If I needed to sum up the final 12 months, it will be with a query: Does time transfer quicker with extra information? Admittedly, many individuals could not really feel the depth of present occasions like a journalist toiling away on the keyboard day by day. 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 largely with the out of doors trade, 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 evaluations that outline GearJunkie had been amongst our most-read tales in 2024 — from low cost pocket knives to offroading luxurious automobiles.
Different fashionable 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’ Decide: Almost Unbeatable Pocket Knife: Kershaw Bel Air Assessment
“That is one of the best available knife available on the market for most individuals,” reviewer Anthony Sculimbrene wrote of the Kershaw Bel Air this 12 months. The evaluate of this folding knife grew to become GearJunkie’s most-read story of 2024. So, in case you come right here for suggestions, take into account this top-of-the-line ideas for gear we’ve made all 12 months lengthy.
As Sculimbrene put it, “Right here is among the best methods to clarify how good this knife is: Even with a big assortment and different knives needing pocket time for evaluations, I proceed to hold the Bel Air. The mix of the easy-to-use and fidget-friendly lock, high-end blade metal, and skinny blade inventory make the Bel Air top-of-the-line manufacturing knives on the market in 2024.”
Editors’ Decide: I’ve Been Attacked by a Bear, and I Nonetheless ‘Select the Bear’
Should you usually learn GearJunkie evaluations of looking and fishing gear, then you definately most likely know the identify Rachelle Schrute. The truth is, our Hunt & Fish Editor wrote extra high tales this 12 months than anybody.
Nevertheless it’s on this deeply susceptible essay that readers will discover probably 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 Mountaineering/Tenting Tales
Readers’ Decide: 2 Years, 6,800 Miles, and 27 Pairs of Footwear: First Lady 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 girls and hikers throughout the nation — grew to become the primary girl ever to hike the path alone. However the story of what led her to the ADT, and ultimately 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 percentages from Tenting Editor Will Brendza.
Editors’ Decide: Queen of the Fourteeners: The Lady Who Made CO’s Most Well-known Trails
Brendza additionally wrote and reported this stellar profile of a little-known girl who has impacted the lives of everybody who loves recreating in Colorado. Loretta McEllhiney is essentially chargeable for creating the standardized trails folks 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 some other residing human, previous or current. She is chargeable 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 who scouted, scoped, mapped out, and designed nearly all of them foot by foot, peak by peak.
High Looking/Fishing Tales
Readers’ Decide: How one can 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 timber,” 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, suggestions, and methods, to get you into the sector foraging your very personal culinary delights.”
Editors’ Decide: 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 looking 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 trainers arrived at my doorstep, and with them, my whole perspective on life modified. Dramatic? Possibly. However in that field was a pair of trainers 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 mum or dad. As my household has grown, strived, struggled, and discovered to let go, a single pair of Xtratuf Legacy Boots has performed a gradual position 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’ Decide: 2024 Lexus GX Overtrail First Drive Assessment
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 stored 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 way more than meets the attention with this third-generation mid-size luxurious SUV.
Editors’ Decide: I Drove the Final Off-Roader: KOH Race Machine Expertise
Judging by the large grin on his face, I feel you’ll be able to inform that Dorr additionally loved writing (and driving) this one. “No, the final word off-roader isn’t a monster truck, Jeep, Land Rover, UTV, Unimog, or grime bike. The last word off-roader is an Extremely 4 Limitless (4400 Class) race car. And, I received 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 received behind the wheel of a rockcrawler, the primary electrical 4400 Class Ultra4 car, and a 4400 Limitless race machine.”
High Out of doors Trade Tales
Readers’ Decide: YETI Responds to Rumors of Thriller Ranch Part-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 decisions — like asserting a line of YETI baggage “impressed” by the decades-old model — didn’t assist cease the rumors. Although YETI stated it will proceed providing Thriller Ranch for now, the corporate has a historical past of shopping for and rebranding its acquisitions.
Editors’ Decide: New Manufacturers Breathe New Life Into As soon as-Mighty ‘OR’ Tradeshow
The out of doors gear trade’s largest annual occasion has modified quite a bit over time. Editor-in-Chief Adam Ruggiero is aware of that higher than most, so he was pleasantly stunned by the vibe at this 12 months’s OR Tradeshow. Although it was considerably smaller than in years previous, Ruggiero might need loved it extra this 12 months. His report will get his finger on the heartbeat of the trade in this report from Salt Lake Metropolis.
“For the primary time since its pre-pandemic heyday, Out of doors 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’ Decide: A Yr With Whoop 4.0: A Private Coach Weighs In
Whoop loved a second within the highlight this 12 months. Sport media extensively reported on the tech, which now adorns the wrists of high-profile endurance and out of doors athletes like rock climber Alex Honnold and bicycle owner Lachlan Morton. Biking & Climbing Editor Seiji Ishii spent over a 12 months making an attempt out the Whoop to see if it lived up the hype.
“The Whoop 4.0 offered extremely insightful proof of issues that affected my sleep, restoration, and talent to carry out — each negatively and positively. Initially, these results had been substantial, and life-style modifications 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’ Decide: How a Leica Rekindled My Love of Pictures in One Week
These with a passing information of the historical past of pictures will seemingly know the identify Leica. The model dominated early Twentieth-century photojournalism, capturing among the most iconic photos ever taken. The venerable firm apparently retains a few of that previous magic, because it shortly 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 aid on a vertical line on a wall.
“And all of it got here flooding again — a ardour for pictures in my youth washed away in the identical digital tidal wave that swept away so many print publications. This world-class, trendy digital digital camera, suitable with previous lenses from my movie profession, breathed life right into a love I assumed was lengthy gone.”
High Low cost Gear Tales
Readers’ Decide: This $10 Walmart Knife Is the Hottest Blade on the Market
All people loves a very good deal, and that’s precisely what readers received with this glowing knife evaluate.
“Overlook what you suppose you realize about value and high quality,” Nick LeFort wrote. “Walmart’s Ozark Path folding knife is all the things you need at an unbeatable value. “Maybe nothing complicates all that greater than the $10 Ozark Path 7.5” EDC folding knife, offered completely at Walmart.
It’s been available on the market for a short time now, however a few months in the past, it began to get lots of consideration on the web — a lot in order that it’s offered out in shops and on-line.
Editors’ Decide: Ode to an Ugly Water Bottle
We clearly love shiny new stuff round right here — simply take a look at our website identify. However we’re additionally individuals who prefer to get outdoors and do issues, and infrequently, the soiled, beat-up model is one of the best 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 must 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 approach, it’s distinctive in a world of splashy, unsullied sameness.”