag to catch larger sediment, and the two-stage filter cartridge has a carbon filter that works very well to make the clean water odorless and tasteless. Reminder: do not detach hoses from filter cartridge, and do not disassemble cartridge or attempt to dry it out, as it needs to maintain a damp condition for the integrity of the filter. Also, when hanging try to stretch it out to the maximum hose length with a vertical drop. The Guardian will work at lower heights and at an angle, but slower. We found a liter every two minutes to be possible with the perfect height and angle, but a liter every 2.5 to 3 minutes is probably more achievable under normal field conditions. That's still less than 30 minutes for 10 liters of pure water.

After all this, the bottom line is that the MSR Guardian Gravity scores pretty much perfect marks on capability, usability and portability, which at 1lb 3oz is pretty damn good for a 10L purifier that requires no pumping. Even the affordability we consider pretty good, given its efficacy and long service life. If you're going out in small groups, you're not going to find a better purifier than the MSR Guardian Gravity.

$249.95 at REI

Helinox Chair Zero

A place to rest our buttocks, that is all we ask. Oh, and it has to be lightweight, packable and hold all the buttocks. With decent back support. You get the idea.

The Helinox Chair Zero pretty much ticks all the boxes. It weighs in at a flat and feathery one pound, packs up into a 4x14-inch roll and assembles fairly quickly. We say fairly because we are talking about eleven pole sections, all connected into one mutant octopus of an assembly. As is the style these days, but it goes together without too much fuss.

Once together, the buttocks are carefully placed into the Chair Zero, for fear the weight and width of said buttocks might cleave said chair in two. Once in place, the Chair Zero provides good back support and keeps you off the ground, pretty much our basic requirements for a camp chair. No fancy headrest, rocking motion or easy in/out here, but did we mention it weights one pound?

For an ultraportable camp chair, the Chair Zero is the one to beat. Our only concern, aside from the eye-popping cost, is durability. The chair is rated for 265 pounds and we would take that seriously. Our own 200-ish pound frame definitely caused the chair to flex side-to-side, and we wouldn't want to make a sudden lateral movement, but if you're the kind of person who is not normally rough on your gear you shouldn't have a problem. We'll be reporting back from time-to-time on our experience, and will let you know if we ever have a malfunction.

Pay attention to the part of the directions where it says put the two back poles in, lay it on its back and then put the seat poles in, you'll have no problem with your erection. Overall the Chair Zero costs a lot but delivers a comfortable, easily packable solution to taking a load off at the end of the trail. Now if they could just do something about that price...

$119.95 at REI

Therm-a-Rest Vesper 32F Quilt

There's light, and then there is ultralight. And ultralight these days has gotten crazy-light, thanks to companies like Therm-a-Rest. Their Vesper quilts is about as minimalist as you can possibly get in features, and it doesn't give an inch on performance to get there.

The idea behind ultralight is simple: the lighter your gear, the easier the hiking. The easier the hiking, the more time you spend doing that instead of resting, setting up camp, tearing down camp, etc. To paraphrase the guru of ultralight Andrew Skurka, the weight and complexity of your gear determines whether you're a hiker or a camper. REI recommends a backpacking backpack weight about 20 percent of your bodyweight - that's 40lb for a 200lb person! Even for day hiking they recommend 10 percent, which is still 20lb for a day out, which we think should be your target weekender weight.

The Vesper quilts can help you hit that target. Available in 20F (32F comfort), 32F (41F comfort) and 45F (52F comfort) temperature ratings, and two sizes each (regular and long), the weights range from 12oz for the 45F regular to 21oz for the 20F long. We tested the 32F long, which tipped the scale at 19oz inside the included compression sack.

So what exactly are you getting into here? The Vesper is a quilt with a foot box. It starts with 900 fill responsibly-sourced Nikwax hydrophobic (water resistant) down. Hydrophobic down is important not just in case you get it wet from some external source, but because you eject about a pound of water overnight through breathing and sweat. If you've ever woken up to icicles in your tent - poor ventilation management! - that's why. All that exhaled moisture floating around can compromise the warmth of your quilt or sleeping bag, and that is what hydrophobic down helps prevent. The other major design consideration of the Vesper is the box baffle construction, which means no sewn-through cold spots. 

The advantage of all this is less material and weight than a full quilt, and better warmth especially around your feet due to the decreased air space. Keep that down close for maximum warmth! The other major design feature of the Vesper is the SynergyLink Connectors, basically a tether with a T connector at either end that fits into loops on the side of the Vesper. This pulls the quilt snug around a sleeping pad like the Therm-a-Rest UberLite to minimize air gaps and shifting during sleep. In this case the sleeping pad is your insulation against the ground, which makes sense since almost all the insulation below you in a full sleeping bag is useless since you've fully compressed it with your bodyweight, leaving no ability to loft.

The Vesper has draft tubes along the sides and around the neck, as well as a snap closure at the neck for additional control. Therm-a-Rest includes both a compression sack that squeezes the quilt down to to just larger than a quart/liter bottle, and a larger storage sack. Overall we find the Vesper hard to beat for shaving major weight off the big three: tent, pack and sleeping bag. With the combination of UberLite pad and 32F Vesper weighing in at just over a pound-and-a-half, you should be able to keep the big three under 10lb. That's a damn good start.

From $289.95 at Therm-a-Rest

weBoost Destination RV Cell Signal Booster

If the starship Enterprise was an RV, Scotty would insist on the Destination RV cell phone signal booster from weBoost. The man needs more power, and where most mobile boosters are limited to 50dB max downlink gain the Destination RV rocks a full 65dB. Because the dB scale is logarithmic, that's a 30x increase in power to you and me.

The way the Destination RV gets around the 50dB max is by being classified as a stationary booster, in other words, don't use it while in motion, got it? Otherwise, black helicopters will arrive overhead shortly and let's just say your new best friends will be water and a board...

Fanboys of weBoost that we are around here, we won't cover the basics: registering your booster with the FCC, testing speeds, etc. Check out our recent weBoost reviews for all those deets. Basically rest assured that the out-of-box experience with weBoost products is best in class and as painless as possible. And just as important, performance is top-notch - just ask Subaru Motorsports, they use the Destination RV in the field to support their rally team.

Aside from more power, the main visible difference on the Destination RV is the telescoping mast and directional antenna. OK, that's technically two differences. The mast cranks up to 25 feet (!), and if you know anything about antennae (like how to spell "antennae") you know a good line-of-sight from on high is very helpful. The directional antenna will require an idea of which direction the nearest cell phone tower is, so you'll want to do a little research before you go wherever it is you're going, and become acquainted with an app like Open Signal to get your direction dialed in.

We set up and deployed the Destination RV at our home location, which despite being in an urban area is a cell phone dead zone. We normally get two bars of signal, but hooking up to the Destination doubled that to four. Putting your device in field test mode - again, see weBoost reviews link - will get you a more accurate dB rating, bu having experience with weBoost products we were not particularly surprised - we know that if anything will pull in a weak signal and make it stronger, weBoost will. It's nice knowing we can get above trees and other blockages to grab a signal, and the fact that we need to be stationary to do it is no big deal for an RV, so once again weBoost for the win!

$649.99 at weBoost

Gerber Tri-Tip Mini Cleaver

OK, so at first we were like, WTF, then we were like, OMG, now we're like, ILY. There, I used all the acronyms, excuse me while I throw up a little in my mouth. What will not make you throw up is the Gerber Tri-Tip Mini Cleaver, an improbable little knife that had us scratching our heads at the beginning but soon won us over with its versatile utility. The Jake Gyllenhaal of knives, if you will.

The first thing we noticed unboxing the Tri-Tip is the sheath. Many, perhaps most, knives include a sheath almost as an afterthought, with not a lot of attention paid to the design. The Tri-Tip sheath is broad to accommodate the cleaver profile, and has a small tab you depress with your index finger to draw or sheath the knife. It's a secure retention system, and allows the other cool trick of the sheath which is the square grid of mounting holes that allow you to carry it with handle up, down, left or right, as well as to adjust the depth of carry in the up and down positions. The belt slide will work with belts up to an inch and a half. Really a nice sheath design.

The Tri-Tip itself is built from fairly affordable materials, as one would expect of a knife at this price point, but that just means a little extra care in use and maintenance. Handle and blade are each about three inches in length and the blade is about two inches in height and 3/16 inch wide on the spine, so it's a solid little thing in your hand. The front of the blade is not sharp, but slightly rounded over for scraping purposes, and the bottom cutting edge is rockered for effective chopping, slicing and dicing. The Tri-Tip feels like a combination of ulu and santoku, and it handles very well for anyone with small to medium hands.

The blade material is 7Cr17MoV, similar to 440A steel and a common choice for survival blades. It holds an edge well enough when used for common camp kitchen chores, and you can even use it to baton small pieces in a pinch, though we wouldn't make that a habit. Overall the Gerber Tri-Tip is a handy little knife for the aspiring backcountry chef in your life, and at a reasonable cost to boot.

$36.00 at Gerber

Grayl Geopress Water Purifier

The old rule of threes is still (roughly) accurate: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. But! Some people are particularly freakish/motivated/genetically gifted, as in 22 minutes without air, 18 days without water and 74 days without food (thank you sciencealert.com). Human beings are generally pretty good at avoiding airless situations, and lots of people keep extra food on hand, but for some reason a lot of other people seem to overlook the whole access to water thing.

Stockpiling water is one answer: keep a WaterBOB around for big disasters where you can shelter in place, a Lifesaver jerrycan for when you can GTFO, and things like Datrex pouches, Lifestraws and purifier tablets for everything else. And don't forget the difference between water filters and water purifiers: filters catch the bigger microbes, i.e. protozoa and bacteria. Filters catch those and also viruses, which are much smaller and harder to filter.

If you're looking for a true portable purifier solution that works for everything from foreign travel to backpacking to prepping, the new kid on the block is Grayl with their Geopress. It consists of an outer sleeve that you dip into your water source, then just insert the inner part, press down and you have 24 ounces of purified water at hand. It's easiest when you place it on the ground and use your bodyweight to do the work, but work it does and very elegantly. Remember to turn the cap 1/2 turn to vent before you press.

The $30 filter is easily replaceable after a rated 350 cycles, which should be good for 250L of purified water. Because the outer sleeve separates from the filter insert, it's easy to avoid cross-contamination. Just don't freeze the filter (OK, they say you can do it once), put extremely hot water in it, use soap on the filter cartridge or put any of it into the dishwasher. Aside from those simple caveats the Geopress is plenty tough enough and should last you through many an epic adventure.

$89.95 at Amazon