Oregon Mike's common mans water bottle with holder

A common man's piece of home made gear along side a high quality commercial bottle holder. Both work great! You can also think of the home made one as a light weight temporary unit. Visit EK USA's website if you are interested in their quality bottle holders.

Pocket knife retention & lid grabber

Just some ideas for not losing your pocket knife when outdoors & one option to get that hot pot lid off.

A second look at the possible bear scrape in HD

Here is a second look at the possible bear scrape for my friend Scott. This time a closer view in HD. Still not the highest setting my new camera can do as I'm still learning to use it. Scott had some thoughts after seeing this video and found the video below, which is interesting and entertaining.

Here are Scott's comments; "I've seen squirrels strip cedar bark off trees for nests "hence the pile on the bottom" look up in the tree for the nest or follow the tiny pieces they will come back and strip from the same spot...I'm pretty sure (99%) that's it and is the right time of the year for this, no bear, and if it was a person gathering bark they cut down to the wood, but they do walk backwards ripping it up the tree for bent bark baskets"

Bear scrape?

I found this large scrape off a rarely used hiking trail. My first instinct is a bear, but I am not sure. It did not have deep claw marks like I would think a bear would do but after speaking with an experienced bear hunter he said it sounded like a bear. He even asked about the smaller marks around the tree before I had a chance to tell him about them. What do you guys think?