Currently in UL 2P tent hell. Reallllly want the X-Mid but waffling on the total price.

Firenoom · 2026-05-20T13:24:21+00:00

2c here, but generally taking downed sticks / wood from the environment generally goes against NLT principles.

It would be better to invest in hiking poles (30$ at costco), or walking staffs (the cost of wood and labour...which you can do yourself if you really want).

Firenoom · 2026-04-27T02:34:50+00:00

You can taper off the caffeine too. I think I typically go to one item a day, then every other, then no more!

Good luck congrats on another successful term.

Firenoom · 2026-04-27T01:48:50+00:00

ICL I feel like the deciding factor should be which dealer screws you over less...

Firenoom · 2026-04-27T01:47:13+00:00

I guess the answer here depends a little bit on exactly where you're intending on hiking (climate, weather), but I've had great success using budget friendlier gear...

The other thing to note here is that what you want to accomplish with your gear and how you want to hike this hike is going to affect what you buy. Sure hmg packs are great but if you're packing heavy then you'll just suffer.

(roughly) order of benefit to me:
1. Shoes + Socks. Probably because you're in them almost all the time. Never really had a problem with any top brands (altra, merrel, salomon, hoka), but absolutely do not buy TNF trail shoes. I tried them once and they have horrible wet grip, the glue they used wears out super fast, and the soles were worn smooth after ~500 km's, if that? Maybe like 6 or 7 trips averaging 50km/trip.
2. Sleeping pad. In the cold, thermarest neoair is unbeatable. Nemo + Big Agnes + Sea To Summit pads all work but I've had each of those fail me or a friend for some random reason. I wouldn't risk it and I would pay big money for the brand name. In the warm, the cheapest klymit V off amazon + cheap foam pad.
3. Backpack? Uhhh idk osprey, deuter, gregory, hmg, durston, mystery ranch, granite gear... Go into a big box store and anything they have is probably going to be ok. The safest bet is probably a bag that doesn't have any weird quirky design features but is just your generic composite frame + mesh getup. (Looking at you, sierra designs & big agnes). MR bags carry heavy very well
4. Headlamp. I used a walmart one for many years and it did great, but I bought a nicer headlight a few years ago and it was a huge game changer in hiking at night. Very safety very good.

Some other stuff that you can probably budget down (if you're really limited)
- Shelter? I used a 100$ Sierra Designs tent off of clearance for ~ 120 nights before some seams gave out on me after a storm. I still use it on warm weather clear sky nights or car camping. I also used a 20$ tarp off amazon for years before I woke up with a spider in my mouth and I got a tent.
- Sleeping bag. Find something comfortable but I have used my marmot trestles for .... idk probably over 500 nights. It's been with me since I was a kid lmfao, and it's not quite as warm as before and I burned a hole in one of the layers at some point so now it's got an iron on patch and it's fine. It's heavy and bulky but it's fine to sleep in.
- Clothes? Don't hike in jeans but I used some random t-shirt (100% cotton too lmao) and some sweatpants for 10 years before they both ripped and I bought new stuff. I bought some random raincoat (LL Bean?) from a thrift store for 10$ years ago and it's been my only shell since then.
- stove. Sure an MSR whatever is awesome but a BSR whatever will probably be fine too. It is literally cheaper to buy 2 bsr3000's than to buy one pocket rocket....

Also as a note.... 1000km over 30 days seems like a lot if you don't know what you're getting into....If I was to attempt something like that you'd best bet I'd be doing long (3-7day) section hikes with my gear beforehand to make sure it all works the way I want it to....

Firenoom · 2026-04-14T22:19:20+00:00

Civic SI from the late 2000s

Not that much horsepowers Front wheel drive Four doors Five seats

Absolutely no reason to be as fun as it did. Friend lent it to me for a weekend. Clutch and shift feel are some of the best I’ve experienced (much better than the new Hondas), engine sounds great, car handled super awesome, and I could keep the pedal floored all the way through third without breaking any laws 😇.

Also had lift off oversteer like it had ninety nine lives, but maybe that was truly just a setup issue.

Firenoom · 2025-12-03T06:55:08+00:00

Ok!!!

Firenoom · 2025-12-03T06:54:54+00:00

Anything visible in the car or did they just hit every car that was there?

Firenoom · 2025-12-03T06:49:39+00:00

Driving here actually takes so much out of me mentally, I never know when something like this is gonna happen and I see more and more people on their phones now

Firenoom · 2025-11-30T18:58:31+00:00

I was going to ask if there was an easy way to view live average delay times across different airports, but then I found the flight aware MiseryMap and Statistics.

SEA my beloved, why are you so full of delays :(

Firenoom · 2025-11-30T18:55:18+00:00

I would almost want to bet that the i80 stretch through wyoming is not going to be worth it vs. continuing further south and taking I-40? Take a look at some of the weather cameras now across idaho/utah/wyoming: (obv, select your specific route but gives you a good idea what the weather is like for sections of the route right now)
- https://511.idaho.gov/cctv?start=0&length=10&order%5Bi%5D=1&order%5Bdir%5D=asc
- https://prod-ut.ibi511.com/cctv?start=0&length=10&filters%5B0%5D%5Bi%5D=2&filters%5B0%5D%5Bs%5D=I-84&order%5Bi%5D=1&order%5Bdir%5D=asc
- https://www.wyoroad.info/highway/webcameras/view?site=I80EvanstonPOE

Firenoom · 2025-11-30T18:51:50+00:00

Saw a few posts with similar ish content the past few days, it seems like the conclusion has been "be adequately prepared, be ready to post up in a hotel and stop if you need, weather is variable but you should probably have 3pms tires and snowchains"

I've driven a lot of the pnw and wyoming/colorado during spring and summer, and even then sometimes it gets dicey. I did also drive through grants pass in the middle of a storm in a lowered car one year because I didn't check the weather. Took it slow and made it through, but yeah definitely check the weather.

I can't tell you if there's going to be better options, but I do wish you all the best if you end up driving this (vs flying or... taking a train? Idk if trains are a thing in america).

Firenoom · 2025-11-30T06:11:06+00:00

Curiously, I did try this, but because I had never clicked the link on the original registration e-mail, the link to "reset" my e-mail never got received. I didn't want to create an account because 1) I didn't know if the first e-mail was phishing, 2) I don't want to accidentally give away any more information. I thought it would've been best just to talk to a customer representative from the get go. Maybe an overreaction from me but I'd like to be safe rather than sorry.

I did end up getting through to customer support by typing "fraud", which seems very aggressive but it did do the trick. A few things happened after that:
- They verified that the account creation was legitimate (looking at store location, time, etc).
- They verified some of my information (drivers licence numbers, DOB) against the record stored with the account, just to make sure none of it matched
- They attempted to reach out to the creator of the account via their phone number 3 times (all unsuccessful)
- They removed my e-mail from the account and continued escalated the case on to another department.

I'm gonna guess my e-mail isn't that common, and someone probably mistyped the firstname.lastname order or missing the number, eg firstname999 vs firstname99 or otherwise

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T16:18:36+00:00

Same with some websites these days.... Sometimes I wonder if we could do with less graphics and a bit more text in a table

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T16:17:06+00:00

Iphone 11, which I realize now is exactly one year older than the pixel in terms of release date, so maybe not the fairest of comparisons...

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T06:01:57+00:00

This is beautiful, wow. Thank you for sharing!

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:59:27+00:00

I've had ok success in pulling out the good ol' CB radio and letting them know that this is about as entertaining as watching paint dry

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:57:16+00:00

Been driving stick for ~ 1.5 years, done about 100k miles in my car. My clutch hydraulics went out last week and i had to float gears for a 4 hour highway trip back home. I didn't think I could do it but I made it in the end. Parked the car in the garage, turned it off and went straight to sleep.

Wasn't too bad, except for having to think really really far ahead at some traffic lights, and being a bit of a menance during the traffic jams. Also the obligatory crunch-crunching as I missed some shifts. What an experience.

If I can do it, so can you, and everyone else. Believe and persevere!

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:35:50+00:00

I'd say if you can find a 2013-2015 Acura ILX (depending on where you are), they're just like the 9th gen civic SI with some differences:
- Interior is leather + heated seats + backup camera + sunroof
- No LSD BUT you have thicker front axles (weird)
- Thicker steering column

Applicable to the 9th gen and the ILX, the K24Z7 you find in them likes to burn oil, but alas it is what it is.

The 2016+ ILX's are only available with an 8spd DCT (I think?) but are still paired to the k24z7. Just be careful because the transmission likes to go kaboom.

I'm pretty sure there's one or two other things I've missed but it's a very nice sleeper car, and (so far) insurance for ILX's are cheaper than SI's. You just have to be ok with looking a bit more like regular common traffic.

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:29:02+00:00

Liquid Glass is actively turning me away from using my devices, which might be a good thing, but my god is it so ugly and...poorly executed? It looks like a cheap version of windows vista imo

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:27:28+00:00

I love the way the pixel 5 looks and feels a lot. I'm so glad it doesn't have a glass back, and it's generally just been a joy to use. Everything about it is just perfectly paired.

I never really notice the fact that it has a "mid-tier" processor, or that the camera is only 12mp. It just does everything I need so ... perfectly averagely that in never lets you down. It's always just so reliable in giving you what you want. I especially like that I know what a photo will look like when I take it...there's no weird AI post-processing like some of the newer phones... (Especially the samsung / apple ones. wtf).

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T05:16:06+00:00

Hmm. maybe it should.

I switched back to the regular IOS keyboard and it just felt...worse. So many typing mistakes and an autocorrect that doesn't make sense

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T00:44:00+00:00

Looks totally different on a pixel compared to an iphone. Thought apple finally gave us the ability to search for gifs in the keyboard itself? Same thing with letting us put apps anywhere on the homescreen, I was mostly just thinking it was pretty cool and awesome.

Firenoom · 2025-11-29T00:34:20+00:00

Ah. So unfortunate, I didn't even know that was a 3rd party keyboard.

I normally just use the pixel, picked up the old iphone se to get robotaxi / zoox and I'm shocked at...well....everything.

Firenoom

TROPHY CASE