u/PeterCappelletti

I just rewaxed (or waxed, for it's the first time I did it) my Journeyman, and it came out great.

I am wondering, can it really withstand say 15 minutes of hard rain, with a laptop in it?

I am asking because while it is now rewaxed, the back and bottom of the sides are not made out of tincloth, so they could get wet, and also, it seems easy to miss small spots here and there rewaxing. In truth I have a rain cover in it, but I am wondering: would the backpack resist a quarter of an hour downpour keeping a laptop fully dry? Curious to hear from anyone who has experience.

And I mean downpour. I am sure it can stand hours of drizzle.

I had a 4-day outage as squirrels chewed the fiber cable and AT&T needed to replace some cable and trim a neighbor's tree. Fine. The network came up (and I subscribed to Xfinity in addition, to have some backup).

But after being up for a couple of days, it went down again, and now it has been down for 1 week, with no updates. AT&T tells me that I don't pay during updates, and thank goodness I have Xfinity as well now, but is this normal?

This in Mountain View, CA. Are others having similar trouble with AT&T fiber? Or did they somehow... forget to turn on my internet? I am a bit at a loss.

One year ago I bought an Apple Watch Ultra 2 to keep track of my heart rate while backcountry skiing (basically to pace myself as I had a tendency of going too high heart rate in climbs). Since then I have used it extensively while backcountry skiing, and I thought to write this little report in case others are considering it.

Note: The AWU2 is never my only source of maps. I have a Garmin inReach with satellite & screen always with me, also to call for help, and maps on the phone I carry.

I use WorkOutdoors as my app, using "Hiking" mode.

During the ascent, I configured the screens to display some stats (heart rate, altitude, time of day, total climb, are the main ones). I don't use the watch maps much; I prefer to use CalTopo on the phone if I need serious route-finding.

But when I get to the top and transition to skiing, I change the view to that of map, so I can descend while keeping an eye on my ascent path. This has often been invaluable, especially when one has to hike a bit (10m, or 2h+!) to reach the snow. Especially when one has had to do a bit of bushwacking to get to the snow, and thus needs to carefully retrace the steps down, t's incredibly handy to be able to navigate keeping to the ascent path without having to take a phone out of the pocket.

In my group of skiing friends, two others have a Garmin watch, and it's generally me with my AWU2 that guides the group down when route-finding becomes an issue. I don't know if it's a mix of the AWU2 screen being brighter and more legible, or perhaps the view switching faster. In any case, it works great.

I use WorkOutdoors generally from 7-8am to 4pm (or earlier, depending on when I am back). The watch battery lasts plenty. Of course, it would not last for multi-day trips, but the only multi-day trips I have done had cabins where to sleep at night were I could recharge.