Warrior Hike is a walk back to civilization, back to a life left behind and back through history.
Sean Gobin, a combat U.S. Marine Corps veteran, started the nonprofit organization after he returned from multiple deployments to the Middle East, undertook a four-month through hike of the Appalachian Trail, and realized this could provide the ideal way for soldiers returning from a war zone to process their experiences, adjust to civilian life and reintegrate themselves into society.
Begun on the Appalachian Trail (AT), and then expanded to encompass the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail, now Warrior Hike is operating in Florida. As you read this, two veterans, Rick Cardona of Deltona, Florida, and Daniel Parkison of St. Petersburg, are hiking the Florida Trail, plodding northward on a quest to cover its entire l,000-mile plus length. Cardona was an armor crewman in Iraq, and Parkison an infantryman in Afghanistan. Both served in the U.S. Army.
“Traditionally, soldiers walked home from battle. It gave them a chance to think,” said Gobin. “After my last deployment, I was on a plane within hours.” “Walking a trail eight hours a day for weeks and months helps you get grounded and decompress,” he said. “The brain has no choice but to process. It’s sort of a mental clearinghouse.”
Fall foliage season is a popular time for hiking in Pennsylvania. But fall hiking on state game lands might be prohibited if a new regulation under consideration by the Pennsylvania Game Commission is approved.
The commission is scheduled to consider a new rule Jan. 27, 2015 that would forbid hiking and other non-hunting activities on state game lands during fall and spring hunting seasons, which total more than 130 days. Hiking would still be permitted on Sundays, when hunting is disallowed.
The Appalachian Trail and other long-distance trails that go through state game lands would be exempt, but hiking advocates worry access paths to those trails through state game lands would be restricted.
Biking, horseback riding and snowmobiling is already prohibited on state game land during those two seasons, and hiking also is considered a secondary use on the property, said Travis Lau, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Much of the land was purchased through hunting permit sales and taxes on hunting equipment especially for hunting, Lau said.
Re-measurements and relocations of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) have brought the total mileage of the footpath to 2,189.2 miles, an increase of 3.9 miles from last year’s mileage of 2,185.3. This mileage is carefully documented in the Trail’s official guidebooks, which include the Appalachian Trail Data Book and the Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers’ Companion. Both books are published by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
Every year, the latest mileage and shelter information is updated from volunteers who are constantly improving the Trail. This year, more than half of the changes in the mileage are in southwest Virginia, with two miles added to the total following a re-measurement by volunteers. Increases were also reported in New York-New Jersey (0.1 mile); central Virginia (0.1 mile); Tennessee-North Carolina (1.5 miles); and North Carolina-Georgia (0.2 mile).
One of the highlights of winter hiking in the Sierra Nevada is the surreal calm of the forest under a blanket of snow.
There are very few leaves to rustle and, when the snow is powdery, not even footsteps make a noise.
That’s why the sudden burst of birdsong on a recent trip to Chickadee Ridge was such a pleasant surprise. One moment a group of Tahoe Rim Trail Association members was walking through the forest and enjoying the silence when the trees burst to life.
Chickadees fluttered over and around the group chirping and, presumably, looking for a handout. No one gave the birds any food because it’s not good to feed wildlife. But that didn’t stop the chickadees from trying, many going so far to land on people who stopped for too long.
The opportunity to share those kinds of unexpected moments are why the association is leading a series of winter hikes this season. The idea, according to trails director Lindsey Schultz, is to remind people there’s no bad season to experience the Tahoe Basin. That’s assuming people take winter precautions.
Mount Olympus is worthy of its association to the gods in Greek mythology for numerous reasons. First, it is Greece’s highest mountain, and, naturally, the gods wouldn’t live on a puny little hill. Second, it is the second highest mountain in the Balkan Range. Finally, it beckons thousands of people each year to tackle its hiking trails and reach its summit.
Mythology aside, Mt. Olympus has a tumultuous past that has shaped the culture of its surrounding area. Considered a shrine in ancient times, it was also a battleground for control between many great empires, including the Ottoman. This beautiful summit and its surrounding area have seen documented war spanning from the 15th through the 20th centuries, including World War II. This mountain remains a sacred place to its people, which is one reason why many hike it.
Once you’ve climbed Mt. Olympus, you’ll discover the other reason why people hike this beautiful summit. When on top, you’ll have a panoramic view of the Adriatic and Aegean Seas and the mountains of Albania. Additionally, you have the option of easier treks throughout the mountain’s region, as Mt. Olympus is located in Greece’s largest and best-preserved national park. The park itself is also quite stunning, with the River Enippeas running through the beautiful woodlands. Keep your eyes open. You just might see some wild goats along your journey.
While the West—with its high altitudes, rugged peaks and chill, outdoorsy vibe—has quietly claimed the mantle of quintessential hiking paradise, don’t write off everything east of the Mississippi.
After all, seemingly endless wilderness stretches along the Ozark Highland, North Country Scenic and Appalachian Trails, so missing out on the chance to climb a 14er doesn’t mean you miss out on quiet singletrack trails, panoramic views and majestic peaks.
Yes, the East is, in its way, smaller than the West. But it’s also greener, more accessible (at least two of these hikes can be reached by public transportation), wetter and wilder by the year as farmlands go fallow, allowing species like wolves, bears and moose to reclaim their native habitats.
Here’s a list of 20 amazing Eastern day hikes, including a classic tromp through New Hampshire’s White Mountains, a wild hike through an urban oasis, a birder’s paradise in the Everglades and even a gorgeous (and strenuous) climb in the wilds just outside of New York City.
Baked by time like some multi-layer geologic tort, Canyonlands National Park in southeastern Utah features a landscape cut by canyons, rumpled by upthrusts, dimpled by grabens, and even pockmarked, some believe, by ancient asteroids.
Just outside of Moab rises a kaleidoscope of tilted and carved geology laid down over the eons. There’s the red and white Cedar Mesa sandstone, the grayish-green Morrison Formation, pinkish Entrada sandstone, and tawny Navajo sandstone, just to name some of the geologic layers. Stacked like pancakes, they help make Canyonlands the most rugged national park in the Southwest and, quite possibly, if you find yourself deep in the park’s Maze District, in the entire Lower 48 states.
In each of the park’s districts — Island in the Sky, Needles, Maze and Horseshoe Canyon — the remarkable effects of geologic time and its endless erosion on this sedimentary landscape rise about you.
If you could turn back the geologic clock, you would see the landscape flooded by oceans, crisscrossed by rivers, covered by mudflats and buried by sand. At various times through the millennia, the climate has resembled a tropical coast, an interior desert, and everything in between.
For much of the year, Shenandoah National Park is a gorgeously overgrown place. The underbrush sneaks over the trails, threatening to erase them. Off-trail, the views are densely wooded in every direction, tangled in Virginia creeper and prickly greenbrier.
This is why you come in December, to search for things that are obscured when the park’s hollows and hillsides are green. Winter is bushwhacking season. This is when you might wander off-trail in the backcountry, discover concealed relics and still find your way back.
Most of Shenandoah is so wild and overgrown that it is easy to imagine that it was always that way. The park, about two hours west of the nation’s capitol, draws 1.2 million visitors a year for scenic overlooks off Skyline Drive or day trips on the Appalachian Trail through scenes that seem as untouched by man as any place in the Mid-Atlantic. Running along a ridgeline, the park seems far removed from development in the valley below.
All around are large rock piles, stacked decades ago by farmers picking over their fields. Stone walls suddenly visible from the trails mark boundary lines and fences that are no longer needed. The trails were roads connecting families here long before they became hiking paths for nature-lovers from the city.
Enjoy this stunning graphical presentation from the NY Times to aid in choosing your 2015 vacation.
Untrammeled oases beckon, once-avoided destinations become must-sees and familiar cities offer new reasons to visit.
From the temperate rainforests of Kootenai National Forest to the badlands around Fort Peck, every page of the Montana atlas offers something to explore. Each Forest Service road and tiny blue line on the map represents the possibility of great things, all within the broad and diverse bounds of the Montana landscape.
The Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act, which passed Congress as a rider on the National Defense Authorization Act, added 105 square miles to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in northwest Montana. “The Bob” is a stronghold for grizzly bears and westslope cutthroat trout. Its high peaks form the spine of the Continental Divide. Each summer the huckleberries ripen along the trail, the beargrass blossoms and the landscape comes alive. If you want wild, “The Bob” has it in spades.
In the temperate rainforest below the soaring peaks of Glacier National Park, an ancient grove of cedars beckons visitors. Accessible from Going-to-the-Sun Road, the Trail of the Cedars is a 0.6-mile return hike that features a number of natural wonders, most notably towering cedar trees more than 80 feet tall.
From badlands to bison, the American Prairie Reserve offers a slice of Montana’s past and a glimpse into its future. APR aims to protect the prairie ecosystem by creating and managing a wildlife reserve that encourages enjoyment of the prairie landscape while creating lasting economic benefits.
If you’re looking for adventure in the New Year forget the pricey plane tickets and the passports, Montana has got you covered. Here are a few adventures to get you started. May your trails be long and winding.
If trolls really did exist, this would undoubtedly be their domain; massive boulders littered the scrubby vegetation, extensive glaciers sucked in the feet of unsuspecting intruders and a gaping canyon make limbs tingle. This is Earth, at the very least, though nothing about the situation seems realistic. Especially this destination, whose landscape defies expectations.
This is the hiking trail to Trolltunga, Norwegian for the Troll’s Tongue. A few hours’ drive outside Bergen, Norway, it is a truly epic hike of 22 kilometers round trip that begins (and ends) with 3,197 nearly vertical steps along a disused funicular. Hikers trek through boulder fields and over glaciers, either through pouring rain or unrelenting sunlight to arrive at the fabled tongue, sticking out from the cliff about 700 meters in the air.
Everything that makes the hike perilous is what makes it wondrous. Remote and difficult to reach, it remains fairly unspoiled. Distant hikersaere mere specks on the expansive glaciers, reminding one how small we are. Every slope and boulder reminds how indomitable the Earth really is, how we must work around our environment. And the hike reaches the most beautiful climax once you stand on the tip of the tongue.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) has announced that for fiscal year 2014, 5,617 volunteers reported 241,936 hours to maintaining and protecting the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) for hikers to use. Since the ATC began collecting reports in 1983, individuals have contributed more than 5 million hours to the A.T., resulting in a volunteer network that is recognized worldwide.
The number of hours reported, which is the second highest since 1983, reveals a loyal commitment to the Trail despite a government shutdown in October 2013 that resulted in volunteers being unable to work on National Park Service or U.S. Forest Service lands. Despite this sequestration, volunteers donated time equivalent to what is completed by 116 full-time workers and contributed to a wide variety of projects, including maintaining the A.T. corridor, monitoring and removing invasive species, supporting teachers in the Trail to Every Classroom (TTEC) program and assisting A.T. Communities near the Trail.
ATC volunteers represent 31 A.T. Maintaining Clubs and Trail Crews; Visitor Center and regional office volunteers; and participants in additional ATC programs, such as TTEC and the Appalachian Trail Community™ program. Though Trail maintainers are perhaps the most visible, volunteers also participate in many other activities, from community outreach to local, regional and Trail-wide management efforts.
Up on the mountain this week, one of those “moments of clarity” hit people across snow country. What they saw was like looking into a crystal ball and seeing their future.
With clear weather, plenty of snow and a firm snow surface, all of the stellar trailheads were popular destinations with snowshoers. For many, the exhilaration was pure ecstasy: their first snowshoe romp in years after enduring the California drought.
At the Castle Peak Trailhead along Interstate 80, across the road from Boreal (near Donner Pass), every parking space was taken, and the overflow crowd ended up using the Boreal lot to park. There were a lot of folks on the trail, with smiles all around and the sound of “clomp-clomp-clomp” as those in snowshoes made their way up the hill.
Then a fellow showed up — no snowshoes — who just walked right up the mountain with ease. No slips, no struggles. A look at his feet showed he was wearing his normal hiking shoes. A closer look showed a single Velcro strap over the top of each shoe. On top of the straps, it said “Yaktrax.” The guy just smiled as he sailed along, almost like he was on a magic carpet ride as he passed those clomping away in snowshoes.
That was the moment of clarity: Anybody who was grinding away with snowshoes, especially the giant ones, wanted to get a pair of Yaktrax right then.
Who is the one person you can always count on to go for a hike whenever you feel like it?
Well, it’s not a person. It’s man’s best friend: your dog. A fit, healthy dog will likely be more excited to hit the trail than you.
Most dog breeds will enjoy a jaunt in the woods, but some dogs have backcountry survival in their blood.
If you’re a hiker of the avid variety, you need to choose a dog that will be comfortable in the forest and on mountain trails. You’ll need a dog with good recall (comes when called) so it won’t go chasing madly off after a squirrel, or worse, a mountain lion.
Your dog needs to be strong and boast powerful endurance. Even the climate and conditions of your area determine which breed is best.
Join Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy on Saturday, January 17, 2015 at Camp High Rocks to hike to the summit of Rich Mountain. With a stop at Cathedral Rocks en route, this hike is a beautiful upward trek to a scenic mountain top. Hikers will have a choice of stopping at Cathedral Rock or continuing up to the top of Rich Mountain.
Camp High Rocks is a summer camp for boys founded in 1958. The camp is in the midst of 1,000 acres of camp-owned mountain woodland, with an eleven-acre lake, at an elevation of 3,000 feet.
Hiking distance is 2.7 miles round-trip with an elevation gain of 700 feet. The difficulty of this hike is rated as strenuous.
This hike is open to both members and non-members. Space is limited; sign up today to reserve your spot.
Click here to sign up for CMLC’s January hike to Rich Mountain.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the world’s most beautiful places to take in everything the great outdoors has to offer. During the annual Wilderness Wildlife Week events in Pigeon Forge, you’ll have a chance to learn about the fauna, flora and folks who call this rustic region home.
This year’s 25th Annual Wilderness Wildlife Week takes place January 24 through January 31, 2015, and is based at the new LeConte Center in Pigeon Forge. This week-long event features a series of free, family-friendly activities designed to educate budding and experienced outdoors people and instill a love of nature in all those who attend.
Wilderness Wildlife Week is an interesting introduction to the national park’s natural and human history. During the course of the week, participants can attend a wide variety special sessions, seminars and workshops to learn more about the wilderness and wildlife in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Additionally, participants can lace up their hiking boots for a number of walks through the national park – ranging from easy treks to see frozen winter waterfalls to strenuous climbs for experienced hikers.
If you want to go out and get working on that New Year’s resolution of getting fit and getting outside, consider exploring Long Island’s major hiking trail system – the Greenbelt. Long Island’s Greenbelt Trail is a 31.8-mile hiking trail that was completed in 1982 and extends from Sunken Meadow State Park on the Long Island Sound to Heckscher State Park on the Great South Bay.
After the original Long Island Greenbelt was completed, the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference made the push to create several more “greenbelt” trails across Long Island, each running north to south. Though hiking on Long Island may seem simple due to the largely flat topography, there are all different kinds of terrain to cover, including various types of forests, pine barrens, beaches, and marshes.
Though it is generally ranked as an “easy” trail for hiking, it is best to know what you are getting into before hiking several miles or more.
After listening to my sister’s stories about her Georgia-to-Maine adventure on the Appalachian Trail, I’m thinking it might be a good idea for us all to spend some time on foot in the deep woods. Life on the trail, from what Pat tells me, while hugely demanding physically and emotionally, seems a lot like life ought to be here in “civilization.”
On the trail, everyone is on equal footing, literally and figuratively. The back country is a very accepting place: Pat encountered older people, kids, men, women and individuals of all varieties of stature, ethnicity and experience, and nearly all of them found the wilderness an excellent place to lower their normal defenses.
Around campfires and among the trees, Pat encountered more than one person fresh out of the military and “walking off the war.” She met a woman who was attempting to come to terms with being the victim of a violent crime.
She ran into folks who were going through career and life transitions. She met a man who had made all the fortune he thought he needed and was spending several years traveling the globe in simple ways. She met Boy Scouts and a couple of people who seemed decidedly un-Scout-like.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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