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If you can spare 25 minutes for a short film that is sure to inspire any adventurer, have a look at The Road from Karakol presented by Outdoor Research. It’s a powerful story, with breathtaking landscapes, and a compelling focus character, Kyle Dempster. This film’s depiction of true adventure shines throughout, at times deeply depressing and at times sincerely exhilarating. At its core the film poses the question; “When the road ends, will you keep going?”

What are the most important backpacking skills that you’d like to see covered in CleverHiker season 2?

A little while ago I was able to connect with Rand Lindsly, from Trail Designs, to learn more about their popular Caldera Cone System. I had always thought of the Caldera Cone as an alcohol stove with a windscreen, but Rand was able to shed some light on the topic for me. He made some really great points and got me thinking about alcohol stoves in a way that I hadn’t before. It’s easy to tell that Rand and the Trail Designs team really understand the ins and outs of lightweight backpacking stoves. In his words “We pretty much eat, sleep, and drink this stuff every day, so we kinda got our heads around it.” 

The following email came in this morning from a caring mother doing lightweight backpacking research for her son. It reminded me of how much I love my own mother and how wonderful mothers are in general.This note made my day so I thought I’d share it with you too. Happy Friday everyone! 

The big CH launch went off without a hitch yesterday and our customers have been saying wonderful things about our series! It feels incredible to be part of a project that I believe in so much and that has been receiving such positive feedback from the community that I love. 

In a few short days – Monday, June 3rd – CleverHiker.com will launch the Lightweight & Ultralight Backpacking Foundations video series and Gear Recommendations eBook. After all the hard work and support that has gone into this project, it seems only appropriate that I should take a few moments to reflect on how meaningful this launch will be.

Yesterday was a huge day in the life of CleverHiker. I’d love to tell you a little bit about our progress and talk about some big things to come. About six months ago I started an Indiegogo crowd funding campaign to raise support for a video series on ultralight backpacking (image above). The campaign was wildly successful due to the support of my friends, family, and the backpacking community. Yesterday I was able to send an individual email to each of my 166 backers to deliver on a promise I made half a year ago. It was an incredibly proud moment for me.  

We’re proud to announce the launch of our new website and the launch date for our inaugural video series – Lightweight & Ultralight Backpacking Foundations! Our new website is a work in progress so please excuse any initial bugs that you might run into. 

We’re in the middle of another big editing week for CleverHiker as we work on our intro, credits, music, and on-screen text. Our first series – Lightweight & Ultralight Backpacking Foundations – is coming along well and looking beautiful!Photo location: Mt. Hood, OR

We’re very excited to announce that the filming for CleverHiker Season 1 – Lightweight & Ultralight Backpacking Foundations – is complete!!! We’re moving to the post-production phase now where we’ll chop up our footage and add stylish graphics to build a polished product. We’re still shooting for an early May release date and working hard to stay on schedule.A huge thanks to Director of Photography – Matt Mastrantuono – for his tireless efforts in making the filming of our first series successful!We’re very excited for big things to come!