The airports went by like a foggy dream -- MSP, LAX, BKK (Bangkok), and, finally, the destination, KTM. It was four flights, two movies, ample book-reading time, seven hours of sitting-up sleep, 9,000+ miles in the air, and over 30 hours of travel time. But I made it to Kathmandu!

Expedition Hanesbrands kicked off two weeks ago when Jaime Clarke, the lead climber, began a trek toward Everest Base Camp. Scott Simper, the expedition's videographer/photographer, and I played catch up on the Everest Trail last week. But before we left Kathmandu, Simper, our guide Min Magar, and I had a bit of time to explore the city.

First stop: The crazy alleyways and streets of the Thamel District. This is a shopping and tourist area, a scene that mixes beggars with trekking guides, tourists and locals. Stores sell live chickens, fabrics and jewels, and name-brand climbing and expedition gear.

Trucks and taxis push through people in Thamel. On the tight streets, motorbike drivers rocket and weave, roaring inches past your heels. They honk and accelerate, pedestrians leaping and fast-stepping to get out of the way. Kids thrust their hands in your face, begging for change. Incense and fried-food smells stream from stalls, thick smoke mingling with exhaust and garbage decaying in piles out front of book shops and places that sell beads.

We browsed the gear shops in Thamel. The knock-offs are plentiful, from "North Face" duffel bags and down pants, to "Mammut" shell jackets, "Columbia" fleeces, and assorted "Mountain Hardwear" gear. "Look out for rip-offs," Magar had warned. At one shop, I unzipped some climbing pants to inspect their quality. Thin nylon that looked sun-faded served as the outer fabric. "Waterproof! Good!" shouted the shop owner. He offered them for $35, a steal had they been authentic. But they were junk. The zippers were cheap. The fabric would shred on a climb. I tried them on but left without a sale. The shop owner shouted "$10, please, you buy!" as I walked away.

Scott needed some medication for the trek, and so we went deeper into Thamel for a pharmacy. Horns, shouts, pleas for money, and happy "hellos" or "namastes" overloaded the senses. Buildings propped high, precarious structures connected by electric wires and prayer flags. The streets are canyons below. Pigeons roosted, cooing on the wires, then taking off in group flutter as lightning started to crackle in the sky.

We ran back toward our hotel in the rain. The motorbikes were slower, drivers shielding their eyes from the big drops and truck spray. I wrapped my camera in a shirt and stuffed it in my pack, praying it didn't get wet. We jogged, stopping to dodge cars and play "Frogger" at each street crossing. "More dangerous than the trek to Everest," Simper yelled.

Rain increased. Tourists ran and hid. Locals covered goods with tarps and plastic bags. They retreated into open store fronts, rain streaming in curtains, roaring off roofs and awnings to sequester with water and seal off the sellers' yellow-lit stalls.

We changed clothes when we got back to our hotel, the Yak & Yeti. A cricket match played on a big-screen TV in the bar. We had dinner in the dining room. Rain pounded outside, lightning struck, and the electricity was killed for a minute in the hotel. All the rooms went dark. But the diners didn't mind. We sat and listened to the wind and the thunder. Windows were cracked to let the cool air in. Water washed the rooftop and shot off in a spout. Birds flew to hide on balcony stoops, ducking and cooing once out of the rain.

Scott and I toasted to the city as the lights came back on, life inside waking up again in a yellow glow. We were both tired and beat, time-zone agnostic on the other side of the world. It was 7pm in Kathmandu and early morning at home in the United States. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday? We weren t exactly sure. We ate and drank and drifted to our rooms. I sank into sleep without clearing the gear off my bed, eyes shut, fading on a sheet for a few hours' rest before another day in Kathmandu, in this other world.

Stephen Regenold is editor and founder of GearJunkie.com.

It's tax season again, and as I fill out forms and add receipts to tally expenses for my accountant, I see literally the fine lines that define my career. Was that camping trip last July, where I tested gear for a magazine, work or play? (A little of both.) How much of that new bike I purchased can I write off as a "business" expense? In truth, I am a lucky man to be able to do what I love. I get paid to test gear and travel to report on outdoors adventure.

Last month, my trip to do a major adventure race in Chile epitomized the work/play dichotomy of my career and my life. It is indeed a bit of a case study in what I do. I thought a quick dissection might be interesting to lay out. . .

The story starts (or ends, as it is) in late February. It was just a couple days before the major earthquake struck Chile that month when my flight landed in Minneapolis. I was back in the USA after almost three weeks away exploring the tip of the South American continent. It was a close call and a dramatic (and sad) wrap-up to my multi-month involvement with Chile, where I'd completed an expedition in the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego. Readers of GearJunkie.com may have seen that my race team -- "Team Gear Junkie" -- succeeded in finishing the multiday Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. My four-person squad managed to take a top-five spot on the leaderboard after six days of straight racing.

Photo: T.C. Worley
Regenold (in red) runs with Team Gear Junkie in the
Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race, February 2010It was a head-swirling, knee-killing event, including more than 350 miles of wilderness traversed on mountain bike, kayak, and on foot through forests, deserts, mountains, and bogs. In total, we were on the move for six days, three hours, and 31 minutes before finding the finish line on the remote Isla Navarino near Cape Horn.

As a journalist, I have long prided myself on immersion into my stories and my subject matter. The Wenger Patagonia Race was the epitome of this ethos. In addition to "live" coverage of the race on our website by a separate Gear Junkie reporter who traveled with my team to Chile -- http://gearjunkie.com/patagonian-race-blog -- I took notes (mostly mental, a few written) while on the course. I interviewed other racers and staff. After the race, still delusional in a hostel in a remote Chilean town, I scrawled out eight pages of thoughts in a journal -- a mind dump after an experience I may never relive.

Back home a few days later, I got to work. As a syndicated columnist, my reviews and stories appear in multiple publications. I had many story assignments lined up before I left for Chile. And since returning, I have been pitching stories to publications that range from niche adventure titles to mainstream media like daily newspapers.

Photo: T.C. Worley
Team Gear Junkie moments after finishing the 2010
Wenger Patagonian Expedition RaceSince the Wenger race ended, I have written extensively on the event and gear used in the race for my syndicate newspapers, for Outside magazine online, and for the Gear Junkie blog. Indeed, the past three weeks have been a whirlwind of long days writing, editing, sorting photos, and organizing information and notes to critique and report on the dozens of pieces of gear I employed during the event. It is a real "job" when I get home, a desk, an office, and a laptop computer included.

But the results are neat to see. A few examples already published include my "Gear Manifesto" article on GearJunkie.com; "Patagonia Race Report"; columns for Outside magazine online, like this (click to link); a feature story for a daily newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune; and my column, which appears in papers like the Billings Gazette and the Casper Star-Tribune.

Overall, the race was a success on several levels. Both as a journalist and a racer, the Patagonian experience was extremely fulfilling. Not to mention -- despite a persistent, lingering ache behind my right kneecap -- a huge amount of fun as well.

Signing off for now. I gotta get back to work. . .

--Stephen Regenold

The Gear Junkie

03/25/10

Welcome! I am writing this post from home in Minneapolis, a 100-pound Weimaraner (Rodney) and a large pile of gear sprawled beside my desk. It's late March in Minnesota, the long winter clearing up, dirt and dead leaves running with rainwater in the roads. My bike shoes, muddy from a long ride today, are on the floor. Maps are taped on the wall, and a Nepalese man stares up at me from the cover of a Lonely Planet guidebook, his crazed eyes looking out at a valley in the Himalayan Mountain Range.

I have just returned from South America, where I raced in a weeklong event, the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. That was February 9 to 17. Now, next week I leave for Nepal, a trek to Mount Everest Base Camp taking up my calendar for three weeks in April. This is my life. Each year, I travel, race, explore, and test gear -- and then I come home to write about it in my syndicated newspaper column ("The Gear Junkie"), for magazines like Outside and Travel+Leisure, and online at www.GearJunkie.com, a site I created in 2006 to cover adventure and gear.

With this blog, I hope to expand on the material found on GearJunkie.com and do something a bit different. This page, a personal adventure journal and gear-review source, will see updates each week with news from my travels, competition reports, gear-review field tests, and info on news and events in the greater world outdoors.

Stayed tuned for a dissection of the Wenger Patagonian Race later this week. And then follow me to Nepal, where I will add updates live from the trek to Mount Everest. Just pray my sat phone connection works in the Khumbu region and my laptop doesn't fall off a yak.

Checking out for now,

--Stephen Regenold

"The Gear Junkie"

03/22/10