When my dog sliced her paw pad on a rocky trail last summer, I was 40 minutes from the nearest vet with nothing but a human bandage and a prayer. That experience sent me down a rabbit hole of testing the best dog first aid kits on the market. I wanted to know which ones […]

Last spring I walked out to my vegetable garden at 6 a.m. and found half my lettuce seedlings gone, shredded into wet ribbons overnight. That same week, I watched a single gray slug devour three hosta leaves in under an hour. After losing the battle with two hand-picked molluscicides and a beer trap that filled […]

I took my dachshund Pickle on a 6-mile Colorado trail last fall and watched him slow to a crawl after mile three. He wanted to keep going, but his little legs were done, and I had no way to carry him safely. That hike sent me down a rabbit hole testing every dog backpack carrier […]

Looking for the best kids snowshoes for a young explorer who keeps sinking past their boots in fresh powder? I have been testing winter gear with my family for the last six winters, and I have personally strapped six different kids snowshoe models onto my nephew, my daughter, and several neighbor kids to find out […]

I've spent the last decade hiking trails across the Appalachians, Sierras, and Rockies, and I learned the hard way that a sub-par first aid kit can ruin a trip. On a rainy Pacific Crest Trail section, my cheap nylon pouch soaked through and ruined half my gauze, leaving me with wet, useless bandages for a […]

I learned the hard way that a regular first aid kit is not the same thing as a trauma kit. During a backcountry deer hunt in the Rockies in , my hunting partner took a misstep on loose scree and opened a gash on his shin that would not stop bleeding with a typical adhesive […]

When a chainsaw slips on a hunting trip or a kayak flip sends you into a rock garden, you have about three minutes before blood loss becomes fatal. I learned this the hard way on a backcountry elk hunt in Montana when my partner took a broadhead arrow to the thigh. We were 47 minutes […]

I still remember the day a timber rattlesnake coiled up next to my boot on a humid Appalachian ridge trail. My heart hammered so hard I could feel it in my fingertips, and the only thing between me and a venomous bite was a cheap suction pump I had bought online a year earlier. That […]

I've spent the last three months testing the best emergency bivvy sacks on the market, dragging them through sub-freezing alpine nights, stuffing them into bug out bags, and even dragging a few through scratchy underbrush to see how they'd hold up. After cracking open ten different models, weighing them on a precision scale, and measuring […]

A small spark from a campfire, a propane stove tip-over, or an electrical short in your campervan can spiral into a full-blown emergency within seconds. Most established campgrounds are 15 to 30 minutes from the nearest fire department response, which means you are the first responder. That reality hit me during a camping trip when […]