If I needed to sum up the final 12 months, it could be with a query: Does time transfer sooner with extra information? Admittedly, many individuals might not really feel the depth of present occasions like a journalist toiling away on the keyboard on daily basis. However I’d wager I’m not the one information junkie who felt one thing akin to an overdose in 2024.
It occurs right here at GearJunkie, the place we attempt to concern ourselves principally with the out of doors business, massive information within the sports activities we like to pursue, and, after all, the gear we love to check. Judging by the most well-liked tales from our readers this 12 months, the personable, inventive opinions that outline GearJunkie had been amongst our most-read tales in 2024 — from low-cost pocket knives to offroading luxurious automobiles.
Different common tales embody a information to mushroom foraging, a pioneering solo hiker, and a take a look at the unsure way forward for a beloved out of doors model. However our editors are readers, too. So, along with the most-read tales of 2024, we additionally hand-picked a few of our very favorites to learn (and write).
These are GearJunkie’s 2024 Tales of the Yr.
High Tales Total
Readers’ Choose: Almost Unbeatable Pocket Knife: Kershaw Bel Air Evaluate
“That is the perfect available knife in the marketplace for most individuals,” reviewer Anthony Sculimbrene wrote of the Kershaw Bel Air this 12 months. The evaluate of this folding knife turned GearJunkie’s most-read story of 2024. So, in the event you come right here for suggestions, contemplate this among the finest solutions for gear we’ve made all 12 months lengthy.
As Sculimbrene put it, “Right here is among the best methods to elucidate how good this knife is: Even with a big assortment and different knives needing pocket time for opinions, I proceed to hold the Bel Air. The mixture of the easy-to-use and fidget-friendly lock, high-end blade metal, and skinny blade inventory make the Bel Air among the finest manufacturing knives on the market in 2024.”
Editors’ Choose: I’ve Been Attacked by a Bear, and I Nonetheless ‘Select the Bear’
For those who usually learn GearJunkie opinions of searching and fishing gear, then you definately most likely know the title Rachelle Schrute. Actually, our Hunt & Fish Editor wrote extra prime tales this 12 months than anybody.
But it surely’s on this deeply susceptible essay that readers will discover essentially the most highly effective writing we’ve printed all 12 months. As an professional hunter, angler, and outdoorswoman, Schrute has lived a lot of her life within the wilderness, surviving harmful encounters with each giant animals and “predators in boots.”
So which one is extra harmful? That’s the query many ladies raised on social media this summer time, and Schrute knew she needed to weigh in.
The result’s a transferring meditation on the experiences that comply with us wherever we go — even into the wild.
High Mountain climbing/Tenting Tales
Readers’ Choose: 2 Years, 6,800 Miles, and 27 Pairs of Footwear: First Girl Solo Hikes the ADT
The American Discovery Path stretches from coast to coast, overlaying 6,800 miles. In February, Briana DeSanctis — decided to encourage younger ladies and hikers throughout the nation — turned the primary lady ever to hike the path alone. However the story of what led her to the ADT, and finally to the Pacific Ocean, began years earlier than that in Maine, the place she grew up. Don’t miss this super-popular story of a hiker overcoming the chances from Tenting Editor Will Brendza.
Editors’ Choose: Queen of the Fourteeners: The Girl Who Made CO’s Most Well-known Trails
Brendza additionally wrote and reported this stellar profile of a little-known lady who has impacted the lives of everybody who loves recreating in Colorado. Loretta McEllhiney is basically liable for creating the standardized trails individuals use to summit Colorado’s iconic fourteeners. Brendza sat down with McEllhiney simply days after her retirement to debate her work and legacy.
For starters, she spent extra time wandering the slopes of Colorado’s 14,000+ foot peaks than most likely another residing human, previous or current. She is liable for the standardized trails all of us comply with to their summits. Not solely was she the impetus behind the state’s initiative to construct these trails, however she was additionally the one that scouted, scoped, mapped out, and designed nearly all of them foot by foot, peak by peak.
High Searching/Fishing Tales
Readers’ Choose: Discover Morel Mushrooms: Foraging 101
Who knew GearJunkie readers would gobble up a narrative about mushroom foraging? Nicely, I assume Hunt & Fish Editor Rachelle Schrute most likely did, since she leaned on her personal information and expertise to supply this extremely readable information to discovering fungi:
“As a lay mycologist myself, I get completely elated when the leaves begin to bud on the cottonwood bushes,” she writes. “It’s the signal that spring is right here. For me, it’s the signal to move for the hills and begin giving in to my fungi-gathering behavior. I’ve compiled some information, ideas, and methods, to get you into the sphere foraging your very personal culinary delights.”
Editors’ Choose: Extra Than ‘Simply Boots’: How My Gear Turned a Ceremony of Passage
On this poignant choose from our editors, Schrute manages to seize the profound relationships that many people have with our gear. You would possibly by no means take a look at a pair of searching boots fairly the identical after this rumination on household and the issues that tie us collectively — even at a distance.
“A brand new pair of shoes arrived at my doorstep, and with them, my complete perspective on life modified. Dramatic? Possibly. However in that field was a pair of shoes that unexpectedly introduced tears to my eyes for a lot of causes,” Schrute writes.
“After all, it wasn’t simply the boots. I’m an outdoorsman, an adventurer, and, most significantly, a dad or mum. As my household has grown, strived, struggled, and realized to let go, a single pair of Xtratuf Legacy Boots has performed a gentle function in what we did and what we proceed to do. This shiny new pair mirrored a future my daughter would write, a way forward for her personal, as untold because the gravel bars and Alaska peaks that await her.”
High Motors Tales
Readers’ Choose: 2024 Lexus GX Overtrail First Drive Evaluate
For Motors, the most-read story of the 12 months was an replace on Jeep’s 2024 plans, which included jettisoning the Wagoneer model, and setting a brand new course for EVs. However proper after that, readers saved coming again to a evaluate of the Lexus GX Overtrail from Motors Editor Bryon Dorr.
After spending a while with the all-new 2024 GX 550, Dorr discovered that there’s far more than meets the attention with this third-generation mid-size luxurious SUV.
Editors’ Choose: I Drove the Final Off-Roader: KOH Race Machine Expertise
Judging by the massive grin on his face, I believe you possibly can inform that Dorr additionally loved writing (and using) this one. “No, the final word off-roader isn’t a monster truck, Jeep, Land Rover, UTV, Unimog, or filth bike. The final word off-roader is an Extremely 4 Limitless (4400 Class) race automobile. And, I obtained the nice privilege and alternative to drive one!” Dorr writes.
“I used to be invited out to Johnson Valley, Calif., to expertise the big selection of automobiles that compete on the annual King of the Hammers (KOH) races. However, extra importantly, I obtained behind the wheel of a rockcrawler, the primary electrical 4400 Class Ultra4 automobile, and a 4400 Limitless race machine.”
High Outside Business Tales
Readers’ Choose: YETI Responds to Rumors of Thriller Ranch Section-Out
Many people have sturdy emotions in regards to the out of doors manufacturers we love, so maybe it’s no shock that GJ readers had been so on this replace on Thriller Ranch. YETI, the Austin, Texas-based cooler model, bought Thriller Ranch in early 2024. Then, rumors started circulating this fall that YETI would possibly discontinue the model in 2025.
YETI has remained tight-lipped on its long-term plans for Thriller Ranch, however sure selections — like asserting a line of YETI luggage “impressed” by the decades-old model — didn’t assist cease the rumors. Although YETI mentioned it could proceed providing Thriller Ranch for now, the corporate has a historical past of shopping for and rebranding its acquisitions.
Editors’ Choose: New Manufacturers Breathe New Life Into As soon as-Mighty ‘OR’ Tradeshow
The out of doors gear business’s largest annual occasion has modified so much through the years. Editor-in-Chief Adam Ruggiero is aware of that higher than most, so he was pleasantly shocked by the vibe at this 12 months’s OR Tradeshow. Although it was considerably smaller than in years previous, Ruggiero may need loved it extra this 12 months. His report will get his finger on the heartbeat of the business in this report from Salt Lake Metropolis.
“For the primary time since its pre-pandemic heyday, Outside Retailer had an power to it — and it wasn’t in spite of all of the manufacturers that weren’t there,” Ruggiero writes. “In some ways, it was as a result of of it.”
High Tech Tales
Readers’ Choose: A Yr With Whoop 4.0: A Private Coach Weighs In
Whoop loved a second within the highlight this 12 months. Sport media broadly reported on the tech, which now adorns the wrists of high-profile endurance and out of doors athletes like rock climber Alex Honnold and bike owner Lachlan Morton. Biking & Climbing Editor Seiji Ishii spent over a 12 months attempting out the Whoop to see if it lived up the hype.
“The Whoop 4.0 supplied extremely insightful proof of issues that affected my sleep, restoration, and skill to carry out — each negatively and positively. Initially, these results had been substantial, and way of life adjustments dramatically improved restoration. A 12 months in, though the frequency has dropped, I nonetheless uncover seemingly minor actions that have an effect on my day-to-day restoration,” Ishii wrote.
Editors’ Choose: How a Leica Rekindled My Love of Images in One Week
These with a passing information of the historical past of images will seemingly know the title Leica. The model dominated early Twentieth-century photojournalism, capturing a few of the most iconic pictures ever taken. The venerable firm apparently retains a few of that outdated magic, because it rapidly forged a spell over AllGear Editorial Director Sean McCoy.
“My arms cradled the digital camera, a fabulously highly effective Leica M11, as I lifted it instinctually to my eye,” McCoy writes. “Immediately, it transported me again in time. I rocked the main focus lever and watched the split-image focus come into sharp reduction on a vertical line on a wall.
“And all of it got here flooding again — a ardour for images in my youth washed away in the identical digital tidal wave that swept away so many print publications. This world-class, fashionable digital digital camera, suitable with outdated lenses from my movie profession, breathed life right into a love I believed was lengthy gone.”
High Low cost Gear Tales
Readers’ Choose: This $10 Walmart Knife Is the Hottest Blade on the Market
All people loves deal, and that’s precisely what readers obtained with this glowing knife evaluate.
“Neglect what you suppose you recognize about worth and high quality,” Nick LeFort wrote. “Walmart’s Ozark Path folding knife is all the things you need at an unbeatable worth. “Maybe nothing complicates all that greater than the $10 Ozark Path 7.5” EDC folding knife, offered solely at Walmart.
It’s been in the marketplace for a short while now, however a few months in the past, it began to get loads of consideration on the web — a lot in order that it’s offered out in shops and on-line.
Editors’ Choose: Ode to an Ugly Water Bottle
We clearly love shiny new stuff round right here — simply take a look at our web site title. However we’re additionally individuals who prefer to get outdoors and do issues, and infrequently, the soiled, beat-up model is the perfect one for the job. GJ Editor-in-Chief Adam Ruggiero celebrates the scarred gear that’s at all times there after we want it.
“Water bottles are modern-day outdoorsy style equipment. However when style fades, we should always aspire to have an unsightly water bottle,” Ruggiero writes. “That bottle has not been babied, and it has zero likes on Instagram. It’s not modern; it’s refillable. It’s not fairly; it’s moveable. It’s imperfect from each angle — and in that method, it’s distinctive in a world of splashy, unsullied sameness.”
