Backpacker Magazine

For five years, Nathan Pipenberg has covered ultralight gear for Backpacker, writing about everything from new fabrics to radical new concepts in backpack design. Alas, all good things must come to an end, and this month, Nate is leaving his post as chronicler of the lightest and brightest. For his final column, he took a look back at some of his favorite gear he’s covered, as well as a few things that missed the mark.

On trails and in shelters across the country, spiders are becoming more visible. Do hikers need to be worried? No, but there are a few things they should know. An Apache jumping spider in Golden, Colorado (Photo: Adam Roy) I was running on my local trail system one warm September morning when something caught my eye. On the concrete wall of a pedestrian overpass sat a large spider, legs stretched out from its glossy black body.

A climber takes a whipper on a wall two miles from the parking area, breaking her right tibia. A hiker collapses in 104ºF heat six miles from the trailhead. A backpacker pushing through sunset stumbles and breaks an ankle, leaving them unable to continue. A dementia patient wanders out an unlocked door in freezing temperatures and disappears into the night. These are just some scenarios volunteer search and rescue teams respond to.

At age 91, Grey Beard admits that finishing the AT was much harder than it was at 82. Dale "Grey Beard" Sanders on his 2026 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. (Photo: Courtesy of Dale Sanders) Dale ‘Grey Beard’ Sanders, 91, was about two tenths of a mile from the top of Mount Katahdin when he took a hard fall. Just steps away from becoming the oldest person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail in a calendar year, he hit the ground for the 71st time on his 12-month journey.

With a roomy interior, high peak height, and unbeatable storage, the Marmot Limelight is a perfect shelter for backpackers who like to spread out. Marmot Limelight (Photo: Courtesy of Marmot) It’s not always about the weight: On some trips, especially ones with minimal mileage or multiple days at the same basecamp, comfort is king. With 45.2 square feet of floor space the 3-person Marmot Limelight has plenty of room for three backpackers to spread out.

Transcript My name’s Tom Bonamici, I’m an assistant professor of product design at the University of Oregon , and I teach in general product design for undergraduates and also our master’s program in sports product design. So, my research is about lightweight backcountry travel, and I am particularly interested in backpacking, been doing it since I was a kid, and I’m also really interested as an Oregonian in sustainability issues.

In what rescuers called a “mentally challenging” operation, a team of three young climbers safely descended Mt. Shasta over the weekend after spending an unplanned night on the peak with no warm sleep systems or shelter. The group had hunkered down off trail in a potentially dangerous location after running out of food and water—and rescuers say their reliance on an AI chatbot to plan some aspects of their trip contributed to their ordeal.

What to know: A group of 18 Native, conservation, and scientific groups are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s July cuts to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, which reduced each monument in size by 9o percent. The plaintiffs allege the president overstepped his authority when he shrunk the monuments, and say they plan to contest mining claims in the area.

The trail passes through the 3,000-foot-high Logar Valley cinematic as a Peter Jackson sequence: Gnarled apple trees and wildflowers line long, narrow fields of bright green grass, and forests of knobby conifers sweep toward a horizon of snow-capped peaks. Historic stone and plaster homes with low-slung shake roofs huddle near the woodline. The path follows the upper Savinja River, which flows clear and aquamarine over a bed of off-white rock.

After five years and over 100 stories, I’m moving on from my post as Backpacker’s ultralight columnist. There’s a lot I could say about the people I’ve met, the stories I’ve told, and the trips I’ve been on. But instead, I’m going to stick to the topic I covered the most, and the one thing every ultralight hiker really loves, even if we don’t want to admit it: Gear.