If you are looking for the best face mask, you have to try this thing called Head Sokz. You can find them at http://www.headsokz.com/.

I've owned one of the original Head Sokz for going on 12 years now. The wind does not penetrate these things. I use mine in temperatures well in the negative teens and my head does not get cold. Mine is now getting to the point that it is wearing a little thin, but I still continue to use it.

The Head Sokz can be worn as a scarf, nose/mouth cover, open face mask, closed face mask (pictured above), or just as a long cap. There are two different pull strings that allow the user to pull it tight or leave it open. I have also used mine as a bag by pulling the neck hole shut and using the face opening to put things in.

The only draw back to wearing one of these is if you swivel your head, you cannot see out the sides very well because the mask does not move with you when it's not tightened down; kind of like a helmet. However, when I wear ski goggles with them, I don't have this problem.

If you plan on doing any cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, or winter camping, I'd say this is a must have item.

I just finished uploading a lot of changes to Backcountry Secrets. The most obvious change is to the search page. I tried to make it more user friendly by supplying all ways to search in one page. Now you can search by location, name, or sport all in one place.

A few other changes that have taken place is I broke Alpine skiing down in to two categories: Alpine Resort Skiing and Backcountry Skiing. This came as a request from one of our members who did not want to search through all of the resorts to find the very few actual backcountry skiing locations we have on the site. I will be going through all of the skiing points to change them to appropriate categories later today.

Our site is also now AJAX enabled. To most of you that probably means nothing. Basically it means that your searches for points will be faster. You won't have to wait for the entire page to load anymore.

We plan on having some more contests for giveaways in the near future. If you have any ideas of a good prize to give away within the $100 range, please leave a comment on this post. Hope you are all enjoying the backcountry!

We finally have a winner who claimed his prize. The winner of the GPS Unit is the user talsan. He is the one picture above with the LOVELY hat. (You can own your very own SHhhh! hat for $9.99 by joining Backcountry Secrets and logging in.) The winning point submitted was Multnomah Falls in Oregon