The 2026 Best/Worst Gear Awards
Now that the season’s wrapped up, it’s time to present the YAA 2026 Best & Worst Gear Awards. Nothing test gear like guiding. The demanding nature of leading trips all summer long in challenging environments means that gear gets worn out, chewed up, and thoroughly trashed. If it can survive a guiding season AND get an award for being awesome, you better bet that the gear here is certified awesome.
Now without further ado, here’s our best, and absolutely worst gear of the season.
Sidebar: Check out our previous best and worst gear list in Adventure Club Issue 10
**The Best of the Best**
#1 Showa Temres 282-02
Hands down the best gloves. After 2 seasons of wear, I can now confidently say that they work, and they work damn well. Warm, 100% waterproof, lightweight and extremely dexterous. Best of all, you can get a pair for less than $40 on amazon.
My first trip of 2026 got absolutely trashed with rain, snow and zero degree days. These gloves were instrumental at allowing me to work in the snow while ensuring my hands didn’t cramp up and get painful in the cold.
This is the only pair of gloves you ever need.
#2 MSR Frontrange Tarp Shelter
This is the second time a pyramid style shelter makes it to the best of gear list. I’ve been using this shelter for three years, and I cannot say enough good things. It has withstood multiple heavy snow storms, tent flattening alpine winds squalls, and day to day expeditions wear and tear again and again and again. 11/10.
You could cram 6 people under this tarp, but a group of 4 with bags is really the sweet spot. If you’re spending any time in the alpine, this is a must-have!
#3 Homemade Pot Insulator
One of my pet peeves with outdoor cooking is that once food is cooked, it often cools really, really quickly. Second servings end up being lukewarm at best, and stone cold at worst. This year, I tried tackling this problem by cobbling together a homemade cooking pot insulator with tuck tape and some canadian tire duct wrap, and holy heck did it work super well! Dinner and pots of tea stayed hot for over 15 minutes.
The whole project took about 15mins to slap together, the materials are cheap and it’s compact and lightweight. Make one yourself and you won’t be disappointed.
#4 Scarpa Kinesis Pro GTX Boots
For most of my gear, I like following the rule of 3. Good quality gear should last about 3 seasons of guiding, and anything past that is a bonus. I just finished my third season with my Scarpa Kinesis boots, and I’m pleased to say that they seem to have a lot of life left in them.
The high quality leather keeps getting more and more comfortable and the boots have stayed waterproof all while providing me with excellent support when carrying heavy loads. Big, honking leather boots aren’t for everyone, but these boots have served me well through forest bushwacks, snow fields, wet marshes, and hard talus slopes.
The industry, my friends, and the people I look up seem to have all moved on to trail runners, but that’s okay, because my trusty Scarpa’s will be there by my side after everyone’s left for to the ultralite world ;-).
**Absolute Cheap Junk**
#1 Defense Aerosols Bear Spray Holster
This holster absolutely sucks. I purchased 6 holsters this past season, and they’ve almost all failed. Within less than 20 field days, the velcro hooks had worn out and the stitching (single stitch lines with no backup) was ripping out. I’ve had to re-stitch almost every one of these hot compost holsters.
The design of the holster is also terrible. By having the belt loop right right in the middle of the holster (instead of high up), means that holster easier flips upside down, leading to your bear spray potentially falling out. This summer, I lost multiple bear sprays due this design flaw, as well as an entire holster that just disintegrated mid-hike.
RECOMMENDATION:
I recently started using the Mystery Ranch bear spray holster, and so far it has worked very well. It’s durable, highly adjustable, and after 30 field days has held up very well. It’s expensive (40-50$), but honestly I think it’s worth it. If ever you need bear spray, the last thing you want is a holster that can’t do the one job it needs to do. You can often find these kinds of holsters at your local hunting outfitter.
#2 MEC Vectair Sleeping Pad
Straight up garbage. It started leaking the first night in the field. But don’t just take my word for it. My secret MEC insider friend shared with me that this is one of their most warrantied items. Poorly, and cheaply built.
RECOMMENDATION:
MEC products are a little bit all over the place. I have some MEC products that have withstood over a decade of extremely hard use, and others that break down if you stare at it for too long. I would recommend only purchasing MEC products that have a decent amount of recent reviews, and ideally only if you can inspect before purchasing. In terms of sleeping pads, I recommend either the Thermarest NeoAir XLite (the yellow one), or the Neoair XTherm (the grey one). Avoid at all costs the Thermarest Uberlite.
#3 Iridium 9575 Extreme Satellite Phone
Ugh, I’ve got mixed feelings about this product. When I’m in the field guiding, I want to have something that I can make a phone call with in case of an emergency. Lightweight, two way messaging devices like inReaches are great for most situations, but if things go sideways, you can’t beat actually talking to someone.
The thing is, the satellite phone is incredibly expensive. Like, north of 2k expensive. On top of that, it costs about $350 per summer for 10 minutes of talking, it’s big and heavy, communication is muffled and difficult to discern, and calls often drop every few minutes. Oh, and did I mention that trying to deal with the satphone provider is really, really hard? The customer service is non-existent, you can’t contact them directly, and I seemed to get overcharged by 150$ a year.
RECOMMENDATION:
Unless you really need it, or you’re in some kind of professional backcountry job, a satellite phone is a thing of the past. 2 way satellite messengers are reliable, cheap(er), light and compact. Even iphone satellite texting is getting better and better.