Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Hat Trick

After closing up his former shop (RIP Freeman Transport), Ben Ferencz decided it was time for reflection. He took some time traveling around between his home in the Montana mountains and New York City. Spent time with good friends. Did a few collaboration one-offs with the likes of Hickorees Hard Goods and Jack Spade. Realizing [...]

Lessons from Green Berets in the Colorado Rockies

“Open Road” is an ongoing series of dispatches written and photographed by guest correspondent, Foster Huntington, during his epic cross-country adventure for his upcoming book by Harper Collins. Foster is the creator of Arestlesstransplant and The Burning House. Check out previous parts of the series here. My alarm went off at 2:15am on Thursday, the [...]

A bag that has your 6

If your messenger bag is starting to feel a little mundane or just isn’t up for the challenges of your best Jason Bourne, we’d like to introduce you to the ITS Tactical Discreet Messenger Bag ($350). Now in its second generation, this hardcore messenger bag is the result of a collaboration between ITS Tactical, and Zulu [...]

Paradise...rain or shine

Glancing down for a moment, my eye caught sight of the orange glow of the speedometer. The readout hovered at 50 km per hour. My head did the rough conversion as a fat drop of rain streaked across the plexiglass visor of my helmet. Things sure felt faster than 30 miles per hour. Then again, [...]

Bog Deep and 12 Miles to Go

For the uninitiated, or those of you who haven’t heard, Tough Mudder is one of the forerunners of the now fully entrenched obstacle course challenges and race phenomenon. The brain child of former British Army Officer Will Dean, Tough Mudder combines military style obstacle course components with an 8-12 mile trail run. In the last [...]

Hoodie 2.0

For many, a good summer can hinge on being by/on the water. Lululemon says they made the Pacific Beach Hoodie to “wear up the mountain, and to and from the gym”, but we’ve found it’s perfect for the cool nights and crisp mornings that come along with waterside locales. It features some of the softest cotton fleece [...]

Flying, Minus the Wings

The canyons of the Shotover River just outside of Queenstown, New Zealand is unquestionably a picturesque setting. Here, visitors can enjoy the serenity of moving water and think about hobbits, dwarves, and elves to their heart’s content. But why do that, when you have the option to strap into a specially design jet boat, equipped [...]

57° Water. 1.5 Miles. No turning back.

Bobbing in the middle of San Francisco Bay I panted as I treaded water. My arms were turning to rubber and the wetsuit was chafing my neck. I needed to stop for a rest. My friend and kayak pilot, Kevin, paddled over and said, “Good job, you’re almost a third of the way done.” Really? [...]

9,000 miles away, a paradise of adventure

Editor’s Note: Gear Patrol Correspondent Jason Heaton was dispatched 9,000 miles from Minneapolis to Sri Lanka with the goal of chasing down as much adventure in three weeks as possible. As you’ll read below, he didn’t disappoint. On a dusk drive looking for elephants, we happened upon an old goat herder on the roadside, his [...]

GP goes on location for our first travel gear review

Want to be taken away? Well, you must consider Vietnam. Take everything you’ve come to know or partially understand about the country as you’ve seen through the mass media and turn it all on its collective head. This picturesque sliver of a country is a true escape from some of what we’ve come to know [...]

Leave your heart, not your wallet in...

After quite a few reader requests for hotel, destination, adventure and travel recommendations, we’re embarking on a new series of posts called Stay. Culled together from both crew and reader insights, Stay will highlight both exciting and achievable travel along with occasional travel-related gear endorsements. Consider it an ongoing series to satiate your travel bug. [...]

G-Rated Swinging

We can always count on the creative individuals selling through Etsy to inspire us with the grass-roots feel and care that oozes from their products. This reclaimed wood tree swing ($150) from Philadelphia based PegandAwl for instance had us instantly reminiscing of summers as a kid, where the our only responsibility was to (try) and [...]

Roam On the Range, Or Anywhere Else You Damn Please

The Merecedes Benz G-Wagon LAPV 6.X and the Icon CJ3B definitely have off-roading capabilities in spades, but they certainly don’t have a Loftop with 9 feet of interior stand up height, a queen-size bed, a 25 gallon fresh water capacity, a toilet, shower, sink, cooking facilities, and a solar-powered fridge. In case you were wondering [...]

“Even the just may sin with an open chest of gold before them”

Storm the beaches and gold fields with the Minelab X-Terra 705 Metal Detector ($699) while gold value is still at record highs. Complete with Multi-segment notch discrimination, the X-Terra’s cash, treasure and gold prospecting modes make sorting trash from treasure a cinch. Automatic ground balancing and continuous ground tracking allow for unmatched, stable performance in [...]

Kal-El's Vacation Home

Impossibly large caverns 300 meters below the surface. 36 foot translucent gypsum crystals weighing 55 tons. Scorching 136° temperatures and intense humidity – enough to kill a human after 15 minutes of exposure. No, this isn’t the planet Krypton, this is Cueva de los Cristales near the town of Delicias, Mexico. Discovered 10 years ago [...]