outdoors

Adventure-worthy gift ideas for the outdoorsy folks in your life

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A tent is in our Gift Guide 2017 roundup of best outdoor gear.
They're probably going to want a tent.
Photo: Chad McDonald/Flickr CC

2017 Gift Guide outdoor gear Gear-shopping for your favorite outdoors-loving friends and family members can be as daunting as trekking up Mount St. Helens as she’s about to blow. There are so many options — and so much crap! Nobody wants to waste money on a gift that’s not going to get used.

To help you out with your holiday shopping, we waded through the endless lists of camping and hiking gear and gadgets that came out in 2017. The goal? To find the perfect stuff your special someone will love.

iPhone 6 Plus captures awesome power of Sierras (and PBR)

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Unapologetically stunning. Screengrab: Uncage the Soul/Vimeo
Unapologetically stunning. Screengrab: Uncage the Soul/Vimeo

Team “Uncage the Soul” spent three days in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, capturing some stunning moving images with their new iPhone 6 Plus.

While videographer Ben Casales found the iPhone 6 Plus to be an amazing bit of video technology, he’s not worried about his day job.

“Is the iPhone 6+ amazing? YES. Would I bring it to a job shooting for a client? No,” he writes on the video page. “It will shoot 240fps, but it degrades and is not what you’d want full size in a polished video. The in-camera stabilizer in the Instagram Hyperlapse app is AMAZING, but it exports final video in 720 not 1080. Timelapse looks great when the conditions are stable, but changing light has the phone struggling to smoothly change exposures following the light.”

Still, check out the amazing footage below and dream of all the things you can do with it when you’re out and about in a hipster ear-flap hat and drinking PBR. Just be prepared for the very twee pop song by Hugo Hans “Wildrunners.”

Get ready to run: The first of Wahoo’s next-gen Bluetooth heart-rate sensors is here

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Wahoo’s first heart-rate sensor was of the pedestrian ANT+ variety, and connected to the iPhone through a 30-pin ANT+ dongle. Around a year later, the Atlanta-based outfit introduced the first heart-rate sensor that connected to a smartphone through Bluetooth; specifically and only to the iPhone 4s, since that was the only phone at the time with Bluetooth 4.0 under the hood.

Wahoo upped the ante again in January at CES, when they revealed a radical departure from traditional heart-rate based fitness tracking: Their new highly sophisticated, three-model TICKR sensor squad, combined with an all-new app that turns conventional fitness-tracking on its head. Now the first of the TICKR trio, the TICKR Run, is hitting the street.

Pelican’s Ruggedized ProGear Vault iPad Air, iPad Mini Cases Come With Nifty Covers

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The Pelican ProGear Vault case for the iPad Air.

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Unlike LifeProof‘s iPad Air case, Pelican’s new ProGear Vault iPad Air case isn’t waterproof. Also unlike LifeProof’s iPad Air case, the ProGear Vault iPad Air case actually exists, now (since LifeProof’s iPad Air case isn’t here yet, we’re obviously assuming it’ll be as fully waterproof as all the other LifeProof cases).

Yonder Is Pinterest For Outdoor Junkies [Daily Freebie]

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Pinning, posting or tweeting one’s way through a wilderness adventure always seemed a little antithetical to me; isn’t one of the reasons for going out into nature to get away from all this artificial electronic junk anyway? Yes, of course, I too am guilty of the odd flirt with Facebook from the bush — but I always feel so dirty afterward.

Yonder, a free app that creates a social circle for outdoor enthusiasts, won’t change how I feel about Tweeting from the trail — but at least it might push me closer to an equilibrium by turning the tables by inspiring me to get out there (boy, are those pictures gorgeous), and putting the outdoors in my social media instead of the other way around.

The PowerPot X Stove Charges Your iPhone or iPad While Heating Your Coffee [Kickstarter]

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There are really only two obvious solutions for backpackers to keep electronics charged out in the boonies.

There’s the more conventional route of using a solar-powered battery, like the Joos Orange, or Solio’s line of chargers. Or there’s the less common alternative of using one of an increasing number of stoves that can charge gadgets while heating dinner or water for coffee.

The upcoming newest member of the latter group, the PowerPot X (that “X” is a 10, btw), can even charge an iPad.

Griffin Announces Survivor Case For iPad Air Will Ship November 1st

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There’s little worse than coming home with a new iPad on the very first day it’s available, only to find your editor has suddenly and immediately re-assigned you to cover raging tropical storms on the Yucatán Peninsula (happens all the time). Or something.

Fear not, adventurer person, Griffin has announced their ruggedized, military-spec’d Survivor case will be available to protect the new iPad Air the same day you can buy it from an Apple Store.

Here’s The World’s First Waterproof, Sharknado-Ready Battery Case, The Mojo Refuel Aqua For The iPhone 5/s

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The iBattz Mojo Refuel Aqua. Ready for a Sharknado.

There’re tons of battery cases out there for the iPhone, and a good selection of waterproof cases. But a battery case that’s waterproof? Just one: the new Mojo Refuel Aqua from iBattz.

The Refuel Aqua isn’t just mildly, get-caught-in-a-little-rain waterproof — it’s go-snorkeling-with-your-iPhone-for-hours waterproof; It’s rated at a mighty IPX8, the highest waterproof rating, and iBattz says it’ll seal out water at a depths of up to three meters.

Outdoor Tech’s Safe5 Is The Cheapest Waterproof iPhone 5 Case We’ve Seen Yet

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The success of the LifeProof cases are really nothing short of a marketing phenomenon — one that’s predictably spawned a parade of imitators. This isn’t a bad thing though, as most of the newcomers are priced more competitively than the $80 and $90 LifeProof pair.

But the latest challenger — Outdoor Tech’s rubberized Safe5 — is just $50, miles below pretty much anyone else.

Griffin Survivor Case Gets Way More Manly With Camo Color Option

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Half the country is perhaps unaware of this, but out in places like Tennessee, where Griffin is based, the camouflage color scheme is a pretty big deal. Obviously there are camo shirts, pants and gun cases. But there’s also a good selection of camo bedding, camo welding helmets and of course, camo lingerie (don’t worry, link is more or less SFW).

So it makes perfect sense that Griffin’s tough-as-nails Survivor case is now available in camouflage.

Meet The Buckshot: A Cheap, Palm-Sized, Bicycle-Friendly Bluetooth Speaker

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You can thank Bluetooth technology for making cycling safer. “How’s that,” you ask, as you wolf down a Lemon Sublime Gu? The answer lies with the growing number of Bluetooth speakers designed to be mounted a bicycle; listening to music from a speaker obviates the dangerous (and often illegal) temptation to wear earphones on the bike.

The latest is Outdoor Tech’s Buckshot, a tiny, ruggedized (to IPX-5) shotgun shell-shaped speaker with a rubber mount for attaching it to a handlebar; it even doubles as a speakerphone. What separates the Buckshot from most other bike-friendly Bluetooth speakers is its diminutive size, and its price — the Buckshot is just $50.

Source: Outdoor Tech

Withings New Fitbit-Like Activity Tracker is Also a Pulse Meter

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At this point, Withings has to be the most complete biometric suite in existence outside of a hospital or Langley. The outfit began with a scale (which also measures body-fat percentage), added a separate blood pressure cuff and then snuck an air-quality sensor and a pulse meter into their scale.

The latest addition is the a wearable activity tracker that adds a feature unique, at this point, to activity trackers: a pulse meter (which explains why they’ve named it the Pulse).

LifeProof Finally Supersizes Its Waterproof frē iPhone Case for the iPad Mini

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If you’ve been waiting patiently for an iPad Mini version of LifeProof‘s rugged, waterproof iPad Nuud case, you’re not going to get one — instead, LifeProof is going to enlarge its Fre%20iPhone%20case%20for%20the%20iPad%20Mini.%20what%20this%20means%20is%20you%20won’t%20have%20the%20Nuud’s%20completely%20bare%20screen,%20and%20instead%20will%20have%20a%20thin%20screen%20cover%20over%20your%20iPad%20Mini’s%20screen.The%20outfit’s%20choice%20to%20go%20with%20a%20screen%20covering%20may%20be%20a%20good%20thing%20or%20a%20bad%20thing,%20depending%20on%20your%20tastes;%20but%20there’s%20no%20argument%20that%20the%20arrival%20of%20LifeProof’s%20thin,%20rugged,%20waterproof%20iPad%20Mini%20case%20is%20a%20great%20thing.

Meet Pocket Ranger, Your Helpful Little State Park Guide [Daily Freebie]

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Looks like this whiteout winter may finally be waning. Time to soak up a little sunshine; so grab your bike, backpack, rod, oars, harness and a Pocket Ranger official State Park Guide app for Android or iOS and get yourself outside. Why a Pocket Ranger app? Because it’s stuffed full of info about anything and everything related to state parks in your area — for free.

Outdoor Research Sensor Gloves Work Like Magic, Mostly [Review]

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I have a complicated relationship with gloves. On the one hand, I love that they keep my fingers from falling off in frigid weather. But then there’s the frustration at their complete lack of cooperation when I’m trying to use the touchscreen on my phone. As a result, I end up either constantly removing and re-donning my gloves in an endless cycle that freezes my delicate fingers anyway — or abandoning my phone altogether in disgust.

The problem is that most touchscreens rely on our fingers to act as conductors, and conventional gloves block that conductivity. But glove-makers have rolled with the times, and there are solutions — gloves that allow conductivity to pass through the glove’s fabric and onto the screen. One of the most buzzed about is Outdoor Research’s Sensor Gloves ($69), which use real leather that doesn’t appear or feel any different than leather used in non-conductive gloves.