Tips

This area is for sharing ideas, tips and tricks that are useful outdoors. The web links page also has lots of external websites with good stuff in them.

Making Trips Happen

• Trip Guidelines - how to lead a trip and how to be a helpful participant
• Trip Ideas

Outdoor Skills

• Navigation
• Online Mapping How to make your own maps for free.
• Winter safety
• Avalanche safety
• Photography tips
• Survival
• Snow shelters
• Trail building tips for building trails
• Hut building - tips for building huts
• Bike trip planning

Gear

• 6items you should own in the VOC
• Gear ideas Gear suggestions and ideas for how to make your own.
• Gear weights - do you weigh everything? Independently weighed gear.
• Gear lists
• Daisy chain How (not) to use a daisy chain.
• Ski maintenance Tips for waxing skis, tuning skis, and re-gluing skins.
• Footwear maintenance How or where to get boots and shoes of all types repaired.

Food

• Where to eat When you're in the mountains
• Edible plants
• Recipes and other backcountry cooking related stuff.
• Food weights
• Cafes, Eateries, and Meeting Spots for popular pre/post-trip destinations

Website/Wiki/Internet

• Message board guidelines
• Photo gallery How to use the VOC's own photo gallery.

External links

• BackRoadStatus.com is a good resource to find current road conditions. The BC government also maintains a map showing Forest Service Road closures.
• Spadout has a vast comprehensive wiki website about backpacking, caving, rock climbing and skiing.
• Backpacker Magazine contains a acknowledgable subsection about proper footwear
• USDA Nutrient Data Laboratory has a searchable database for calorie and nutritional value of tons of food items. A downloadable program is also available for PC and PDA.
• Ice Axe Self Arrest Tips A YouTube Video from the British Mountaineering Council.
• The National Outdoor School of Leadership provides outdoor leadership courses that teach backpacking, mountaineering, sea kayaking and sailing all around the world.
• Steep and Cheap is a great website to find some sweet deals on gear. Shipping to Canada is a bit expensive though, but the ginormous amount of savings on these deals usually covers the shipping cost.
• discussion about friction in pulley systems for mountain rescue
• Snow anchor strength study
• US Army Ice Safety Guidelines