And We Thought Walkers Wore Sensible Shoes...

Wales Outdoors found this article at Live for the Outdoors, a great outdoor blog site. The post is now removed so we’re glad we saved it.

2010
‘Combined walking pole and urinary aid’: like all the best ideas, so obvious when you think about it. Unbelievably, after going to the trouble of applying for this patent, getting the puddle just the right size etc this patent was allowed to lapse in 2013, so Leki? Komperdell? Guys?

1990
How many times have you wished your rucksack made it impossible to unzip your jacket, was much harder to get on and off and gave you a really awkward frontal anatomy choice if you’re a woman? That’s right, lots!* (*Lalalalala-la-la – inventor of this cross-your-heart rucksack Kent Turnipseed is not listening.)

2014
You’ve heard of mag-lev trains? They use opposing magnets to allow them to travel without friction. Not quite so clever but still awesome, these walking boots use the same magnetic repulsion to provide heel and forefoot cushioning, and to adjust the heel height. Also allows near-infinite pirouettes.

2000
John D. Wehrly’s tent heater’s brilliance is its simplicity: literally all you need is a lightweight backpacking tent, a heat source (suggest: fire) a boiler, a water pump and yards and yards of pipework. Not since the first sledgehammer was introduced to the first nut has a job been so conclusively done.

2013
Daniel Payton Turney dreams of the time we don’t look at someone pulling a wheeled trolley behind them and think ‘Old lady returning from buying half-tins of beans’ and instead think ‘All-terrain convertible wheeled backpacker’.

1900
Meanwhile the priorities for American Joseph Conley were different: how to go from standing up lying down sucking straw as quickly as possible. His solution: bedclothes. Literally clothes that turned into a hammock quicker’n you could say ‘Yankee’.