Rob Walker of The New York Times digs into the marketing and fashion decisions around Burton’s U.S. Olympic snowboarding team pants… because someone has to help rearrange our Monday morning brain cells.

“Admittedly not even the hippest European head of state or out-of-the-box executive would be likely to wear jeans with the baggy and torn look sported by Shaun White and his teammates in Vancouver. But that look is still merely a variation on an established fashion pattern. The snowboarders didn’t interrupt a staid space with spectacular style (like a zoot suit in early 1940s Los Angeles); they attended a spectacle in familiar leisure wear.”

Backcountry Beacon offers 4 tips around “summer-ifying” old camping gear for your upcoming treks:

• Washing your sleeping bag: “Natural oils and dirt from grimy hiking pollute the down and make it lose its natural loft.”
• Rejuvenating rain jackets: “Specially formulated tech-washes are available from companies like Nikwax.”
• Tuning your stove: “Any stove with a remote fuel canister that has a pump needs to have the pump cup oiled.”
• Sealing your tent: “Seam sealing your tent is easy and permanent, and a one-ounce tube of Seam Grip is enough to seal the critical seams on most two-person tents.”

Adirondack Descent

Headed into northern Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), Gustave Axelson of Men’s Journal writes about the new (but old-school) trend of winter camping without all the high tech gear: toboggans, canvas tents, wool jackets, and “three growlers of India pale ale.”

“We were embarking on a four-day winter camping trip into the boreal heart of the Boundary Waters. But instead of the finest high-tech Gore-Tex parkas and windproof mountaineering tents, we were outfitted with technology from a century gone. I was here to try out a new style of winter camping, which is really an old style of winter camping called snow walking.”

photo credit: Jeff Pang

The New York Times tested five Gore-Tex snowboarding gloves: Drop Vertex’s GTX Snowboard ($74.95), Burton’s Yeti ($139.95), DAKINE’s Stingray ($94.95), MARMOT’s Alpinist ($180), SCOTT’s Bolt ($79.99)–and they like the results.

“A new technology from Gore-Tex called X-Trafit should thus be welcome. It’s an insert bonded to the lining, the Gore-Tex membrane and the outer shell, improving ‘the grip and dexterity of traditional waterproof, breathable gloves,’ said Doug Crawford of Gore-Tex.”

photo credit: firepile

Or maybe the question should be: Is animal hair warmer and more comfortable than polypropylene? Most kids don’t think so. The jury’s still out on its superior environmental “sustainability” as well. But as Ray A. Smith writes in the Wall Street Journal, demand for merino wool has been on the rise for six years and threatens the 25-year tenure of synthetics as the most popular outerwear fabric material.

“‘Demand has increased dramatically,’ says Chris Hawson, a buyer at Paragon Sports, a large sports specialty retailer in New York that says that wool-based products now represent 50% of its base-layer business.”