I spent three summers hiking through the Sierra Nevada, the Cascades, and the High Sierra with sunburn layered on sunburn from sunscreen alone. Last summer, I switched to a dedicated hiking shirt with SPF, and the difference was immediate. My shoulders stopped peeling on day four, and I stopped carrying a 4-ounce sunscreen tube. Our […]

I learned the hard way that a gym sports bra is not the same as a hiking sports bra. On a four-hour descent in the Adirondacks, my favorite high-impact running bra turned into a chafing nightmare under my pack straps. Since then, I've tested dozens of options across weekend trips, multi-day section hikes, and hot-weather […]

When I started writing about the best sailing jackets, I reached out to two skippers I know from the San Francisco Bay sailing community. Between them they log roughly 14,000 nautical miles a year across coastal races, deliveries, and one offshore passage per season. I asked them one question: which jackets have actually kept you […]

There is nothing worse than watching your tip-up flag fly and realizing your fingers are too numb to set the hook. I have spent more freezing mornings on the ice than I care to admit, and cold hands have cost me fish more times than I can count. That is exactly why I put together […]

After one too many soggy Scout hikes with three cranky kids, I started treating the search for the best kids rain jackets for hiking the same way I treat adult shells: hands-on, on real trails, in real rain. Our team spent six weeks testing eight popular kids waterproof shells on Pacific Northwest trails, desert washes […]

Last summer, my family packed up our two kids (ages 6 and 9) for a five-day trek through the Cascades. By day three, my youngest had shredded two pairs of cotton pants on granite scrambles. That's when I learned why dedicated kids hiking pants exist. After 60+ trail days and testing on three more kids […]

I pulled my daughter off the ski lift last February with blue lips and soaked thermals, and that single run cost me three nights of research and one very expensive lesson in why base layers matter. The best base layers for kids do two jobs at once: they wick sweat away from skin so cold […]

Finding the best hiking shorts for women shouldn't feel like bushwhacking through bramble. You want something that moves with your stride, dries fast when you sweat, and actually holds your phone without it sliding out on a scramble. After logging hundreds of trail miles across desert canyons, humid forest paths, and rocky alpine switchbacks, our […]