Editors’ Choice Awards
From a thousand contenders to 12 winners: We introduce the season’s lightest, warmest, and toughest gear.

Apparel
Suit up and get after it with these layers and shells.

Equipment
Upgrade your kit to go farther, faster, and more comfortably this winter. Including: backpacks, snow safety gear, skis, splitboards, and boots.

Essentials
Hats, gloves, electronics, and more

Great Escapes
Our favorite photographers and contributors share their hall-of-fame trips. Put one on your 2017 calendar now.

The Play List

Blackrock Mountain, NC
Raise a flask to the perfect fall view in this remote East Coast range.

Done In a Day: Shifting Sands
Make first tracks on these dayhikes across America’s best dunefields.

Insider’s Guide: Gila Wilderness, NM
Embrace cool nights and comfortable days while traversing deep canyons, forested mesas, and high ridges in the country’s first wilderness area.

The Experience: Packs and Poetry
Pair your favorite verse with your favorite trail to see the wilderness in a whole new way.

Lone Pine Lake, CA
This High Sierra basin, tucked beneath Mt. Whitney, seems to hold time itself.

Dead Horse Point, UT
Hike to an iconic redrock view without the summer crowds.

Life List: Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia
Discover a wildlife mecca on the Horn of Africa.

Weekends
Get a Colorado hot springs to yourself; tackle a section of the Ozark Trail; paddle through a swamp in Georgia.

Geopinion: Monumental Crisis
Mr. Obama, you’ve been a record-setter at protecting public lands. But is it enough?

Skills

Conquer the Cold
Stay warm on the trail and in camp with tips from a White Mountains master.

Cheat Sheet: Cross a Frozen Lake
Traversing ice can be a fun (and fast) way to get around in winter. Do it safely with these expert tips.

Trail Chef: Ramen
Upgrade your camp noodles with three easy recipes.

Out Alive: Attacked
Things go bump in the night at an infamous shelter on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.

Saved By:A Knife
Master these six key techniques to turn your blade into a multipurpose survival tool.

Den Mother:High and Dry
Surprised by snow? Build snowshoes from branches and dry soggy clothes quickly.