Every year, TIME's editors and correspondents work together to compile a collection of the most interesting and groundbreaking new products and innovations for the Best Inventions list. As holiday season approaches, the TIME team has pulled out a selection of the 10 best outdoors items from the list that would make a perfect gift for the explorers and adventurers in your life. Inclusivity is rarely the focus of outdoor equipment innovation.
With the help of professional adaptive athlete Vasu Sojitra, The North Face set out to change this with the Universal Collection. The frame of the Universal Wawona 3 tent comes together with three poles of the same size, eliminating the need for designers to use color coding that would be useless to the visually impaired to signal which pole goes where. The tent’s doorway also features a low threshold that makes it easier to roll in a wheelchair, which should have no problem being stored in the tent’s cavernous front vestibule alongside any other camping gear. _—Rae Witte_ Hard coolers take up too much storage space; soft coolers don’t offer enough insulation.
Coleman merged the best of both with its first collapsible hard-sided cooler. The Snap ‘N Go has a leakproof design, retains cold for up to 64 hours, and quickly folds to a third of its size. It’s already outselling the company’s predictions: “I think it shows the desire for people to be outside and have easily transportable gear,” Barbieri says._—Derek Rose_ Mosquito-borne diseases cause over 700,000 deaths per year, making the mosquito the world’s deadliest animal.
Protective measures typically involve synthetic chemicals like permethrin and Deet or natural repellents with varying degrees of effectiveness, but outdoor apparel brand Royal Robbins sees another way: fabric construction. Its Salathé Sun Hoodie is made with a proprietary tight-weave ripstop fabric that the company says is roughly 92% effective against mosquito bites in lab and field testing and doesn’t wear away with time, all while remaining lightweight and breathable. As an added bonus, the fabric also offers UPF40+ sun protection. _—Derek Rose_ Designed for the outdoors, Escape is a high-flow pressurized water purifier that holds 5.25 gallons and filters 1 liter per minute, removing viruses, bacteria, parasites, and microplastics. _—TIME Staff_ Windbreakers are usually made from petroleum-based synthetics like polyester or nylon, and treated with forever chemicals—that’s what makes them windproof, water resistant, and durable.
But it’s also what makes them an environmental nightmare. The team instead designed a windbreaker with Tencel Lyocell, a wood-pulp fiber, as the main fabric, tightly woven and treated with a PFAS-free water-repellent finish. The result is a breathable, water-repellent windbreaker that doesn’t rely on the oil industry or shed microplastics. —_Matthew Huff_ After decades of creating some of the lightest sleeping pads for camping, Cascade Designs’s latest release is also one of the plushest.
At 30 oz., the new Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad is still quite light. But instead of crinkly, unbreathable nylon, the inflatable mattress is constructed from a stretch knit polyester usually reserved for apparel, which feels smooth against your skin and is virtually noiseless when you shift in your sleep. It also inflates to 4.6-in. thick, unprecedented for a mattress that—when rolled up—is hardly larger than a 1L Nalgene water bottle. _—Adam Schram_ More climbers die on Mont Blanc than on any other mountain in Europe.
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