Cornering Camp Gear

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Ford Prefect will be the first to tell you that the most imperative travel item on any adventure in the galaxy is a good towel. This is a great towel. Made by Sea-to-Summit, our favorite dry bag manufacturer, these size small Tek Towels measure 32"x16", enough to dry off the average human and then some. They're made of the softest micro-fiber I've felt and have their own mesh and nylon zippered pouch. There's a snap strap riveted on a corner making it able to hang anywhere. They dry quickly and fold up compact enough to stow anywhere, or just keep it handy around your neck like Ford.

The greatest improvement in our sleeping comfort is the addition of these Teton self-inflating pillows. They're filled with a material that compacts easily on deflation and expands to whatever firmness you'd like to rest your head on with the easily operable valve. The orange side is finished in a comfortable micfrofiber while the base has a non-slip finish to keep the pillow in place. If you've ever wrestled with camp pillows in the wee hours, all these things become indispensable. At 18"x10"x4", the pillow rolls and compacts nicely to fit in its stuff sack, weighing in at 12 ounces.

As much as we'd like to leave the tech behind, both our jobs and research require us to be online more than we'd like to. The H3 is set up to charge all our gear, but I wanted to have an independent system that would keep the iLights on. This Anker 14 Watt Solar Charger is described by reviewers as the gateway drug to solar power, and I can certainly understand why. My flat iPhone 5S was fully charged in about 90 minutes. From the sun. Free. Anker has created their PowerIQ technology that detects the device's power needs and ramps up to two amps of charging under direct sunlight. The charger has two ports to charge devices simultaneously. I carry a two-panel version of the same in my bug-out bag.

This Coleman Steel Belted cooler has kept its cool for five days without adding more ice. It's in its fifth year of service on our adventures and shows no sign of aging. It helps to pack its 54-quart basin with cold and frozen items to begin with. We freeze all our meats before each trip and refrigerate everything else before packing. The cooler has a couple of space upgrades, a CoolerWebs pouch that adheres to the lid and a Cooler Shelf that attaches via hook and loop that adheres to the cooler sides. The CoolerWebs pouch has a Velcro enclosure that holds flat or thin packages such as bacon or sliced cheeses. The Cooler Shelf suspends other items we'd like to keep dry for the long run. Both these additions make long-term travel with a cooler much more manageable. The shelf has been discontinued for sale, but the pouch is still available on Amazon.