When preparing for a backpacking trip, most people are concerned with what to pack. However, how you pack and carry your backpack is just as crucial for a successful hike.

If you are wearing your backpack correctly, nearly all of the weight should be resting on your hips, through the use of the straps that tighten around your waist. These are the most important straps and should be very snug. If the backpack you are using doesn’t have waist straps, it might be time to invest in one that does. It makes a world of a difference on longer hikes. The only function of the shoulder straps should be to keep the bag close to you. You can check this by leaving the waist strap secured while removing the shoulder straps. There should be very little shift in weight, except that the bag may start to tip away from you. If you do notice that you were carrying some of the weight on your shoulders, tighten the straps around your waist.

The way you pack your backpack is also a critical thing to note. All heavier items should be placed as low and as close to your body as possible. Packing heavier items away from your body and higher up in the pack will cause the load to feel heavier than it is. (Imagine carrying your suitcase or purse at the end of a stick that you were holding instead of directly in your hand.) This will also save the lighter items from being broken or deformed under the weight of other objects. You will want most of the weight near your center of mass; this will make it easier to balance and prevent falls while climbing. This is why most backpacks designed for overnight hikes provide a place to secure your sleeping bag underneath the bulk of the pack.

Properly wearing and packing your backpack will help prevent unnecessary shoulder or back pain associated with hiking. It also allows you to comfortably hike for a longer distance, because weight on your waist doesn’t really feel like weight at all. Pack smart, hike happy.

One of the first things one must learn when setting up camp in the wilderness is how to build a campfire. Rubbing wood together (like in Cast Away) is probably one of the least effective ways to build a fire today, provided that you bring a small amount of supplies with you on your trip. Certainly, using a matchbox can make lighting a fire quite easy. However, if your matchbox is not waterproof and you run out of matches, then what do you do? (Using a simple lighter is cheating!) Starting a fire using friction can be very tiring and time-consuming.

One of the most well known ways to start a fire without matches is to use flint and steel. All you need is a piece of flint, a steel item, and some tinder. Stores often sell kits that include flint and an ideal type of steel. The basic idea is that you use the flint to strike the steel and create sparks that land on the tinder, which should catch fire after enough sparks are made. Common materials for tinder include dry pine needles, leaves, grass, birch bark, char cloth, or cotton swabs, essentially anything with a lot of surface area and edges. The flaming tinder is then used to light the kindling. See the full instructions here.

Have your heard that you can actually start a fire with a can of coke and some chocolate? Sure, this is a less traditional way to make fire, and it is also quite inefficient based on the available methods, but doesn’t it sound like fun? Apparently this was featured on Mythbusters and really works; it involves using the chocolate to polish the bottom of the can until it is shiny enough to set a small stick (or something similar) on fire at a certain focal point! See the full instructions here. However, using any other object that focuses light to one point (like a magnifying glass) can also allow you to start a fire. Just make sure you start with smaller, dry sticks that will definitely catch, before you add the larger logs.

Every once in a while, things come up that we just can’t wait to tell the rest of the world. This is also known to some as bragging. Okay, maybe it is bragging, but in my opinion, a little bragging is okay sometimes, right? I’m saying all this because I have something that I’m too excited about to keep to myself: I was selected to take part in the 2010 National Youth Science Camp.

What is the National Youth Science Camp? It is a month-long camp for students in the summer after their senior year to explore various fields of science, learning both from hands-on experiments and exciting lectures made by scientists from around the nation. The delegates also will have a chance to travel to special locations, such as NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and several national museums. The National Youth Science Foundation (NYSF) sponsors this event, which is free to each of the two high school seniors chosen to represent each state nationwide. There also will be two delegates from Germany.

What does all this have to do with the outdoors? NYSC is set in the Monongahela National Forest. The delegates will be staying in Camp Pocahontas, near the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in the eastern mountains of West Virginia. There will be several opportunities to take overnight expeditions into the Monongahela National Forest; the excursions will include backpacking, rock climbing, kayaking, and similar(ly amazing) activities.  NYSF writes, “The area provides an outstanding natural laboratory for teaching and experimentation. Isolation from the usual distractions of cities or college campuses provides a nurturing atmosphere.” I couldn’t have said it better myself. What better way is there to learn science than to be immersed in the outdoors?

As fellow outdoors enthusiasts, I hope you can understand and share my extreme excitement for this upcoming summer. I can’t wait to attend this camp, which offers such an amazing experience, much of it in the outdoors. Expect a post on how this experience actually goes sometime after the end of July! Until then, I will be bursting with excitement.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency states that 90% of the world’s water is contaminated in some way. The water might look clear, but chances are that there are microscopic dangers, lurking unseen. There are three basic methods of water purification: boiling, filtering, and using chemical additives. All have pros and cons.

Boiling is the age-old method, which always has proven effective. Bringing water to a boil kills whatever is living inside of it. However, boiling water takes time. You’ll need a device to boil the water, and it probably will be a hassle. On a hot day, who would want to drink warm water over the cool water from the stream? Boiling is safe, and might be ideal for hot drinks such as coffee or tea, but might not be worth the effort.

Mountain Safety Research has a variety of water purifier options. The MIOX purifier is a pocket-sized, easy-to-use, battery-powered device that quickly kills protozoa, bacteria, and viruses. With a battery life good for approximately 200 liters, it really packs a punch. It was recognized by Popular Science as the 2003 winner in “The Best of What’s New.”

Water filters need to do more than just take out the sediment in water, especially if you want to take care of the culprits that give water an odd odor or taste. Filtration is more expensive than boiling, but is very easy and portable. The filters can be very ergonomic; click here to see an example, and they often remove the taste that chemical purifiers can create.

Chemical purifiers use either chlorine or iodine as the major disinfectant. Chlorine tablets are very compact, but many have short life spans. After collecting the water and adding the tablets, the chemicals should be allowed at least a half hour to work. Tablets often cause a bad taste; the taste can be improved by adding salt or other flavoring such as a lemonade mix. The chemical are more effective in warmer water.

You should choose your purification methods based on your needs, and never choose the risk of not purifying the water you drink.

Sure, a lot of people say that camping is not camping if you are using some sort of electric stove instead of the good ole’ gas or over the fire methods. I personally would object to seeing someone use some sort of a “cooking made easy!” device if they were simply at a campground for their leisure. However, when you are climbing with a purpose, hiking, or doing some other sort of extreme exercise where food is an essential necessity, I think that being able to make dinner in a short amount of time could be very useful.

I recently was researching a company whose founders had the same frustrations as some people have experienced. Dwight Aspinwall and Perry Dowst were sick of dragging around their heavy vacuum bottles and clunky stoves, so they formed a company called Jetboil. At first I thought it would be some sort of an aircraft company, but it turns out that this company makes products that will make outdoor cooking much easier.

One of their newer devices is the Flash. Flash is an all-in-one design, and it is a combined burner and cooking vessel in one compact unit. This product features a 1.0 Liter FluxRing® cooking cup with insulating cozy and color-change heat indicator. Do not worry, the cup clips onto the burner, so you do not have to carry around the burner while you are enjoying your soup, coffee, hot chocolate, or something else. Just think, with the click of a burner, you could be eating gourmet freeze-dried right in the White Mountains.

Another type of product that people use is the group cooking system. This pot has a 1.5 liter system, and it heats evenly throughout the whole material. What this means is that you could cook something like a scrambled egg right on there!

There are a lot of other places that sell outdoors equipment. These are just two of the examples of “cooking gone easy.”

I love my back to nature, just me and the wild, working up a good sweat, outdoors time.  I’ve always seen it as ‘my’ time, alone time – something that I do to get away from it all.  As I adjusted to city life, my pilgrimages to the unspoiled became even more treasured to me.  Then, along came my son.  Then the other.  Like every other facet of my life, parenthood has changed my outdoors routine.

Now, if I want to go for a bike ride, it’s, “Daddy, can I come?”  If I want to get away from it all, part of “it all” comes with me.  Maybe I have overmuch of a soft spot for my sons, but I just can’t say no to such a request.  So, instead of a challenging four mile ride, it’s a slow, level one mile.  Instead of a silent commune with nature, it’s a noisy nature lesson.

Hiking has become walking.  Canoeing has become fodder for “America’s Funniest Videos”.  A healthy enjoyment of outdoor activities is something to be shared and passed down from generation to generation.  To my way of thinking, leaving them out of my routine would undermine the importance and lead them to grow up to be city boys, or worse, couch potatoes.

No, I can’t have that.  So, along they come – spilling my canteen, scaring away the animals, tipping the canoe. I still slip away by myself on rare occasion, but those opportunities don’t present themselves very often.  The funny thing is that despite all my reservations this is even better than my ‘alone’ time ever was.  I don’t miss the solitude one bit.

Sometimes, a good thing is just better when you share it with those you love.

If you are looking for the best trails or locations for outdoor activities, like biking, boating, camping, hiking, fishing, or climbing, NH Outdoors is a very valuable Website.  The aesthetics of the site, I will admit, definitely could use some work. When I first saw the site, I hesitated to follow the links, fearing it might be one of those trap advertisement sites. Nevertheless, I followed the links and was surprised by the great selection of information.

NH Outdoors is organized by the type of activity or location in which you are interested. For example, golfing,  skateboarding, skiing,  and biking are among the many topics listed under the category “Activities.” Follow the link, and you will be brought to a page that shows all of the courses, rinks, mountains, and trails, respectively, divided conveniently by their locations in New Hampshire. You also can find information on locations, like beaches, fairs, or farms.

Directed especially toward tourists, there is a great page that details the location of all of the famous covered bridges in New Hampshire. In addition to that, there are pages for our state parks, lodging, and area attractions. The benefit of the simple site layout is that the information you are looking for is extremely easy to locate. It takes only a couple seconds to scan the home page and find the exact activity or type of destination you are interested in. Immediately, you are immersed in all the information for which you could possibly ask, which, in a sense, is very ergonomic.

If the sponsors of this Website could renovate it, the overall appeal of it would be much greater, but as they say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” NH Outdoors provides a very thorough supply of New Hampshire’s finest options. It is a terrific resource for anyone interested in experiencing the great outdoors that New Hampshire has to offer.

With the downturn in the economy, many families are reconsidering summer vacations.  The typical week at the beach or trip to a resort has become too costly for some.

However, although renting a house or booking a hotel for the week is quite expensive, there are other options for vacation.  Maybe this is the summer to give camping a try.

The best way to organize this vacation, if it is your first time camping, is to borrow someone’s equipment.  There is no need to spend money on a tent and camping stove, in case you don’t enjoy the trip.  However, if you do need to purchase equipment, there are two advantages.  One, these will be items that you can reuse for years to come, which, two, makes them a more economical choice than renting a house.

The prices for camp sites vary from location to location.  However, there are a few things to keep in mind.  You can find very inexpensive sites, but most of these will not have amenities, such as a pool or possibly showers or flush toilets.  If you are willing to spend a little more for your site, you might find a campground that has activities, such as canoe rentals and family-oriented shows at night.  Whether you choose to spend less or more for your camp site, it should be less expensive than a hotel.

Another great cost saver when camping is that you will buy your food at a grocery store and cook it at the camp site.  While this won’t be a pampering vacation where someone else makes your meals and does your dishes, it does allow you to vacation with your family without spending a good amount of money.  Plus, what kid (or adult even) doesn’t enjoy cooking hot dogs over a fire?

If you are looking for a less expensive, yet fun, way to vacation with your family this year, give camping a try.

Bass fishing is a very popular sport across the world today. Bass fishing has grown in popularity during the last decade and is a fun hobby to pursue. Lake fishing is a favorite for people who like to bass fish. You can fish from shore or in a boat, troll or fly fish. There is a wide variety of fish found in lakes all around the world.

Fishing is very simple. It is the act of catching fish. Fishing techniques include netting, hand gathering, trapping and angling. These techniques can used to catch many types of bass fish, such as stripped bass, large and small mouth, and spotted bass.

Bass have very unique hiding places, and you have to know where to look for them. They hide in weeds, lily areas, rocks, sunken logs, and against the shoreline. The best times to catch bass are during daylight hours. Bass are very sensitive to noise, and any kind of noise, such as a beaver’s tail smacking the water, will disturb them.

It is really easy to get started fishing, and the best equipment for bass fishing is simple. All you need is a rod, reel, tackle, trolling equipment, live or artificial bait, and a fishing permit. You can get a permit online, over the phone, or any game office around the state where you want to fish. Live bait includes worms, insects, shad, frogs, minnows, insect larvae, and crayfish. Artificial bate includes spinners, spoons, streamers, warms, jigs, crank bait and clousers. Bass don’t like noise, so it is a good idea to use lures that are quiet, like artificial worms or spinners. You have to keep trying different ones until you catch what you are looking for.

Good luck and happy fishing!

When you read the word “camping,” what comes to mind? The image that first fills my mind is one of a decent sized plot of dirt surrounded by trees. Then little rocks in the dirt, some roots sticking above the land, and some dips. All small obstacles in picking the perfect spot for your tent, but they do give you a true feeling of being in the outdoors. The trees around this plot prevent some of the sunlight from coming in, and there are countless amounts of leaves surrounding these trees from years upon years of fall seasons. I also see a fire pit– perhaps for roasting marshmallows. There may be a trickling brook nearby, there is a wooden pole that dispenses water from a faucet nearby, and the bathrooms are not the most pleasant in the world. Ahh, camping at its finest (at least that is how it is in my world).

So, here we go. I was in Holland with my sisters and my aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle decided to bring us camping. I was so excited!

When we got there, I could not believe my eyes. The campground was a well organized area with cut grass, paved roads, and wide open spaces. There were no forests to be seen! When I asked if this was typical of European campgrounds, my aunt and uncle responded yes. That was a shock to me, this wasn’t real camping. There weren’t even fire pits to cook s’mores in. Actually, my aunt and uncle did not even know what s’mores were, so we went out to the nearby major grocery store and tried to find the materials. This also proved to be a challenge, but we settled for some interesting substitutes.

I did end up having a lot of fun camping in Europe. However, I’m just letting you know that it isn’t the same as it is here in New England.