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How Data from a Little Wrist Strap Can Change Your Life

The job description for the U.S. Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians includes tasks such as “detonate and demolish hazardous munitions, pyrotechnics, and outdated explosives” and “perform parachute or helicopter insertion operations.” It’s like The Hurt Locker, only sometimes they have to deactivate mines underwater, too. But what if there was a tool EOD technicians could use to help minimize stress and increase technical proficiency, which, in their line of work, could literally mean the difference between life and death? Enter WHOOP, the 24/7 heart rate and performance monitor.

WHOOP is a sleek, wrist-worn device that tracks personalized metrics every day including recovery, strain, and sleep and is used by some of the best athletes in the world. In efforts to help EOD technicians better prepare for and manage their critical jobs, WHOOP sent 40 of its devices to a team as part of a data study. 

Over the course of the six-month study, 20 of the EOD participants got to see their data in real time, while the 20 in the control group did not. The results were staggering: on average, the bomb defusers who were able to adjust their behaviors and routines based on their WHOOP analytics increased their nightly sleep by 45 minutes, dropped their resting heart rates by five beats per minute, and increased their all-important heart rate variability by six milliseconds. Not surprisingly, when it came time to take the Physical Readiness Test, the technicians who had a handle on their baselines performed 17 percent better. In other words, WHOOP helped the EOD technicians train and conduct themselves at a higher level.

Participants in the EOD study found that they got more sleep, lowered their resting heart rate, and increased their heart rate variability when using WHOOP.
Participants in the EOD study found that they got more sleep, lowered their resting heart rate, and increased their heart rate variability when using WHOOP.


But here’s the thing: you don’t have to defuse bombs for a living to reap the benefits of knowing your baselines. WHOOP helps elite athletes train and perform more strategically; keeps emergency health workers fresh; allows pregnant women to gauge their progress throughout gestation; and has even been credited with saving a life (a 33-year-old WHOOP user’s suddenly erratic data convinced him to go to the hospital, where his doctors identified his heart attack). More recently, pro golfer Nick Watney actually deduced that he might be COVID positive because his WHOOP band detected a change in his respiratory rate. A test confirmed his suspicions and Watney was able to quickly protect those around him. 

The spike in Nick Watney's respiratory rate that led to him getting tested for COVID-19.
The spike in Nick Watney’s respiratory rate that led to him getting tested for COVID-19.

The reason WHOOP has helped such a diverse cross section of people unlock their potential is simple: everyone has the ability to improve performance and quality of life; WHOOP just provides you with the data and the tools to uncover the secrets your body is trying to tell you.  This is true whether you’re a masters-class athlete with a day job and a family or a frontline health care worker trying to perform your best. To excel, we need to balance our physical and mental stressors with the right amount of sleep, rest, and recovery.

Past attempts to achieve such balance haven’t really cut it. While athletics and the military have long known the importance of recovery for performance, even in those fields it’s largely been a guessing game as to when we need to rest and when we can charge. Outside of a lab, the data just wasn’t available. As for day-to-day life, we just dealt with the fallout of not knowing if we were out of balance. 

That’s the idea behind WHOOP. Much more than a fitness tracker, WHOOP is a subscription service that gives you access not only to raw data but to complex and personalized analysis that, in essence, lets you take better care of yourself between workouts and life’s stressors. 

The WHOOP recovery algorithm does all this by tracking four key baseline metrics—resting heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, and respiratory rate—that are constantly fluctuating in response to factors like stress, alcohol, caffeine, exercise, and diet. And because it records all that data 24/7, it provides you a full physiological profile of each day, allowing you to assess your body’s needs and suggesting potential behavioral changes.

Brooke Wells uses her sleep data to help determine how hard to push herself in training the next day.
Brooke Wells uses her sleep data to help determine how hard to push herself in training the next day.

It’s complicated stuff, but the genius behind WHOOP’s strap-and-app combo is that it strips away all the noise and makes it incredibly easy to monitor—and then assess and react to—your baseline metrics. The band itself is low-profile, comfortable, and intentionally simple, with no watch face to distract you with notifications. It doesn’t count steps, which are irrelevant to your physiological performance and overall health, or track distances (though the WHOOP app can do that).

Here’s the easiest way to think about it: your WHOOP essentially acts as an accountability coach (in fact, the app includes both a sleep coach and a strain coach feature), showing you where your strengths lie and where you can improve—like tweaking how much sleep you get or skipping a workout at a certain juncture. The data becomes even more interesting—and instructive—over time. Because your baseline is constantly evolving, when worn over a period of months, your WHOOP can provide a snapshot of your overall health, so you can see how things like alcohol affect your sleep quality or how a series of tough workouts has left you depleted.

The Strain and Sleep coaches make recommendations for what your daily goals should be, and how to adjust to meet those goals.
The Strain and Sleep coaches make recommendations for what your daily goals should be, and how to adjust to meet those goals.


While nearly everyone would benefit from having a wrist-mounted accountability coach, athletes of all stripes, from new runners to elite cyclists, have the most to gain from paying close attention to their baseline metrics. The reason for this, too, is simple: instead of downloading, say, a 5K training plan from the internet and then following the weekly schedule as best you can based on how you “feel,” or blindly doing what your coach tells you to do on a particular day, wearing a WHOOP allows you to train smarter by reacting to your actual physiological state in real time. 

The key metric here is the aforementioned heart rate variability, or HRV, and WHOOP’s ability to calculate it sets it apart from other wearable fitness trackers. Research has shown that HRV is one of the best objective measures of fitness and can be used as an indication of physiological readiness, including your recovery status, ability to tolerate physical stress, and your risk of injury, fatigue, and overtraining. 

HRV is a complicated field of study, and training, lifestyle, and biological factors can all affect it. But it can best be thought of as an overall indicator of the heart’s and nervous system’s ability to readily toggle between action and rest. HRV is the variance in time between successive beats; your WHOOP captures it during the last episode of your slow-wave sleep each night. The higher your HRV, the more variation your heart rate is comfortably capable of, which is a natural indication of your body’s readiness to perform. And by monitoring the variability of the rhythm, WHOOP can actually tell you when you should go for that PR—or grab some couch time instead.

On the day she won the 2018 mountain bike world championships, Kate Courtney had her highest HRV ever and a WHOOP recovery of 96%.
On the day she won the 2018 mountain bike world championships, Kate Courtney had her highest HRV ever and a WHOOP recovery of 96%.

Your standard heart-rate monitor or fitness tracker doesn’t calculate HRV, but the WHOOP strap does. The added insight this metric provides is why everyone from the Navy to EF Pro Cycling, which took fourth place at the Tour de France last year, is partnering with WHOOP and why its diverse list of athletes includes NFL players (Patrick Mahomes), surfers (John John Florence), and mountain bikers (Kate Courtney). It’s also why, earlier this fall, we (Outside) collaborated with WHOOP on Project PR, a first-of-its-kind running experiment and 5K training program designed to uncover ways to optimize training based on actionable recovery data provided by WHOOP.

We signed up thousands of participants in two groups—one wearing WHOOPs for the duration of the eight-week 5K training program, and one control group without WHOOPs—with the goal of revealing how everything they do, from how much sleep they get to what they’re eating and drinking, can affect running performance. (We’ll have results to share later this year.) As Kristen Holmes, WHOOP’s VP of performance science and a former collegiate athlete and coach, likes to remind people, “Your competitive advantage is in your downtime, and if you’re not measuring the impact of your downtime, you’re simply missing a massive piece of the performance puzzle.” Or you can think about it this way: your body has all sorts of ways of telling you how it’s performing. A WHOOP gives you a more holistic, accurate, and granular way of understanding how it’s performing.

Join WHOOP and get the WHOOP Strap 3.0 free with membership.

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WHOOP uniquely blends hardware, software, and industry-leading accurate measurements to help people sharpen the edges of fitness and performance, create impactful behavior change, and empower them to optimize all facets of life. The WHOOP membership includes a free WHOOP Strap 3.0 for 24/7 actionable insights and health coaching.

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

Lessons Learned from Bikepacking with My Husband

Our family loves to indulge in outdoor pursuits. And while we value getting outside together, we also value getting outside independently and as adventure partners (myself and my husband). Unfortunately, with busy work schedules, lack of overnight childcare and competing priorities, we struggled on the adventure partner front. Cloak the world in an on-going pandemic and partner escape discussions all but ceased – until last month, thanks to the Swift Campout.

Going six years strong, this annual event is a “global call to go bike-camping” and this year, we decided to participate and celebrate the arrival of the autumnal equinox by loading up our bikes and riding some gravel together. 

After having a couple kids and nearing my mid-30s, I have come to accept that my memory just isn’t quite what it used to be. In fact, while writing this story, I struggled to recall the last overnight trip my husband and I took together. After a little brain job from him, it turns out, we spent a long weekend in Steamboat Springs together…in 2016…and I was 8 months pregnant with our first child.

I had no idea it would take over four years to have another solo getaway – if only for 24 hours. 

Riding my bike alongside my husband at my own speed (sort of) without children to maintain awareness of, encourage, feed, etc., was a lot of things, many of which are likely for future conversations. For now, here are just a few things I learned from our sub-24 hour bikepacking trip.

Prioritize extended time together 

I know from experience that this is far easier said than done. But, once it happens, keep the momentum by picking future dates and confirming coverage for your kid(s). Put it on the calendar and commit to it! Just like a work trip or meeting you can’t miss, these overnight trips are priorities that should not be canceled until necessary. 

Choose your own adventure

Whether it’s an overnight bikepacking trip from your front door to the state or national forest or an international weekend escape, choose the destination and activity that stokes both of your fires. Outdoor pursuits with kiddos are not always the full-throttle, Type 2 fun you can have with your partner. My kids can’t pedal 25 miles with 6,000+ feet of elevation gain yet. But we can. And we can drink some wine when we get to camp, too!   

Indulge in the silence

As alluded to, when we set camp, I poured each of us a cup of wine and stared off into the landscape as the sun set behind us. We were tired, we were happy and we were together. There was no small talk or deep conversation, just two happy people processing a day on their bikes together. Most days, if not all, my husband and I have the end-of-day download. We’re done chasing kids around and the time comes to get on the same page and talk bills to be paid, potty training, leaking faucets, etc.. When you get the chance, indulge in the need to not have to talk and you might just hear more than you expected.  

Sleepless nights happen with and without kids

If you’re a parent and get adequate sleep, I want to know your secret. If you’ve ever traveled to and camped in an area with clear night skies and lively nocturnal insects and were able to get adequate sleep, I also want to know your secret! Our trip took place on the East cost among early fall foliage colors, relentless cicadas and the brightest moon I have ever experienced. As I packed for this trip and while pedaling along, I occasionally thought to myself how nice it will be to actually get some rest and not get kicked by a toddler in the middle of the night. Instead: cicadas. Paired with a blazing bright quarter moon, sound sleep was not achieved. At least we didn’t get kicked in the ribs all night?

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

COMPETITION | Win A Vango Radiate Sleeping Bag Worth £85 From Outdoor World Direct

We’ve teamed up with our friends over at Outdoor World Direct to bring you the chance to win a Vango Radiate single sleeping bag worth £85.00!

Win A Vango Radiate Sleeping Bag Worth £85 From Outdoor World Direct

If you saw our recent review of the Vango Radiate sleeping bag, you’ll know that this heated sleeping bag is a must-have bit of camping gear for camping in Autumn!

The Prize

1 lucky winner will receive a Vango Radiate single sleeping bag worth £85.

How to enter

There are 2 ways to enter;

1. Enter here on the blog

All you need to do to enter is leave a comment below here on the blog telling us about your Autumn camping plans!

2. Enter on Instagram

Alternatively, you can enter over on Instagram by leaving a comment on the competition post and tagging a camping-mad friend.

View this post on Instagram

Yipeeee! It’s #competition time! We’ve teamed up with our friends over at @outdoorworlddirect to bring you the chance to win a Vango Radiate single sleeping bag worth £85.00! HOW TO ENTER leave a comment below, here on Insta or over on the blog, telling us about your Autumn camping plans, and simply tag a camping-mad friend! Head on over to the blog for full terms and conditions! Link in bio 🔗👆🏽 #competitions #win #prize #contest #giveaway #vango #camping #sleepingbag

A post shared by Camping with Style (@campingwithstyle) on Sep 27, 2020 at 10:47am PDT

A winner will be randomly selected after the closing date.

Good luck!

Terms & Conditions

  • Open to UK residents only
  • Camping with Style reserve the right to withdraw or amend this competition at any time
  • Winner will be randomly selected after the closing date
  • Competition ends 6pm GMT Weds 7th October 2020
  • The prize is kindly supplied by Outdoor World Direct
  • The winner’s details will be shared with Outdoor World Direct and they will send the prize out straight to the winner
  • No cash alternative offered

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

Get More from Your Binoculars with This $100 Stick

I recently cut weight from my pack and improved my ability to spot animals—both to a single carbon-fiber stick. That’s because the Kestrel Glassing Systems Monopod ($ 100) can, in some circumstances, replace a heavy tripod while offering a stabilized platform for your binoculars that’s also much faster to set up. 

From birds to ungulates to predators, most animals evolved to blend into their habitats. That means the easiest way to spot them is to look for movement, not colors, shapes, or patterns. But pick up a pair of binoculars and one of the first things you’ll notice is that your hands move, too. Often a lot. And that movement prevents you from effectively spotting other movements. So to better employ magnified optics, you need to stabilize them. 

Adding stabilization has traditionally involved mounting a pair of binoculars to a tripod. The lightest one in my arsenal—an Outdoorsmans Compact tripod with the brand’s Pan head—weighs 2.7 pounds and costs $ 900. As you’d expect for that price, it provides exceptional stabilization. But it also adds literal pounds of weight to my pack and takes about a minute to unstrap, unfold, and fully assemble. 

In contrast, the Kestrel Monopod weighs a mere six ounces, and you can whip it out, attach your binoculars, and be glassing critters less than five seconds later. The advantages offered by its minimal weight and speed are compound: not only does it enable me to travel farther into the backcountry, but it also means I can carry image stabilization along more often, with less preparation, using a smaller pack. I can then deploy stabilized optics in a more fluid fashion that involves far fewer steps, making it less likely I’ll disturb the animals I’m looking at. Its stabilization also helps me get more out of my binoculars. With such a clear view so easily had, I find myself needing my spotting scopes (which provide considerably more magnification) less and less, meaning I can shed even more weight. 

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The Monopod is more than just a 44-inch-tall stick. An internal shock cord allows it to fold in half like a tent pole and also supports a polymer fin that pivots around the monopod and slides up and down its upper half. To connect your binoculars, install a metal quick disconnect (QD) pin to the standard quarter-inch socket found in the front of the frame pivot on most optics. That pin then clips in and out of a socket on the fin, facilitating a fast, secure connection. Because the fin and the binoculars clipped to it stretch the shock cord as they hang, this arrangement supports the weight of the optics while still allowing total freedom of movement. Stabilization is provided not just from the rigidity of the carbon support pole but also by its ability to dampen vibrations induced by your grip. The Monopod is designed to be used while seated. 

The QD pin (pictured here in bare metal) simply threads into the standard quarter-inch socket that’s found on most binoculars.
The QD pin (pictured here in bare metal) simply threads into the standard quarter-inch socket that’s found on most binoculars. (Photo: Wes Siler)

Despite those advantages, Kestrel’s Monopod cannot provide stability equivalent to a quality tripod—without a tripod’s ability to stand freely on three contact points on the ground, it never could. What the Monopod does provide is an unexpected amount of stabilization from a device that’s vastly easier to carry and can be employed instantaneously. And that’s added up to a device I now carry far more often, enabling me to better observe wildlife more frequently. 

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Kestrel Glassing Systems is the brainchild of industrial designer Jon Lucas, who came up with the idea while packing for a backcountry elk hunt a few years ago. Evaluating his system, and trying to remove as much stuff from it as possible to save weight (the same approach ultralight backpackers take), he tells me that he found himself holding his heavy tripod and wishing he could leave it behind, but concluding that there just wasn’t a good way to do so.

Folded in half, the Monopod can simply be tossed into a pack’s water-bottle pocket or easily strapped to its exterior.
Folded in half, the Monopod can simply be tossed into a pack’s water-bottle pocket or easily strapped to its exterior. (Photo: Wes Siler)

Lucas has conducted durability testing that has proven the Monopod’s ability to accept a pair of binoculars thousands of times. His computer simulations suggest it can do the same tens of thousands of times more. The Monopod is assembled in Idaho, from American-sourced parts. Despite the light weight and reasonable price, nothing on it feels lacking. 

Armed with a Kestrel Monopod, will I be able to totally abandon a tripod this fall? No, because I’ll also want to view animals while standing or lock in a view on a freestanding tripod and step away so a friend can see it, too. But anytime I’m throwing on a backpack, justifying the additional weight will be a lot harder. 

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

Fish Odyssey spans from 9/11 to pandemic

For 44 years, Niagara County has been coordinating a fishing derby in Western New York – the last 20 as the Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey. When the Odyssey was first created in 2001, transformed from the County’s Fall Classic Derby, it ended up occurring during one of the saddest times in our nation’s history – Sept. 11, 2001.

The derby began four days prior to that fateful day. Everyone was excited when it began, tabbed as one of the largest derbies ever. After 9-11 hit, no one had their mind on fishing. Airports were closed, as was the lower Niagara River from any kind of fishing or boat traffic. Life was changed as we knew it. As things began to settle down, the Fish Odyssey became a distraction of sorts as anglers began to escape on their boats and along the shores of area waters. However, impacts were evident as the derby fell short of expectations. Too bad.

Fast-forward 20 years and once again we are in the middle of another life-changing event as COVID-19 continues to impact our day-to-day lives. Many derbies and tournaments were not held this year due to the virus. However, the basic makeup of the Odyssey was able to take families on a variety of angling journeys as seveb different species comprised both the Adult and Junior divisions around Erie, Niagara, and Orleans counties. Social distancing was easy when fishing was involved. It brought families together, taking their minds off a global pandemic, if just for a few hours.

One of the themes this year was the fact that some of the winners were caught while targeting other fish species. For example, the winning walleye was caught by a salmon troller working the waters off 4 Mile Creek in Lake Ontario. It is not the first time that it happened, and it probably will not be the last. The important thing is that you must be in it to win it. John Pinkham, of Olcott, was the lucky angler and it was an 11-pound, 2-ounce walleye. It put him into the drawing for the Grand Prize.

In the Fish Odyssey, all the first-place winners are put into a bucket and the Grand Prize involves a little monkey business, quite literally. Emily the Capuchin monkey, courtesy The Primate Sanctuary, picks a bobber from the bucket that earns the $ 3,000 check. If you think about it, a 6-pound smallmouth is just as impressive as a 28-pound salmon or a 28-pound carp. It gives everyone a chance at the prize.

The same thing occurs in the free Junior Division for kids 15 years of age and under. That same theme of catching a winning species while fishing for something else happened to 6-year-old Logan Wilson, of Lewiston. While fishing for bass in the lower Niagara River, he hooked into an 8-pound, 3-ounce walleye on his drop shot rig – his first walleye ever. To add to the young angler’s excitement, he had to rush to the scales because there was less than an hour to the end of the derby. Then, at the awards ceremony in Olcott, young Logan was selected to receive the Grand Prize – a nice package of merchandise, a plaque, and some gift certificates. It was a fun storyline and a fitting end to this year’s Odyssey.

Sometimes there is a silver lining in those storm clouds. Keep an open mind. It helps to spend as much time outdoors as possible, maintain a positive attitude and let Mother Nature work her magic.

Categories: Blog Content, New York – Bill Hilts Jr
Tags: Fishing, Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

Quarantine Hack AK Style: Order Fresh Frozen Salmon to Your Doorstep — Just Don’t Forget Where it Comes From

What does sustainably sourced seafood and fresh frozen salmon really look like? And how do I get it, especially during a global pandemic?

Sitka Salmon Shares and the New Economy

For thousands of years, the salmon fisheries of the Northwest Coast have symbolized abundance, prosperity, and renewal, among many other representations, as a pillar of a deep connection to nature for humans living in the region. The history of reliance on fisheries of the Alaskan coasts and inlets, once and still a remote and often inhospitable region, is something you have to experience to appreciate. The passion for wild caught salmon in Alaska is as pervasive as knee-high XtraTufs, and despite all of the advances in processing over the years (from salting to canning to freezing), and at times over-fishing and myriad other environmental concerns (ahem, Exxon Valdez), Alaska’s fisheries remain healthy and intact, and most believe the State of Alaska does a good job at managing a coveted global resource. 

Dock hands and fishermen pitch in together to get catches unloaded quickly and safely, while carefully tracking every aspect of each catch.

One of the most biologically diverse regions on the planet, Alaska not only supplies most of the world’s wild-caught salmon, but it’s a place local people can actually still subsist on foraged and hunted food sources. This was the most striking and appealing thing that stood out to me as I learned more about the region, cooked with some local (and national) chefs, and got to know some Alaskans, who were not nearly as gruff as I might have expected. Even having grown up in an agrarian environment in Appalachia, the access to splendidly healthy and plentiful foraged food in Alaska is unrivaled. 

Nestled on the protected west side of Baranof Island, part of the Alaska Panhandle, lies a particular fishing town with a population of about 8,000 (in 2010) called Sitka. In many ways representative of the beauty and opportunity of the complex coastline of southeast Alaska and the 300-mile long Alexander Archipelago, Sitka was the location of the transfer ceremony for the Alaska purchase (when Russia sold the U.S. the region) on October 18, 1867, and remained the U.S. government capital through 1906. 

There are five species of salmon fished from the Alaskan waters, each with its distinct yet dynamic coloration and flavors.

Now, as a lifelong outdoors person, having never been to Alaska was a gaping hole in my adventure resume. So when I had the opportunity to be introduced to the culture and the region through some friends at Sitka Salmon Shares, a small fishing company that has been redefining small-batch Alaskan salmon fishing and exporting in a modern way, I jumped at the opportunity. For those of you and my many friends who have been fishing and climbing and paddling and skiing for years in Alaska, I remain humbly impressed and jealous.

For an immersive, up-to-date, history of Alaska (including some of the honest talk about the history of expansionism, racism, and greed), I highly recommend a visit to the state museum in Juneau while visiting the area. This facility has one of the largest permanent exhibits on climate change in the world. It’s actually more of a virtual planetarium, with dynamic digital maps of every scenario stretching across decades and centuries laid over a room-sized globe. I found warming oceans to be a common thread of conversation in Alaska, sometimes while literally standing in front of a rapidly shrinking glacier. Juneau is not unlike other fishing towns and villages in the area, with its own unique features and history of course: not only the state capital, but interestingly as a major cruise ship port and the largest town in North America that you can’t drive to from another town, you have to fly or boat in. 

A little human powered recreation and boat tending between gorging myself on fish and foraged foods.

Along with modern media figures such as the Salmon Sisters, Sitka Salmon Shares has helped reshape a picture of commercial Alaskan fishing, tapping into a nationwide food- and farm-to-table movement over the last decade, and an increasingly caring, sharing global economy where people value quality and story over price, and almost anything is possible with dry ice and FedEx. Self-styled foodie, chef, and vice president of Sitka Salmon Shares, Marsh Skeele grew up in Sitka, fishing with his dad and his family since he could walk. “I’ve always commercial fished,” he says. “I left for a while, went to school, came back in 2009, bought my own boat in 2010, and that’s when I met my business partner Nic Mink, who was finishing his PhD in sustainable foods.” 

When Mink got his first job teaching at Knox College in Illinois, Skeele sent fish down to him for an environmental non-profit dinner, and making that connection between the fisherman to the people in a direct line was a classic lightbulb moment. 

That connection is what struck me as well, as we started out by boat into the misty, ancient waters in that strange archipelago, with islands popping up around every corner, incredible wildlife on land, sea and sky presenting displays of life for your entertainment. We pulled up alongside Marsh’s dad’s boat where he and his sister, back in town from Hawaii, were pulling in salmon from a hook-and-line rig on a 36-foot gillnetter/longliner boat. Even watching another boat unload its catch at the dock earlier that day, just a captain and his helper, a cousin, knowing that each one of these fish actually has to be caught and pulled from these waters by hand, you remember this gleaming pink life force doesn’t just magically show up on your plate at a restaurant in Kansas or in Las Vegas, and much of the salmon even at a Whole Foods for example can have questionable labeling and handling. At some point someone has to get blood on their hands. At least you hope they do, if you want to know where your fish comes from. 

Foraging for berries with Juneau chef Lionel Uddipa.

“We rely on healthy marine and freshwater habitats, our salmon need healthy wild rivers,” says Skeele, “We live here and play in them and harvest subsistence food from them, but it also produces all of the fish for our business.” Skeele says the ecosystems where he grew up are amazingly robust and productive, allowing fishermen to take up to 10 or 20 percent of the fish every year and not hurt the overall stock. Watching the swarms of salmon throughout the inlet as we explored by boat and by foot, it’s difficult to imagine what the salmon runs must have looked like before commercial fishing. 

After that first successful environmental dinner, and with the help of some of Nic’s graduate students, the direct-to-consumer concept for Sitka Salmon was born, and Skeele, who already had family in the Midwest, went down to help grow a business that, while it has many small competitors now, was a pretty unique model in the beginning. “I got to meet the people who bought my fish, and it was super exciting because I was connecting the fish to the people eating it. I was getting a better price for my fish and making this connection, seeing people get really excited on the customer end. It became clear that this was what I believe in, and I’ve been running it ever since,” Skeele continues. “I was the first fisherman owner, and that’s what makes us different: fisherman ownership, and owning our own processor, for us to have total control. Fish is super perishable. Every part of the handling process really matters.”

With a focus on traceability and paying their fishermen a higher dock price, Skeele’s fanaticism for quality is immediately apparent. They always know who caught it, how it was caught, and how that fishery is managed, because to get really good fish, he says, you have to be really involved.

When it comes to the company’s now 22 owner-fishermen, Skeele says this concept has only elevated what they do. “We’re paying a premium for them to handle the fish better, to go on shorter trips, and to make sure they’re well chilled. For our guys it’s not all about catching more in volume, and we work with people that understand taking the time to take care of their catch.” Skeele says it becomes a less transactional, more long- term relationship. “As we were growing it was difficult and expensive to build the infrastructure, going through bumps in the economy, it’s harder to have these long term relationships. But now we’re in a strong place.”

In 2015 they took on a lot more fishermen-investors and were paying more than double the going dock price. They also began publishing their minimum annual prices, something a lot of processors don’t do. They believe this is the best way to make it as a small scale fisherman, and Sitka Salmon essentially upends the global commodity market in this way — which becomes even more significant during a pandemic when there’s no fish moving through restaurants. It creates a stable marketplace. 

Also, fishing for crabs, off the shore of Juneau.

They’ve also put a focus on storytelling and building community, even before those were marketing buzzwords, providing vetted recipes and cooking tips, and connecting with the fishermen, chefs and others to help get the story out in an authentic way. And this is enabling consumers with a ton of information that had previously been missing from the marketplace. I learned more about the five species of salmon, fish handling and cooking in a week in Alaska than I had my whole life.

“We only want to source fish that we feel good about in how it’s harvested. The state of Alaska does a great job, but we don’t want to harvest fisheries that we don’t feel good about,” skeele continues.

“We don’t use the word ‘sustainable’ as much any more because it’s been so co-opted, but, as responsible as possible. Stocks are abundant enough to handle fishing pressure, but we won’t harvest something that’s barely eking by. So we can substitute another species, but it’s not just like you buy a bunch of fish and store it and send it out when people order it. It’s more like a CSA,” he says. “We’re shipping what we catch as quickly as possible. If there’s a bad weather stretch or a run of fish has a bad season in an area we are counting on, we can work with the rest of the fishermen and with the State and see what’s a good replacement. That’s a big part of my job, is keeping people happy with it. We’re finding a seasonal balance and we ship it efficiently so that it’s low carbon.”

Skeele says customers (members) are extremely understanding about any fluctuation in species, and in fact, from my personal experience, it’s actually a good thing. It allows you to explore other types of fish and seafood you may have never cooked before. When you sign up for Sitka Salmon Shares, you’re signing up for little boats to go out and catch your fish, so don’t be surprised if a certain run of Sockeye out of Copper River isn’t doing well, you may end up with a Coho or a different run of Sockeye from Haynes, a Chilcoot sockeye, or a Sitka Coho salmon.

A fresh halibut is pulled from ice inside the Sitka Salmon Shares micro processing plant.

“Our fishermen know their future is in having an artisanal product, not a global commodity, that overall doesn’t really work that well for them,” Skeele says, “They’re trying their best to catch a lot of fish, and everything else goes up, but the value of the fish stays stagnant. A steady price makes their operations viable; they see that and they’re excited about it.”

Grabbing a nice fat medium sized sockeye off of Skeele’s dad’s boat, we head to a secluded inlet nearby with an old Forest Service cabin overlooking the shore. Some of our group heads off to forage for mushrooms, salmon berries, wild blueberries, and beach asparagus or sea beans, others tend to the fire, prep veggies, while some of us looked on in awe as sharp knives were drawn to prepare the fish. Watching Skeele and Chef Justin Chapple prepare the fish felt like I was back in Japan, seeing someone so focused on perfection, on providing something amazing for us to eat, having just pulled it from the waters of his home, cemented in me an appreciation for this food source and this lifestyle that I’ll always remember and continue to seek out.

–Elevation Outdoors contributing editor Aaron H. Bible is based out of Nederland, the Alaska of Colorado. Follow his adventures on Instagram @definitelywild.

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

WALKING GEAR | We Fall For The Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots From Project X Adventures

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots Review

What are they?

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots RRP: £130.00

Stockists

  • Project X Adventures

Features

  • Upper: Finest 2.5mm Italian Full Grain Waterproof Leather.
  • Membrane: tri.aria Membrane System.
  • Lining: Hydrophobic Interface One.
  • Last: Comfort.
  • Insole: Anatom Bioform Ultralite Footbed
  • Midsole: Calibrated Bylon.
  • Outsole: Vibram Grivola.
  • Weight: 775g (size 42half pair).
Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots

Anatom Footwear was developed in Scotland and handcrafted in Europe – and thoroughly tested out on boggy fells, rocky ridges and winter peaks.

The Anatom Q2 is constructed with Italian leather and features a waterproof membrane and Vibram Grivola soles, Ideal for wherever your adventure may take you, these boots are designed to provide both support and protection to your feet keeping you comfortable, stable and dry in a variety of terrains.

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots

Our verdict

After a decent number of walks wearing my Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots, I thought it was a good time to write my inaugural Camping with Style review.

I’ve recently rediscovered the joys of walking outdoors, and after hill walks up in Scotland and in Wales, I’d been on the lookout for a decent pair of boots for my outdoor adventures and the Anatom Q2 seemed like the ideal choice.

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots

Styling

Perhaps the logical place to start is with a comment on how the boots look, and I was immediately drawn to their classic styling and dark brown leather uppers.

Boots like this have a timeless look and can be slung on with pretty much anything.

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots

Performance

Of course, looking good doesn’t mean anything when it comes to performance, and with hiking boots, practicality and comfort are key. I found the boots a comfortable fit, supporting my feet in all the right places. I have high arches which can often cause problems with footwear but I found no such problems wearing these boots.

Lacing the boots

The lacing system is quick and easy, there’s no struggle to pull your boots on, I just slipped my feet straight in and found it intuitive to hook and cross the laces to secure the boots in place.

Countryside walks are one thing, but the boots really came into their own on a Peak District hill walk. On a recent post-lockdown walk, ascending a decent-sized hill, I noticed and appreciated more than ever, the ankle support which left me feeling stable and confident even on the way back down.

Comfort

The boots are very well cushioned too and whilst feeling secure around my ankle, thanks to the padding, they don’t cause any discomfort or irritating rubbing with movement.

The footbed also felt very cushioned. I am a rather tall chap with a bouncing stride, so usually feel a thud in my heels when walking. These boots however excelled in this area and every stride felt cushioned, leaving feeling confident in my footing.

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots
The boots handle mud extremely well and are easy to clean

Being the adventurous type I had to give these boots a full test, which gave me the perfect excuse to seek out extra tress and boulders to clamber all of which left me feeling super confident and stable thanks to the grip provided by the Vibram Grivola outsole.

Stomping through puddles and crossing streams wasn’t an issue either as these boots have a specially designed waterproof and breathable membrane to keep moisture out whilst also letting your feet breath, together with the uppers which are made from 2.4mm Italian Full Grain Waterproof Leather so the boots do a great job of keeping your feet dry.

Another benefit of these boots is how surprisingly light they are, and I got very little foot fatigue even after a long hike; they felt as comfortable heading back as they did on the way out.

Final say

Our Rating

Quality 5/5 Looks 4.5/5 Practicality 5/5 Value 4.5/5 Overall Rating 4.5 out of 5 stars (4.5 / 5)

As these are the first new walking boots I’ve had in a long while, I’ve been eager to wear them out at every possible opportunity. From local woodland walks to more challenging hill walks in the Peak District, I’m happy to say that they impressed me on all fronts.

Anatom Q2 Classic Hiking Boots

I really love the classic look of these boots and combined with the waterproof leather upper and highly capable soles, I found them surprisingly lightweight and comfortable to wear for long day hikes. The Anatom Q2 Classic is a walking boot you can’t go wrong with, and they certainly put a spring in my step in more ways than one!

DISCLOSURE | Thank you to Project X Adventures for supplying the featured product for us to test. We were not paid to write this review.

Where to next?

  • My Teva Ember Mid Boots Are Perfect For Camping & More So I’m Never Taking Them Off
  • First Look At The New BioLite HeadLamp 200
  • Dryrobe An Essential Bit Of Gear For Outdoor Sports Enthusiasts

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

Pass It On-Outdoor Mentors receives grant from Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund


Screen Shot 2020 05 11 At 6.34.50 Pm Copy

Wichita, Kan. — Outdoor Mentors announced that the Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund will be making a donation to be used by Pass It On-Outdoor Mentors to further their Shooting Sports Outreach Program. Launched in Kansas in 2019, the Shooting Sports Outreach Program engages student‐athletes involved in the shooting sports with hunting and fishing opportunities.

Between the Scholastic Clay Target Program and the National High School Clay Target League, there are more than 40,000 high school student‐athletes participating in trap shooting nationwide. The Shooting Sports Outreach Program aims to provide hunting and fishing opportunities to as many of these youth as possible.

Outdoor Mentors partners with local chapters of NGO’s, the state fish and wildlife agency and private landowners to provide access and volunteers and mentors who assist with the events.

Categories: Industry News
Tags: Bass Pro Shops, Cabela’s

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

GEAR | Spotlight on CimAlp Hiking Clothing – Fast UK Delivery Straight From The Alps

You might have spotted some of our past product reviews of CimAlp hiking gear which we rate very highly, but if you’ve never heard of the brand before, we thought we’d give you a bit of background information now that their UK website is fully up and running. Read on to find out more.

CimAlp outdoor gear

CimAlp is a French brand, created in 1964 by a passionate mountaineer and visionary, deeply committed to manufacturing technical products, accessible to the largest possible number of mountain enthusiasts.

50 years later, still established at the foot of the Alps between Vercors and Monts d’Ardèche, CimAlp now develops clothing and equipment for all-mountain activities: skiing, hiking, trekking, and above all Trail Running,
its No. 1 market.

Having switched to an online business model for almost 10 years, CimAlp’s ability to propose highly technical products at outstanding prices is now widely known. Some of those products being now essentials for the most demanding athletes, like the STORM 2 jacket, or the 864s, the first Trail Running shoes with progressive drop.

  • CimAlp Mens Hogga Walking Trousers Review
  • Cimalp winter thermal touchscreen gloves
  • CimAlp Mens Hogga Walking Trousers Pocket Detailing

Go Outdoors

Outstanding technical performance

Always aiming at offering improved comfort and thermal protection, CimAlp is also engaged in the development of fabrics and high-tech fibres.

A winning bet, as shown by the success of the patented Cyclone®
technology that allows up to 10 times faster moisture transfer (French Outdoor Award in the TRAIL category in Friedrichshafen) or the ULTRASHELL® membrane, 8 times more breathable than a regular hard-shell membrane and at the same time 20’000 Schmerber water-resistant.

Environmental commitment

In addition to this economic and technical dynamism, CIMALP also claims a strong environmental commitment, as an expression of its owners’, teams’ & customers’ philosophy.

By limiting the impact of its manufacturing processes (materials selection, toxic waste suppression) but also of its products, making every effort to engineer sustainable clothing able to mix pleasure and conscious consumption. Doing more and better with less.

You can see the full CimAlp range and buy online in the UK here.

Go Outdoors

Where to next?

  • CimAlp Men’s Hoggar Technical Walking Trousers
  • CimAlp Ladies Hoggar Technical Walking Trousers
  • Gear Up For Spring – Essential Outdoor Gear For Spring 2020

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

‘Notes from an Apocalypse’ Is the Perfect Pandemic Read

For some of us, it may feel like the world is newly charged with an apocalyptic sense of dread. But Irish writer Mark O’Connell has been thinking about the end-times since long before our current crisis. “For those who wish to read them, and for those who do not, the cryptic but insistent signs of apocalypse are all around,” O’Connell argues in his new work of nonfiction, Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back. 

O’Connell’s book was written before the COVID-19 pandemic, covering roughly the first two years after Trump’s election. He travels around the world to report on the preppers, survivalists, and deep ecologists who are gearing up for the end of the world, responding to the persistent feeling that, as he writes, “we are alive in a time of worst-case scenarios.” The threats they’re anticipating are wide-ranging, from climate catastrophe to the breakdown of civil society. Often they’re trying to save themselves from these looming cataclysms, no matter what happens to those left behind. Reading this book in the midst of the pandemic, I found an invaluable companion to this moment, one that expertly describes the ethical choices we now face. 

O’Connell is interested in what this obsession with the future tells us about today—especially about the widening chasm of global inequality. The book seems to be addressing typical readers of essayistic nonfiction like myself: People who have time, and at least some money, to spend preparing for an apocalypse. People whose lives are stable enough that they can think beyond getting through the day. He offers two visions of how the relatively privileged are dealing with their anxiety about being alive in a world that seems on the verge of unraveling. 

random-house-apocalypse_h.jpg
(Photo: Courtesy Penguin Random House)

The first involves some kind of escape. O’Connell swims through New Zealand’s Lake Wanaka to catch a glimpse of Peter Thiel’s enormous estate, meant to be the billionaire’s “haven amid a rising tide of apocalyptic unease.” He tours a vast field of underground bunkers in South Dakota, which offers the comfortable a place to withdraw from a troubled world—and any obligations toward those shut out of their safe places. Shortly after the devastating 2018 California wildfires, he visits a Mars Society conference in Pasadena where attendees debate the best way to set up a planet B for the few who can afford to flee an increasingly inhospitable earth. 

The proponents of escape are overwhelmingly white, male, and at least middle-aged. Underneath their anxiety about the future lies a barely disguised nostalgia for the days when the hierarchy they presided over seemed invincible. Take, for example, the preppers who post YouTube videos that O’Connell spends hours watching. When the shit hits the fan, these men explain, they’ll take off with just a “bug-out bag” of essentials, ready to fight what some preppers describe as the “savages” threatening their new homesteads. (Implicitly, these savages are people of color, and the defenders of civilization are white men.)

O’Connell argues that preppers are not, in fact, “preparing for their fears: they are preparing for their fantasies. The collapse of civilization means a return to modes of masculinity our culture no longer has much use for, to a world in which a man who can build a toilet from scratch—or protect his wife and children from intruders using a crossbow, or field dress a deer—is quickly promoted to a new elite.” Theirs is a fundamentally individualistic vision, one that rejects the societal imperative to help the vulnerable survive whatever disasters may come. 

But at the end of the book, when O’Connell returns to his wife and two young children in Dublin, he finds that his travels have left him much less interested in living in anticipation of the end of days. He is more determined than ever not “to withdraw from an ailing world, to bolt the door after myself and my family.” Conscious of the threats to his children’s futures, from climate catastrophe to encroaching fascism, he knows that “in the long run, everything is nothing”—empires fall, ecosystems collapse, and our bodies decay. But on our human timescale—the timescale in which we might read our children environmentalist bedtime stories and watch them grow up to strike for the climate—“everything is not nothing, not even close.” We can’t just despoil the earth and leave others to suffer and die without consequences for us all; we can’t just escape to Mars or New Zealand when things fall apart.

It’s this realization that leads O’Connell to an alternate vision for processing our apocalyptic anxiety, one based on care, collective responsibility, reconnection to nature, and a commitment to being alive in this moment. It requires accepting that “our fate might be communal, that we might live together rather than survive alone.” Instead of retreating to our bunkers, we can engage with our cities, our families, and the opportunities for joy around us. “The world,” O’Connell writes, “requires attention. The world requires care.” 

O’Connell is never didactic or heavy-handed. But his book clearly offers an ethical choice to those of us scrolling through memes—“dank with foreboding,” as he puts it—in our beds and on our couches. We are how we prepare for the apocalypse, O’Connell suggests. During this time of pandemic, some have escaped to their newly acquired bunkers or to second homes in vulnerable mountain towns. But others are choosing another path, one involving mutual aid and community care. We can create a different end of the world. 

buy the book

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