Ryan Stuart, explore's gear editor
Ryan Stuart's tell all blog spot on his gear addiction and life and times as explore magazine's gear editor
Sick days - and not in the good way
Too much work and not enough gear testing landed me a case of bronchitis. I don’t recommend it. I’ve been coughing for weeks. Doing anything aerobic ends in a coughing fit, so I’ve been holed up at home bitter that the snow keeps falling. It even snowed here in Courtenay, an unheard of event for this late in March.
The only good thing about the situation is that I’ve been able to spend time working on gear reviews for explore’s June issue. For Into Gear, our regular themed gear piece, I’m checking out warm weather wool products - shoes, shorts, tops, hats and jackets that are made with wool. These are a growing class of clothing and other equipment that uses wool to keep you cool and smelling good not matter how hot the dog days get. It’s all part of wool’s return to popularity.
A nice offshoot of wool’s comeback is that several brands are insisting on kind treatment of New Zealand Merino sheep. Get your mind out of the sheep farmer joke gutter. Sheep and the dogs that are used to herd them aren’t always treated humanly, but now companies with a social conscience are insisting on better treatment on the farms that they work with. For instance, companies like Mountain Equipment Co-Op and SmartWool are refusing to buy sheep subject to mulesing, a gruesome operation I’ll leave to Wikipedia to explain. That’s good news for the sheep and peace of mind for us.
Icebreaker will soon start tracking wool from source to shop. You’ll be able to buy a shirt and link the garments with the farm it came from. I think it’s a pretty cool concept.
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