Stephen Regenold is the founder of GearJunkie, which he launched as a newspaper column at age 25 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Regenold cut his teeth producing a quarterly ‘zine at the University of Minnesota’s Journalism School and then as a reporter for a business magazine.
Regenold launched GearJunkie.com in 2006, and for years, he covered the outdoors and adventure space, including as a correspondent for the New York Times. With the NYT, Regenold published more than 50 articles, writing first-person accounts from remote geographies spanning from northern Ontario to the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave in Belize.
Stephen is also a proud adventure racer. His semi-pro team then won the U.S. Adventure Racing Championship in 2012. Regenold has trekked to Mount Everest and climbed the highest volcano in Iceland. He staked first-ascent climbs in Canada and also (hilariously) won the 2013 Brompton U.S. Championships on a tiny, fold-up British bike.
GearJunkie was eventually acquired by AllGear Digital in 2020, and Stephen remains on as VP of Strategy. Beyond work and the outdoors, Regenold is the father of five kids and serves as a coach on their school’s NICA mountain bike team. He and his wife, Tara, live in Minneapolis.
I’ve long kept a cache of lightweight emergency equipment in the bottom of my backpack, including a space blanket, matches, a compass, fire-starters, water purification,…
I attended the Teva Mountain Games in Vail, Colo., last year, running in the 5K and doing the adventure race, which included 12,000-foot summits, endless…
In the realm of oddball outdoors food, Command Foods’ line of lunchtime oatmeals — including Broccoli Cheese, Tangy Lemon Chick’n, and Vegetable — takes some…
In the guess-what-I-did-last-night file, here’s a kicker: I went surfing behind a speedboat. No, this isn’t wakeboarding. Look close. This is surfing. On a wake.…
I met JJ Reich last week. He’s the “Senior Field Test Coordinator” at North American Hunter and North American Fisherman magazines, where he oversees dozens…
Made for birders, hunters, photographers, star gazers, and maybe rock climbers trying to point out holds high on a face, the IC-UC handheld spotting sight…
This one’s from The Goat, via the Capital Times newspaper in Madison, Wis., where 26-year-old Ryan Lipscomb has performed the ultimate gear test of GETTING…
Keen and Mion have each sent me a pair of water/canyon/river shoes, respectively the Hood River II sandals and the Fast Canyon hybrid-frogfoot-sandal-thingy. Cool designs…
If nothing else, my attempt to climb the 14,179-foot stratovolcano of Mount Shasta last weekend in northern California was a great opportunity to test gear.…
Continuing the countdown of my top gear picks from the past five years, the Genesis Pharmaceutical Hydropel body lube and Rail Riders Weatherpants come in…
Continuing the countdown of my top gear picks from the past five years, the Pacsafe TravelSafe 100 security pouch and Montrail’s Susitna XCR super trail…
New government-issue color aerial photographs taken between 2003 and 2006 have enabled MyTopo.com to create a new cartographic product, the TopoPhoto map. This hybrid feat…
This is my report on the efforts of a dozen disconnected groups — from area NGOs and independent academic researchers, to international organizations as large…
In a recent story for ForbesTraveler.com on ecologically-friendly lodges, I attempted to look beyond the promotional green-washing that’s becoming common in the tourism trade. Instead,…
Backcountry.com, an online retailer of outdoors equipment, launched an in-house line of technical outerwear earlier this year, including the Cairn Fleece Jacket, a $110 model…
