The Desert Dog Journal
Osprey Packs’ “All Mighty Guarantee”
My Osprey Kestrel 48 has been my primary pack for about two years now and I couldn’t be more pleased with the pack’s performance. Overall, the pack is lightweight, comfortable, and durable. Each and every feature is well thought out and designed for years of real world use. What more can you ask for from [...]
Salomon 3D Fastpacker Boots
I have mixed emotions when it comes to buying new boots. On the one hand, I love new gear. On the other, I never know how they’ll do on the trail. A pair of good, well fit boots are quickly forgotten on the trail, but no other piece of gear has the ability to absolutely ruin a trip and make life miserable like the wrong pair of boots.
Sea to Summit Ultralight Daypack
Here’s a new addition to the gear stable and one I have high hopes for, the ultralight daypack offered by Sea to Summit. I like to make side trips when I’m hiking and don’t always want to lug my whole pack with me. At 2.25 oz, I figured I’d give this pack a try.
Roaming the Rincons: Turkey Creek to Deer Creek
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Rincon’s lately wandering around the foothills and valleys of the Rincon Mountain Wilderness. The Wilderness surrounds Sahuaro on three sides. The terrain ranges from rolling scrub desert to shear walled riparian canyons, and despite its proximity to Tucson access to much of the Wilderness is limited. If you don’t want to compete with the crowds on Mount Lemmon, the Ricons are a great alternative.
Tucson’s Map and Flag Center
I love maps. In a distinctly fanatical way. Always have, always will. I love road maps, trail maps, new maps, and old maps. Antique hand drawn maps make me feel all warm and fuzzy. It started when I was a kid and the Air Force only reinforced my obsession by making me a helicopter pilot. [...]
Gear Review: Six Moon Designs Gatewood Cape
Occasionally, I find a piece of gear that perfectly matches my requirements, such as Six Moon Designs’ Gatewood Cape. Lightweight and well made, the Gatewood was designed to function equally well as either a poncho or a shelter. It’s not often that a single gear item can do two jobs well, but the Gatewood is [...]
Gear Reviews
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Osprey Packs’ “All Mighty Guarantee”
My Osprey Kestrel 48 has been my primary pack for about two years now and I couldn’t be more pleased with the pack’s performance. Overall, the pack is lightweight, comfortable, and durable. Each and every feature is well thought out and designed for years of real world use. What more can you ask for from [...]
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Salomon 3D Fastpacker Boots
I have mixed emotions when it comes to buying new boots. On the one hand, I love new gear. On the other, I never know how they’ll do on the trail. A pair of good, well fit boots are quickly forgotten on the trail, but no other piece of gear has the ability to absolutely ruin a trip and make life miserable like the wrong pair of boots.
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Sea to Summit Ultralight Daypack
Here’s a new addition to the gear stable and one I have high hopes for, the ultralight daypack offered by Sea to Summit. I like to make side trips when I’m hiking and don’t always want to lug my whole pack with me. At 2.25 oz, I figured I’d give this pack a try.
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Gear Review: Six Moon Designs Gatewood Cape
Occasionally, I find a piece of gear that perfectly matches my requirements, such as Six Moon Designs’ Gatewood Cape. Lightweight and well made, the Gatewood was designed to function equally well as either a poncho or a shelter. It’s not often that a single gear item can do two jobs well, but the Gatewood is [...]
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Whisky News
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Whisky Review: Balvenie 15 Year Old, Single Barrel
Wow! What a great whisky! Balvenie produces a limited run of single barrel bottlings each year and I am impressed. I found this to be a subtle whisky that starts slow, and just as you start to think you’ve missed something it sneaks up and explodes with rich, well developed, complexities. Every sip brings something new! This whisky was just a wonderful experience.
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Best Tucson Whiskey Stores
A large part of enjoying whiskey is actually finding it. Now I love a good whiskey hunt as much as the next guy, but some of you actually have to work for a living and can’t spend time running all over town looking for the perfect dram. So I thought I’d share the best establishments I’ve found for buying whiskey in Tucson. If all you are looking for is a Glenlivet or Johnny Walker, then any supermarket or corner beverage store will fill the bill, but if you’re looking for something new then check out these stores.
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St George’s English Whisky
The rising popularity of malted whiskies, especially single malt barley spirits, is evidenced in the growing number of distilleries and labels that have been cropping up over the past few years. Several mothballed distilleries in Scotland have reopened for a total of five new distilleries since 2005, with as many as another half a dozen [...]
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Macallan 12 Year Old Revisited
Been a bit under the weather the past week, so I’ve fallen a bit behind on my posts, but I thought you might enjoy this. This is a repost of my famous Captain Crunch whisky review of a Macallan 12 year old single malt. As you’ll see, everything is better with a little Crunch.
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Hiking
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Roaming the Rincons: Turkey Creek to Deer Creek
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Rincon’s lately wandering around the foothills and valleys of the Rincon Mountain Wilderness. The Wilderness surrounds Sahuaro on three sides. The terrain ranges from rolling scrub desert to shear walled riparian canyons, and despite its proximity to Tucson access to much of the Wilderness is limited. If you don’t want to compete with the crowds on Mount Lemmon, the Ricons are a great alternative.
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Pocket Survival Kit
Do you carry a pocket survival kit when you are in the field? You probably should. It’s all too easy to get lost, hurt, or separated from your gear, and to find yourself in a no kidding survival situation. It happens all the time and a simple pocket kit can make the difference between life [...]
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What to Bring for your Dog on a Hike
Here is a quick rundown of gear to consider if you take your dog hiking.
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Hiking Recipes
I haven’t talked about food for a while so I thought I’d review a couple of meals from my latest hike. Last summer I went on a drying and baking binge and I’ve had an assortment of foods hanging around in the freezer that hadn’t been sampled for quite a while. As I was packing [...]
- More from Hiking
Odds & Ends
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Tucson’s Map and Flag Center
I love maps. In a distinctly fanatical way. Always have, always will. I love road maps, trail maps, new maps, and old maps. Antique hand drawn maps make me feel all warm and fuzzy. It started when I was a kid and the Air Force only reinforced my obsession by making me a helicopter pilot. [...]
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Best Tucson Whiskey Stores
A large part of enjoying whiskey is actually finding it. Now I love a good whiskey hunt as much as the next guy, but some of you actually have to work for a living and can’t spend time running all over town looking for the perfect dram. So I thought I’d share the best establishments I’ve found for buying whiskey in Tucson. If all you are looking for is a Glenlivet or Johnny Walker, then any supermarket or corner beverage store will fill the bill, but if you’re looking for something new then check out these stores.
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Review: Insight Firearms Training
Well, I had the opportunity to do something a bit different last week. I was invited to attend the Law Enforcement Firearms Instructor Course at Insight Firearms Training in Prescott, AZ, and since I’ve always enjoyed shooting and firearms I could hardly turn down the offer! We used Insight for marksmanship and basic tactics training [...]
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Cool Video for Adrenaline Junkies
Great, one more thing I need to try before I die! Here is a cool white water kayaking video. CLICK HERE!
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Other Recent Articles
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Gear Review: Columbia Silver Ridge II Shirt
The only thing better than getting new gear is putting it to the test. One bit of gear that I always appreciate is quality clothing and with the proliferation of performance fabrics the outdoor lifestyle is so much more comfortable.
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Stove Review: Vargo Triad versus Super Cat
I’m one of those guys that is always tweaking his gear. One of the items that caught my eye was the Vargo Triad Titanium Alcohol Stove. My homemade Super Cat has replaced my MSR gas stoves on my solo hikes, and I’ve been wanting to check out some of the manufactured stoves to see if they are better than my DIY project.
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Springtime in the High Desert
Yes, I completely dropped off the face of the blogasphere for six months. Work, family, chores, and all of life’s other little pleasures swamped me. Every week without a post makes it just that much harder to go back and next thing you know you’re wondering why your readership is still growing when you haven’t [...]
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Montana Wilderness Training, Part 2
With our base camp established somewhere over 8,000′ and a well earned night’s sleep behind us, it was time to get down to the business of training. The next several days were spent on alpine travel and rescue, avalanche awareness, climbing, and some good old winter hiking.
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Montana Wilderness Training, Part 1
In May 2007, my squadron sent a team to Montana for cold weather and high altitude training in preparation for an Afghanistan deployment. This was truly one of the highlights of my Air Force career.
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Podcast: Interview Stranahan’s Master Distiller, Jake Norris (12/2/09)
I thought I’d do something new for Whisky Wednesday this week. I enjoyed my tasting of Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey (CLICK HERE) so much last week that I wanted to know more about the people behind this unique American single malt whiskey. So I contacted the folks at Stranahan’s and asked if they would grant me [...]
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