Precisely. I live near Yosemite National Park, and it would be an absolute disaster if there were enough hotels, campgrounds, and amenities to meet the demand. The demand FAR exceeds its capacity for tourists, but it would destroy the very reason for that demand if that actually happened.

So what did they do? Set rules for the number of tourists allowed in the park per day, and stuck to it.

It’s a shame. I did pay for lifetime, and that’s always a risk. Looks like this bet didn’t pay off. The money doesn’t bother me - more the fact that there isn’t a portrait-only Lemmy app that’s a good replacement. If anyone knows of one that’s as good and will stay in portrait without having to put the whole phone in portrait lock, please let me know…

Ditto! Was waiting for logins to get fixed on v.19x instances. Thanks so much!

That’s good to hear. Looking forward to the actual release update, since I’m not on the beta, and therefore can’t log into my home instance until that gets fixed. Appreciate hearing that part is fixed!

Yes, down for any v.19x instance for me as well. Avelon seems to be struggling to keep up. Had to switch to a different app to log into v.19x instances (using Voyager seems to work on any flavor instance right now). Been several weeks that Avelon is broken on v.19x instances…

Thanks to the dev. It’s by far the most polished Lemmy app for iOS right now , and I’ve tried just about all of them.

The pricing is like, a week of morning coffees, so I’m not really sweating it. And that $14.99 for a year is a great option at $1.25/month if thirty bucks will break you.

I’m happy to have bought pro lifetime, and glad you’ve put the number of hours in developing Avelon. I look forward to seeing how it matures.

Oh, just FYI, I LOVE that Avelon is portrait only while scrolling threads. I browse a LOT with the phone while on the couch, or lying in bed, and currently NO other app stays in portrait when sideways. I don’t know any savages who read in landscape. That’s rightly reserved for videos or wide photos, in my opinion. It took Christian YEARS to figure out a toggle in Apollo where you could lock to portrait while browsing text, and auto-rotate only for videos or landscape-only media. It was why I bought Apollo Pro lifetime, finally! But, here’s your Pro lifetime subscription from me, so thanks for making it the way I like it already… ;)

Cheers

I had left a review on the App Store warning users that Memmy is still broken for any instance that uses late v18 or any v19. The dev responded that they would issue a fix soon.

Still, since I needed something that works, I tried a few of the many Lemmy apps. Voyager is nice, but Avelon is the only app that stays in portrait while I scroll lying down, so that’s what I’m using presently.

I’m enjoying Memmy right now. My only gripe is that I’d love to see in-app orientation lock. It’s the one feature of Apollo that made me go for their lifetime purchase. You could easily set portrait mode for reading while lying down (I do this a lot - browsing while prone on the couch or in bed), and it would auto-rotate to landscape for videos, but stick to portrait for everything else (articles). I don’t know how Christian finally managed it (it took quite a while before he implemented it), but it worked great. The old Reddit “Antenna” app had it first.

But other than that, great work. I’m really enjoying the ‘swipe to navigate’ which allows it to feel a lot more like Apolle for now. Thanks for all of your hard work, and I hope you’re enjoying a break from it for now.

Cheers.

It’s gotta be my Helinox Chair Zero. Sure, I’ve got to turn in my Ultralight credentials by bringing it, but damn, it sure feels great to sit comfortably, enjoy a nice cup of coffee in the morning relaxing and reclining in comfort, or chatting by a fire over dinner while sitting in pure comfort.

I don’t always bring it backpacking, but when I do, I never regret it.

Cheers.

Sure. I’m definitely of the opposite mindset. “Buy once , cry once,” is my philosophy. I wasted too much time and money in my youth, so always try to save up for quality items.

Which isn’t to say that one can’t find inexpensive things that are of good quality, of course.

Cheers.

So, as a long time backpacker, I found my holy grail series of packs from Nunatak gear.

A couple of seasons ago, I ran into someone beta-testing a Nunatak “Bears Ears 50” model pack. It carries a bear canister at the bottom of the pack, at the hip. It’s such an obvious and simple idea, and it’s amazing that no one else really ever designed it. But Jan over at Nunatak build this for himself, as a climber as well as a backpacker, who often spends time where a bear canister is required.

I live in Bishop, California, and all of the areas nearest me require bear canisters for overnight trips. So, I was intrigued.

I checked out the pack that this guy was beta testing, and when I asked what he liked best, the answer surprised me. I thought it would be the weight distribution, or the minimal pack weight, but instead he pointed out that the hip-belt water bottle holders were the best he’d used.

I was using an Osprey Exos at the time, and this was a major frustration for me. Water bottles slid easily into the side pockets, which are angled for ease of use, pulling a bottle in or out. But it turns out that if you bend over (to tie your shoe, or pick something up off the ground, or even lean over to take a photo) then a full bottle would slide out. I use Smartwater bottles, as most do these days, and when it happened one one trip, the darned bottle hit a rock and cracked, making it useless to me. Frustrating.

The Nunatak uses a water bottle holder that is just foolproof. They don’t fall out, are ultralight, and are mounted slightly behind the hip, making it so your arms don’t hit them when hiking, but are still very easy to reach.

The unique bear can system is also perfect for me. Having a canister lowest in the pack makes for a much more natural weight distribution while hiking and especially when climbing or boulder scrambling. The Nunatak Bears Ears is perfect for that.

The original Bears Ears 50 is frameless, and that works fine for me almost all of the time, but Jan has designed framed versions that are now available, as well. For a pack with up to a 30-lb load rating, it is ultralight, and durable.

Oh, you don’t HAVE to carry a bear canister, either. Nunatak sells a bag-in-lieu-of-canister solution, which I have used in areas that don’t require a bear canister. It’s basically a bag roughly the size of a standard bear canister that you can stuff with anything you like, and put it in the place where the bear canister would go. I’ve stuffed it with my quilt, and extra water bottles, when I was hiking in an area that didn’t require a canister.

Anyway, here’s the link to their site for their Bears Ears series of packs:

Nunatak packs