How many hours have you wasted...I mean....enjoyed researching new gear for your next hunting adventure? For me, that number is difficult to calculate. See, I started mountaineering back in the mid-to-late 2000's and really got into it. I was starting from scratch as no one in my family was really what I would call an avid outdoorsman, at least not to my framed mountaineering definition of the term at that time. I just decided one day I wanted to climb mountains. But not just mountains, mountains in the winter. Winter has a tendency to change a mountains attitude toward letting climbers summit: post-holing through waist deep (or higher) snow, avalanche exposure, severe wind chill, white outs, the list goes on. Mountains seem to open up the "you shall not pass" tool kit and throw situations at climbers which just don't seem to happen during the summer months. It is a tolerable level of adversity when you have the right gear in your pack and on your body to brave these situations. As a result, I demand a certain level of trust in the equipment I carry.
Since my first foray into the winter Colorado backcountry as an East-Coaster, I have tackled a good majority of the Colorado 14er's, summited Mount Ranier (in 100 mph wind gusts), been lowered into crevasses (giant, deep cracks in glaciers) at the base of Denali in Alaska during a crevasse rescue and glacier travel course, and a shitload of other backcountry mountaineering and hunting expeditions in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Virginia, and West Virginia. Hunting and mountaineering have a lot of similarities: It almost always sucks while you're doing it, but for some reason we choose to remember only the good stuff and we keep coming back.
In short, I have gone through a lot of gear to find what works for me. I also do not like spending a ton of money on clothing and equipment I know I am going to abuse and probably destroy anyway, but with some careful research and leaning on other reviews you can often get what you pay for. I find that patience is key to getting good gear at a price I am happy with, and I often look at brands that are outside-the-box or not traditionally associated with hunting to fill my needs. I am also not afraid to rely on the used market or Ebay a lot of the time to pick up good deals on brands I have learned to trust.
In my opinion, prices these days for clothing and gear, particularly in the hunting world, are ridiculous. A high-end jacket or sleeping bag can cost more than some rifles, north of $600-700. For goodness' sake, my friend once bought a car he drove for two years for less than $500 (Go Tim!), and it was in pretty good shape. I am a firm believer that the cost-to-benefit ratio with a lot of gear out there is asymptotic, i.e. as something gets more expensive, the benefit you get from it is incrementally less. But I also really want (and often need) to have complete trust in my gear. I carry some of it to save my life in certain situations, so there are times where you aren't necessarily paying extra for some new whizz-bang gadget or feature, but for reliability or peace of mind. These also carry a lot of value, because I just want my shit to work.
Full disclosure, these gear reviews are my own. I am not sponsored by anyone and purchased all of the gear with my own money. If someone ever decides they want me to review something, and that is a big if, I will make sure I tell you.
I am going to lay out the equipment I use for hunting and why I use it. I will start with an overall, high-level list and then begin to review each item individually. I will bring in new reviews as I replace my gear with new items AND explain why I am replacing it.
I own items I use on-the-regular from just about every major brand (e.g. First Lite, Sitka, Kifaru, Seek Outside, etc.). You will usually pay more for these brands, even on sale. Hunting is a privileged recreational activity, after all, and these vendors can charge a premium. However, I also throw in some equipment from what I consider non-traditional hunting equipment vendors. The clothing and gear in this category is equally effective (and sometimes more so) as their more expensive counterparts.
As a final note, I think I bring an interesting perspective to equipment reviews: I am a mechanical engineer familiar with the science and physics of lightweight fabrics, material strength, fatigue, electronics, optics and a bunch of other gear-related technical aspects. I have also used these things in the field and have a good feel for what works, but more importantly, why it works. You will rarely, if ever, read "this just feels better" in one of my reviews. That doesn't tell you much and is really just my opinion. My goal is to tell you why it is better from both scientific and observed performance data.
Check back regularly as I will update the gear review section of the blog about once per week. I hope my perspectives are useful to you. And please reach out with any questions. I'll do my best to answer them completely and within a reasonable timeframe.
Many blessings.
Craig.
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