This week: analyzing hiking gear with AI, and tooling around that.
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Author: Ben Brooks
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Arc’teryx Gamma Hoody
I haven’t owned a soft shell jacket in a very long time, and a lot of that really is due to the fact I first wore them when they were new — and thus not that great — and I ditched them because of those compromises from the originals. There’s two types of soft shells out there: fashion (aka Finance Bro shit with company logos), and serious outdoors jackets.
I had written soft shells off completely, as I thought they were all fashion bullshit — a compromise not worth owning. But my interest was piqued again when I started reading more about the modern variants.
Then I went to try out the Gamma in person, to help a friend looking at options who lived far away from an Arc’teryx store. What I found surprised me, and a week or so later I bought the Gamma hoody for myself. It’s been one of the best purchases I have made for outdoor/hiking wear — and I wear it often.
It’s very good.
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More Backpacks for Sale
Added a few more backpacks to my gear sale, these ones are a little more rare for you. Also I dropped some prices!
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Packable Tote Bags
Since moving to back to an area where carrying your own tote bags for items you purchase is not only recommended, but largely assumed, I’ve been on the hunt for the best packable tote bags. There’s loads of these out there, so here’s what I am liking so far.
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Pioneer Carry Zen Zips
Note: these were provided for review.
Pioneer Carry asked me a while back if there was anything I’d like to check out from the brand in addition to the backpacks they’ve been sending over, and I focused in on the Zen Zips which are a pair of tiny little pouches. They had been out of stock, but recently Pioneer Carry was kind enough to send over these cute little pouches, and I’m glad they did.
This a fun and quirky, and a great thing to have on hand.
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Making a Porter Tanker Bag
This is a stellar video on the process to make a Porter Tanker bag. (h/t to Cody in the Discord for sharing with me.)
Staggering how it’s essentially all by hand. Captivating watch.
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The Best of 2025 is out…
Just in time for end of year sales, The Best List for 2025 has been published for members. The sections are expanded, while trying to keep it concise. A lot of turmoil this year, so go check it out.
2024’s list is now free for all, and you can see past years here.
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The Range Rover P38
Gear Patrol has a great ode to the Range Rover P38, and as someone who owned a 1998 model year 4.6HSE for a long time I can concur — this is a fantastic vehicle.
But there’s a caveat.
The caveat is that these epitomize the Land Rover stigma of always being in the shop, and thus needing two. In fact, when I met my wife, I had this generation Range Rover — she had to drive me to and from the shop so much, that I am henceforth banned from owning another Land Rover.
That said, these are just a beast of a vehicle. They drive like a tank, they are fantastic off roaders, and smooth on the road. The interior is obnoxiously comfortable, and they have loads of space. I once drove this through 12-14” in snow and ice up a hill without the car flinching while others slid back down. Confidence inspiring.
The V8 is mated to a 4-speed, which is not the smoothest, as it struggles with gearing at modern highway speeds, with constant shifting issues to keep the power in-band.
So, I do think the P38 is stellar, but I also would advise you not own one. Like, at all. Unless it’s a second car you never need to rely on, whether day to day, or on a trip of any kind. It never left me stranded, but I still have error codes and multi-thousand dollar invoices burned into my head.
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Some Thoughts On Home Server Stuff at the End of 2025
It’s been about a year now since I went really deep on my home server setup, replacing a lot of what I used to pay for with open source, self-hosted, systems which sit right next to me in the office. So I thought I would take a moment to talk through some of the software, and the hardware — what worked well and what didn’t.
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Gear Wrap Up 2025
This was an interesting year for gear in a lot of ways — so I thought I would wrap up the year commenting on different gear categories and how they felt over 2025. In some ways there’s a lot of good out there, but in far too many other ways, it was disappointing.
I’ll go category by category.
