While the eGear Pico Lite is not a revolutionary concept.  It is a really cool little piece of gear.  Small and light enough to clip just about anywhere, the eGear PICO Lite is one of those essential pieces of gear you can attach onto your pack and forget about until you really need it.

What really makes this light really stand out for me is the commitment by eGear to donate a Portion of the proceed form the sale of the light to the non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation.

While new to me,  the Equipped to Survive Foundation indicates it is dedicated to saving lives by:

The site has an extensive boby of articles and how-tos on wilderness survival, and is an interesting place to spend some time browsing.

My family accompanied me to Torrey Pines State Park this Fathers Day for a great hike in this scenic wild place.  The hike was a bitter sweet, as I really enjoyed myself, but Torrey Pines is one of the places that is scheduled to close if the powers that be in Sacramento go through with their absurd plan of shutting down a number of state parks to try to solve their budget fiasco.

We started the hike out on the beach,  enjoying the cool breeze and the light spray of the waves.  We dawdled along the sand, playing with seaweed, and trying to find rip currents in the surf and talking about what to do if you are ever caught in one.   We stopped and had a quick snack on the beach at the base of the great new stairs that run up the cliffs into the park.  After the snack we wandered up the stairs and through a break in the cliffs into the park itself.  We meandered through the chaparral, tracking scurrying lizards, and pulling splinters from little hands (always bring plenty of band aids with little ones.  they make everything better).

We took an extended break at the nature center, where we were able to spend some time in the small museum that is crammed with information about the park.  I talked with a women working at the center who has been a volunteer at the park for 31 years. Her love for the park resonated with every word.  She was not sure what she would do if the park closed, but expressed the desire to continue coming to help preserve what her and so many others have worked so hard to create.

I encourage everyone to visit our state parks as often as possible.  They are wonderful places. Places that deserve to be open for all of us to enjoy.  Places worthy of maintaining an protecting.  Places that need to be there for our children and their children.  Please let the decision makers in Sacramento know that no one wants to close our State Parks,  and there need to be another way.

www.calparks.org/stopclosures

Now that summertime has hit San Diego; beach season is in full force. An amazingly entertaining way to enjoy the diversity that the beach has to offer (think people watching) while getting a little exercise is to cruise the boardwalk.  You will see it, from happy to sad, to slightly disturbing.  There are many ways to navigate the boardwalk,  From walking, to roller blades, to skateboard or even bikes.  In fact, there is a whole category of bikes that have evolved specifically for cruising the boardwalk; the beach cruiser.

The beach cruiser are the antithesis of the road bike.  Made to go slow and cruise, the “beach cruiser” has an upright stance, a limited number of gears, a wide soft seat, and places to put needed accessories (such as a duct taped beer coozie).  I have recently partnered with an online affiliate called Makai Bikes that specialize in beach cruisers.  While it may seem strange to buy a bike online, and have it shipped, Makai Bikes has done it right, and incorporated their shipping into the already low price of the bikes,  and have prices that meet or exceed the local shops.  So if you are in the market to cruise the boardwalk, stop by Makai Bikes and see what they have to offer.

I have come to appreciate what the Jetboil Helios brings to the table.  In every review I read,the Helios is compared to Jetboil’s PCS which set the standard for self-contained, compact, easy to use, personal cooking systems.  The Jetboil PCS is so revered, that I noticed that it had at least 3 mentions in the latest issue of Backpacker Magazine, including veteran mountaineer Peter Whittaker citing it as a big leap in mountaineering gear .  Getting back to my point,  the Jetboil Helios is not the Jetboil PCS, nor was it ever intended to be.  It takes some of the qualities of the PCS (self-contained, easy to use) and applies it to a more complex cooking system that is engineered to serve a group of up to four people.  It adds features intended to increase the efficiency, and help it function where the Jetboil struggles (cold weather and high altitude) Most of my experience with Jetboil Helios has been with cooking duty for four hungry backpackers.  It served as the only cooking tool we had for our Grand Canyon adventure, and worked perfectly, cooking up my home dried gourmet backpacking meals.  I  also carried it with me as my snow melting stove during a winter snowshoe trip, the details I will get to later.

As I have mentioned before on Outside San Diego,  the design of the Helios is nothing short of amazing.  I think it is one of the prettiest stoves on the market.  But does it perform as well as it looks?  The results are mixed, although once I got the bugs ironed out, the stove worked perfectly.  The bugs being a malfunction during my snowshoe trip in which the orifice which feeds the gas to the burner became plugged, and I was unable to light the stove.  If I would have been diligent when receiving the stove, and read the directions, it mentions this possibility, and provided a simple solution in which I could have corrected the problem and been on my snow-melting way.  Instead I waited until I came home, unduly bothered the folks atJetboil , who held my hand through the simple process and got my stove working better than when it arrived.  If anything can be said about this experience, is that my gear ADD was no match for the superb customer service at Jetboil.  No harm no foul, a lesson learned.

My experience on the longer trek in the Grand Canyon was much different.  The Jetboil Helios worked perfectly,  providing meals for the four of us with unyielding reliability.  I prepared and cooked all my own dehydrated food from scratch for this trip,  producing a month long chaotic mess in my kitchen that had my wife shaking her head daily, and the large capacity of the Helios was ideas for reconstituting the meals.  I would drop the food for four into the pot, add water, and let soak for awhile before placing on the burner and heating.  I was very pleased with meals, and happy to see that I had gas left over in the 230 gram canister after four days of cooking meals morning and night,  including multiple boils for evening tea and hot cocoa.  The boil time of about 4-minutes I reported in the original post was somewhat longer than I experienced during this trip, and I believe was colored by a blockage I reported earlier.  The Helios is not a quiet stove.  the rumble of the burned reminds you that it is blasting out heat,  and there was no serene contemplation while cooking dinner.  This happened afterward while enjoying my home dehydrated fair.

The question as to whether the Jetbiol Helios is a success boils down (no pun intended) to whether I would bring it with me again.  Will I give it another chance in a critical piece of gear in a situation such as a snow camp?  After careful consideration, my answer is yes.  I really believe that if I had read the instructions carefully I would have been able to clear the blockage, and reduce the problem to a 10-minute annoyance.  Like any piece of critical gear,  I will need to prove its performance to myself,  and will not put myself in a situation where I am depending on the stove without a backup plan until I am 100% confident in its performance.  Its unfailing performance in the Grand Canyon proves that this stove has what it takes to be a cooking machine, cranking out food for a group of hungry backpackers.

Get Your Jetboil Helios at REI

As many in the State of California are aware,  the legislators are attempting to close a huge number of state park to attempt to balance the budget.  This ploy (like others), which is designed to be as painful as possible for the greatest number of people, is an attempt to save the fat that exists in Sacramento. This plan hits close to home, as both an Uncle and Aunt work for the State Parks at a wonderful historic place in the Sierra’s called Bodie.  My Uncle sent an email explaining the plight of Bodie which reads as follows:

As many of you Californians and ex-Californians, and some of you folks from civilized States know, our State is attempting some outrageous stunts to try and balance the budget.

There is a proposal to close a large number of State Parks, including  Bodie State Historic Park, the one that I work at as a Maintenance Mechanic. This park is a huge boost to our local economy, and the closure would likely cost the State more than keeping it open. I am one of the 3 permanent employees who would probably be retained to try and keep the artifacts from walking away, but my wife Chris and the other seasonal employees would lose their jobs and the revenue that they generate for the State of California would cease. Please visit the website below to learn more of this ill-advised scheme. There is also some good contact information for those who would like to write or email the officials concerned.

www.calparks.org/stopclosures

So lets stop this nonsense, and let the Powers that be in California that they need to make cuts where they will not be hurting the people, but make cuts to the fat that exists in Sacramento.

The winners for the Stanley Stainless Water Bottles have been drawn, and they have been notified, so check your email.  I will post the list of winners as soon as I hear back from all of them in a day or two.

Stanley Nineteen 13 Bonnaroo Bottle

If you did not win,  there are more chances to win during Outside San Diego’s Summer of Swag.   See the previous post for the details on the next contest,  and stay tuned for a whopper starting next week.

Congrats to all the winners of the Summer of Swag Part 1.

The summer of swag continues with another opportunity to win some free cool gear.  This time in conjunction with 4AllOutdoors  www.4alloutdoors.com,  we are proud to offer a bunch of cool stuff from Coghlan’s, i360 and 2XL.  This includes cooler props, cooler lights, headband earphones, earbuds and more.  Just sign up for the mailing list here at Outside San Diego,  and you are entered to win (if you already signed up you are already entered).   Then pop over to 4alloutdoors and register to win more cool stuff.

more details:

So here are the details:

• You must be an email subscriber to be eligible to win. Subscribe to Outside San Diego by Email
• I reserve the right to cancel or modify this contest at any time.
• Lots of people will enter and not everyone will win.
• The winners will be posted on Outside San Diego as soon as I am able to contact them and notify them that they have won.

here are the rules:

• I will be picking winners at random from my email subscribers on June 22, 2009
• The prize for each winner will be randomly selected.
• Winners not responding in 72 hours will be disqualified, and a new winner selected
• If you already subscribe to the email list, you are already entered. If you want to enter, Subscribe to Outside San Diego by Email.
• I will not sell or otherwise do anything with the email subscriber list other than send you the quality content found each and everyday on Outside San Diego.

While the weather tends to be mild in San Diego, with only the occasional blockbuster storm to shake up city, a jacket is still a critical element for anyone enjoying the outdoors.  In a climate like San Diego it important to have a jacket that can do everything.  Unlike more severe climates, one jacket should serve multiple functions and keep one comfortable in a wide range of weather conditions.  The thing about a jacket in San Diego is that it does not need to do anything perfectly, but should do a lot of things well.  For this purpose I propose a softshell jacket is an ideal companion in the San Diego wilderness.

I have been testing out just such a softshell from Merrell named the Ridgeline.  This lightweight super breathable do anything jacket has been my companion from snowstorms in the Sierra Nevadas, to mild evenings at Petco Park watching the Padres play ball.  This softshell jacket has been stuffed into numerous packs and duffels, stepped on, slept on, and generally abused, and it still looks as nice as the day it arrived.  It is the do anything go anywhere piece that I described earlier;  perfect for San Diego.

While the Ridgeline does not provide (nor is it intended too) an abundance of insulation, it does cut the chill, and the provides wind blocking and moisture repelling that keeps the cold at bay.  It is also very breathable, and shines during those high activity times when it is just too snotty out to remove your jacket.  During inactivity in colder weather, I found that I needed to layer under the Ridgeline as the breathability sapped the warmth of the jacket pretty quickly.

The Ridgeline is a nice looking jacket, with a close cut that is not too baggy or frumpy, but loose enough to layer.  The stretchy fabric provides great range of motion.  There are hand pockets on each side, and a nifty little napoleon pocket on the chest with a water resistant zipper that is perfect for stashing my camera. The hem features a drawstring bungy to seal out the elements, and the sleeves are cut longer on the top than the bottom to extend the coverage while active. The jacket is comfortable to wear while carrying a pack,  and there are no seams or buckles that get in the way or feel awkward or out of place.  At a retail price of $99.00 it is not going to break the bank to own an extremly versatile well built jacket.

Here are a few deals on outdoor gear from my favorite online retailers to get you through the week:

Click Here for Free Shipping on Tents from CampSaver.com!
50% OFF on Hike, Camp, Climb & Ski Gear - REI-OUTLET

Hey big spender! Save $25 off any purchase of $750 or more at MakaiBikes.com. Use coupon code “BIGSPENDER25″. Expires 12/31/09. Coupon Code: BIGSPENDER25

Click here to get 10-20% off all shell jackets. This includes names like Cloudveil, Go-lite, Mont-bell, Marmot, Mountain hardware, Outdoor Research and Rab.

Big Brands - Up To 50% Off Men’s Clothing At Backcountry.com. Expires 6/22/2009

Several weeks ago Wavesport sponsored a graphic design contest to create a triptych that will reside on the bottom of their Fuse 56 whitewater boat.  The entries are in and they are fantastic.  We now get a chance to vote on them.  I took a look,  and it will take a while for me to decide, as they are all really fantastic designs.  Which is your favorite?

See them and vote here!