It's still rockin! It has developed a slight patina along the rim, just on the extreme edges of the circumference, likely from rubbing on shirts and whatnot. I think it looks appropriately worn, without looking beat up. I don't take care not to bang it into stuff, and have occasionally, but usually it's the other thing that gets scratched/dinged, as this chunk of metal is somewhat unforgiving in that way, lol. I would not worry about the brightness of the screen. In full sunlight, the e-ink display lights up so bright you would think the backlight is on 300%. The only time it can be difficult is if you're not in pure sunlight, but it's bright outside, and you're viewing the watch at an angle. I'm still only running 40% brightness with a 4 second backlight timeout and getting 10-14 days of battery life if I'm just sitting around home and not being active (shame on me!). On my canoe trips where I'm logging 2-7 hours of GPS paddling and hiking each day, with a good amount of solar (100-250k lux hours), I can squeeze 6-7 days out of it. I could probably get more if I used a stock watchface, but I think that's not bad for that much activity tracking. I hope this helps!!

I will say that the Boundary Boot is not super stiff, so it will only provide mild ankle support. Certainly more than a quick-draining/drying trail runner, which I love (I wear Astral TR1 Mesh shoes for that), but nowhere near a proper boot. That said, most proper boots will not dry remotely quickly. The water won't be cold in July. If you want something that will work for all seasons, the Boundary Boot is awesome, but it will overheat your feet on hot days. I wore them the first week of June in 2021 when we hit record highs, like 94F, and my feet were roasting. I should have switched to my trail runners but didn't. So, for July, I'd probably want a quick drying boot. Astral has their TR1 Merge boots which my buddy had for a season and liked them a lot, but they got stolen at his last rental, sadly. I like Astral because they focus on grip; the outsoles are quite grippy. The prices have gone up quite a bit unfortunately, but they are a good company with good customer support, if that helps.

Mine still holds battery fine when it's powered off, and I get pretty good longevity on my trips. I probably get somewhere around 30 hours of tracking (GPX only, no inReach) before I need to charge it? But I haven't timed it. If your battery is draining significantly while powered off, I'd contact Garmin, as it doesn't sound normal to me.

I haven't forgotten Josh!! I just watched some footage from that trip the other night. Admittedly, I haven't been in the editing mood for over a year, lol. I wanted to step up my game and make the videos more timed with music, smoother transitions and whatnot, but I think the idea of having to put more time into it than I already did has caused me to not want to invest any time at all. Maybe I will stick to my old ways to get the 2021 trips out there, and along the way upgrade my techniques in baby steps. I appreciate the push... I probably won't get the '22 trips out until this fall, if I'm being honest, as I'm moving back into my house hopefully next month and then I have a _lot_ to do there, plus upcoming spring/summer trips. But we'll get there! Thanks again for saying hi. I loved your canoe by the way. Are you doing any trips this year?

I totally get it man! Life gets busy quick. I usually do a 15 or 20 minute long video of our trips and share them with our friends and family on Facebook, and it usually takes me a full year to get around to editing and posting and downloading. I think your videos are edited just fine! I have two trips planned and booked for this summer. One is early June the other is early August. Most likely we will just go to the one in August and make it a long 7 to 10 day trip. Planning on going from Seagull , through Ogish and turn east and come out at ham lake. I can tell with no doubt you do actually remember meeting us because I recall you commenting on our canoe.😂😊. Good memory! Happy paddling!

@@joshdaily1964 Well thank you for liking the videos! I think the cuts and transitions could use some work but thanks. I've wanted to do a route like the Seagull one for a while! I would definitely want 9-10 days to do it as well especially if you pushed west to Kekekabic before heading south. Thanks again Josh, happy paddling to you as well.

Ha! That's one of my favorite shirts. Canoe country is my special place. I want to visit Quetico as well but have been itching to explore many areas of the BWCA before I venture into "dig a hole" country. lol. I've gotten spoiled! Thanks so much for watching and commenting, and I hope you stay warm and safe with this upcoming blizzard!!

Thank you! I agree, a more constant visual aid so you don't have to stare at my face would have been a good call for this one. In the future I'll make sure to incorporate it as much as possible. Thank you for watching!!

I can't say, honestly... I'm not really versed on what the Enduro has that the Fenix doesn't. Sorry!!

@@TechnicallyRugged K,,, that's fine thnx,,, may be i can go with fenix 7 sapphire solar.... Let c

Hey Tom! Reflecting back on the questions for trip planning... how much time do you have, when are you planning on going, how much effort does your group want to put in getting to the destination? The answers to these questions will make it easy to narrow down your options. Generic responses are going to be big lakes, like Basswood, Crooked, Lac La Croix, and Knife, but some of these places are slightly lacking in interesting day trips so you'd be mostly focused on fishing (which sounds like the goal, but it's fun to go see stuff like waterfalls, pictos, and cliffs).

@@TechnicallyRugged it will be 7-8 day trip and looking to have the outfitter plan the trip out for us . We are not in great shape but we do lug our kayaks around when needed, so hopefully this won’t break us to bad. Your video was very helpful, thanks for taking the time to share with us all

@@tomlaurell6754 That's a great amount of time, enough to really settle in and relax. I would strongly encourage you to use canoes instead of kayaks as they are much lighter and larger for gear, which makes them more suitable for portaging as well. For minimal portaging, I think Basswood or Knife is your best bet, but if you can make it to Lac La Croix (LLC), you have a lot more options and IMO better bass water. LLC can be gotten to with kayaks from Moose River North, but it's a fair bit of portaging over a full day, about 7 hours double portaging. You could also get to it via Little Indian Sioux River North, with overall less portaging, but enter on the west side of LLC instead of the east side. The bonus is that you could fish for lake trout on the west side if it's not in the dead of summer, but they are not really found on the east side past Fish Stake Narrows. There are other paths to LLC but none are as short as these 2 entry points. Let me know if you have any other questions! I'm always happy to provide ideas.

All great suggestions! It seems I eat less every year. We used to cut open our dehydrated meals and combine them to save on volume, which required everyone to eat dinner every night, but since we started bringing the meals in their bags (and finding other things to save volume), everyone including me seems to skip 2 dinners on a 9 day trip. Sometimes you just had too many snacks, or you sat around all day and aren't hungry. This year I'll be leaving a few dinners behind, relying on fish or snacks for dinner whenever I don't want a whole meal. I love my 10L dromedary and 4L Platypus gravity filter. I don't even see a need for them to offer a 2L kit (which I started with). Dehydrated food saves so much time... I'm not out there to make exciting food, I'm out there to photograph, fish, and explore. Everyone has different preferences, but if you want to cover a longer distance, cutting food weight makes a lot of sense. Safety is always important as well, and with last year's high water in the spring, I was explicit with my friend group to speak up if they felt uncomfortable and consider any risky waters as a group before proceeding. Thankfully we didn't have anything too sketchy that first week of June, but there were some pretty quick-moving rapids to cut across, and we did assist in the rescue of a Boy Scout canoe that tipped trying to skirt upstream near rapids that we chose to portage around. There's reason people say "Safety first!". Thanks for watching Brian!

I have not put a screen protector on mine and the screen is still flawless. Now, the ring around the screen is slowly building a patina, and that's going to happen no matter what. Tips... disable the pulse oximeter, reduce screen brightness to ~50%, and lower the screen timeout to 5-10sec. I usually get 10-14 days of battery life out of mine depending on how light my use is. On my canoe trips where I'm logging 2-7 hours of GPS paddling and hiking each day, with a good amount of solar (100-250k lux hours), I can squeeze 6-7 days out of it. I could probably get more if I used a stock watchface, but I like Data Lover too much!

@@TechnicallyRugged This is my experience too, in regards to the battery life. Just around ten days between charges. But I use mine for activities nearly every day.

That is a pretty obvious omission now that you say it! I always go in June (good fishing, long days) and Sept (low bugs, mild temps, colors), but I know there are merits to the summer months like warmer water for swimming and ripe berries to eat. I love my spring trips for fishing and the long days that make every day feel like two, but I love my fall trips for the low bugs and crisp weather with a more moody atmosphere. I would highly recommend a late August to mid September trip to anyone who wants to experience the BWCA at its best, without excessive bugs or heat - that right there is a comfort tip if I've ever seen one! Thanks for watching and for your comment!!

Oh CRAP!!! I am going to the boundary waters over the Fourth of July for my first time. Hope the mosquitoes are not as bad as you say. We do have had nuts and have soaked our clothes in permethrin and have permethrin spray for our dogs.

@@cvweekendercvweekender4005 Perhaps we were just unlucky. Lot's of things influence how bad mosquitoes get any given year. Just roll with it. Going to be amazing.

⁠I don’t mind the mosquitoes since early in summer they are slow and easy to kill, but the biting flies are the worst

You probably found it by now, but it's in the system settings which you can access with a long press of the left middle button, then scrolling down to the gear icon, and then going down to System > Backlight.

Heavy is an understatement. It's about $1000 after taxes lol.

I have not! I actually hadn't heard of it until you posted this comment. Personally I've found the GPS accuracy of the 66i to be fine. Multiband would be nice but I wouldn't carry 2 devices to get it. One of the reasons I got the 66i is specifically so I wouldn't have to carry a GPS + satcomm device. I'm sure Garmin will add multiband to the 66i soon enough but it is kind of annoying that they launched a new GPS with the same body (66sr) and didn't offer it with inReach. It seems the 66sr also still uses microUSB. For shame. Maybe the next gen will finally have USB-C, multiband, inReach, and who knows, maybe some durable buttons.

Hi Christoph, I'm not sure if you ended up making a purchase, but Garmin just released the GPSMAP 67i, which has multiband along with inReach functionality, exactly what you were hoping for. They did include USB-C this time as well.

Haha sorry, not me! But there are dozens of outfitters for the BWCA that will rent them to you.

Yeah, flatter bottom canoes only, really. Wenonah Champlain, Seneca, MN3 (not that stable), Boundary Waters, and the SR Quetico 17.

Glad you made it out of that one! I've never paddled at night but I can imagine it getting risky if you've been going all day. Thank goodness your paddles were nearby.

@@TechnicallyRugged haha, yeah me too! Learned a lot on that trip, camaraderie and trust... and lay off the vodka! 🍻

I'm not sure about the first question, but your second one is normal. It depends what features you have enabled, what your screen brightness and timeout are, and so on. The 18 days is a theoretical max but you likely won't hit that. I've seen even higher if I turn almost everything off.

@@TechnicallyRugged thanks for reply

I'm so glad you got something from it after going for 60 years!! This was my 5th year, in a row as well, and I hope for decades more.

I think kneeling would be more stable with or without a load, but especially with a load. It's a whole different boat when loaded. So much more stable.

Thanks Bob. I try to show the reality of canoe tripping! It's usually fun and beautiful, but sometimes it's tough. Sometimes it just plain sucks. But those moments of struggle are what put the moments of triumph and wonder into context. I could put together a trailer video making the BWCA look like all roses and cupcakes, if I wanted to.... I could also put together a video making it look like a de facto bad time. It's important to present both sides! But it's also easier to convince new people to get outside if you show them the good parts. :)