WELL now. It has been a while since we have gotten out Mountain Hardwear gear, but we had a lot of gear to look over... so now its time to talk about it.

When we received word that Mountain Hardwear had awarded us their 2011 Expedition Grant, we were super excited. Not only would we be getting over $6,000 worth of gear from them, but we would also be getting $2,000 for equipment needed to film the Pacific Crest Trail. Needless to say, we were very excited. After the multiple days of research, we finally put in the order of what we would need. Not even a week later, we got the four boxes of gear, with word that there were still more things coming. This is our thoughts of the gear so far:



As many of you know, Zach Davis (a.k.a. The Good Badger) will be thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in a few weeks. With the help of our mutual friend Josh at CampingGearTV Zach got in touch with me with questions relating to the trail; how to prepare for it, how to wrap your head around it, and most importantly, how to survive it.

Since we have been going back and forth for a while now, and have had some funny little conversations (Tokyo Drift, Erin Andrews, and things unable to be spoken of) he came up with the idea that we should share our conversations. As Zach puts it on his opener to this point/counterpoint post, he is his mothers child. And his mother likes to worry. A lot. So here I do my best to ease is woes, and rest his worrying mind.

Yesterday I got a wonderful box, one with birds and N's and "welcome to the team" written all over it. A box I know all too well (I have the Moki, Morpho, 2 fillo's (camp pillow), and three different sized Tuo pads). For the PCT trek our friends at NEMO sent us the Losi 3P. It's a bit bigger than our moki, lighter weight, and better for the 3 of us to carry. We had some mildew issues with the Moki because we weren't able to dry it every morning if it got wet because it would just get stuffed in our packs, but with the Losi, it has an external fly which means if it's much easier to shake out and hang from our packs to dry. So we are all pretty pumped about the tent, and when we first got it, it was immediately set up in our living room... heres what we think.

It's going to snow... better bring waterproof pants on my weekend hike! EEEEEHHHHHHH. Not for me at least. I don't like waterproof pants because they are never comfortable, make an annoying 'swooshing' noise when you walk, and make you really hot. Granted legs don't get super hot or super cold all that often, its nice to give them a chance to breathe a little. Thus, I give you the Patagonia Alpine Guide pants. These softshell bad boys are my favorite technical pant out there. This is why: