The Sinai Trail has been dubbed one of the best new hikes in the world, and was awarded best new tourism initiative. While there are harder, headier walks, none are so rich with history – and none are built upon such unlikely bonds. Bedouin tribes have long escorted pilgrims from all corners across the Sinai – Muslims en route to Mecca, Christians to St Catherine or Jerusalem – with each tribe handing them to the next at its border. “Then came cars and planes, and people forgot this way,” a guide said. Deprived of guiding work, many Bedouin...
read moreIt might feel like there aren’t any rules out in the great outdoors, but there are certainly guidelines you should follow. Whether you’re new to hiking or always been confused about the do’s and don’ts of the trail, this guide will clear things up. Hiking uphill is harder than hiking downhill most of the time. And when people hike uphill, they tend to have a smaller field of view because they’re usually looking down at their footing. That’s why it’s important you give hikers on their way up a slope the right of way....
read moreThere’s something about summer that inspires people to head outdoors. And when you’re surrounded by tons of gorgeous mountains, hiking seems like the natural choice. The amount of local hikes to choose from, however, can get overwhelming. Enter the second edition of “Best Hikes Salt Lake City” by Lori J. Lee. Not only does it contain a comprehensive list of great hikes, but detailed information such as the average time it takes to hike a trail, the level of difficulty, whether or not there’s a fee, if it’s kid- or canine-friendly and much...
read moreFew species manipulate their surroundings enough to make big ecological changes. Humans are one. Beavers are another. At one point, the rodents numbered in the hundreds of millions in North America, changing the ecological workings of countless streams and rivers. As settlers moved West, they hunted and trapped them to near extinction. Now there are new efforts across the Western U.S. to understand what makes them tick, mimic their engineering skills, boost their numbers, and in turn, get us more comfortable with the way they transform rivers...
read moreSocial media plays a big role in many people’s lives, and it’s only natural that our love of sharing would extend to the outdoors. As more and more hikers are enjoying trails, it’s important to remember that social media can have an impact on how good hiking behavior is shared in the hiking community. The national Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics released a set of guidelines with tips on how to promote positive hiking behavior on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to ensure that the trails we all love to hike...
read moreCalifornia’s Eastern Sierra is a fascinating landscape, a land where 14,000-foot summits descend to sage-filled plains, where the oldest trees on earth still stand atop wind scoured ridges, where geothermal springs pepper one of the word’s largest calderas, and where limestone columns rise from an ancient alkaline lake. Found amongst and within these unique natural features is a region teeming with outdoor recreation opportunities. The Sierra’s steep eastern escarpment is home to Whitney Portal, the gateway to Mount Whitney....
read moreThe amount of methane leaking from the nation’s oil and gas fields may be 60 percent higher than the official estimates of the Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study in the journal Science. The study, led by a group of scientists from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), presents some of the most compelling evidence to date that switching to gas from dirtier fuels like coal might not be as effective a climate strategy as its proponents suggest unless the gas industry improves how it controls leaks. The authors...
read moreThe U.S. Department of the Interior announced the designation of 19 new National Recreation Trails in 17 states, adding more than 370 miles to the national recreation trails system of more than 1,000 trails in all 50 states. “By designating these new national trails, we acknowledge the efforts of local communities to provide outdoor recreational opportunities that can be enjoyed by everyone,” said the Interior Secretary. “Our network of national trails provides easily accessible places to exercise and connect with nature in both urban and...
read moreA group of University of Tennessee students have been working on a massive project to make the entire Tennessee River more accessible. It’s a multi-modal trail system that will stretch from Knoxville to Paducah, Kentucky. This is a product of two years of hard work done by students and professors in UT’s School of Landscape Architecture. The vision for the Tennessee River Studio class is to create a trail system that stretches 652 miles long. “The vision is a multi-modal trail system that you could bike, hike and paddle all the...
read moreNearly four decades ago, on January 13, 1980, Ranger Paul Fugate took a break from his job at Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona to take a hike, and vanished. Now renewed interested in the case has prompted the National Park Service to triple its reward to $60,000 for information that could solve the mystery. Without providing details, the Park Service’s Investigative Services Branch announced Tuesday that new information has prompted NPS investigators and Cochise County (AZ) Sheriff Mark Dannels to renew their request...
read moreYou’ll find Prairie Ridge Ecostation in west Raleigh, a few miles from the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh. The museum’s outdoor learning lab offers all kinds of activities for all ages, including weekly play days and storytimes. You’ll also find short, easy-to-navigate trails for little ones. The ecostation’s Forest Trail, is a half-mile hike that takes you from a prairie to a pond to a forest and, finally, a nature playground. The Forest Trail is part of the Kids In Parks TRACK Trail system, a...
read moreThere are times when the treadmill or stairclimber comes in handy, but Mother Nature is really the ultimate gym. Hiking not only provides epic Insta opportunities, but leaves you feeling accomplished, refreshed, and more motivated to conquer whatever life throws your way (including, you know, poison ivy or bears). And nothing makes a hike feel more magical than turning the corner and finding a grand—or secret—waterfall. Some places are more blessed in the water feature department than others, but no matter where you live, there are views to...
read moreWe were warned. On June 23, 1988, a sultry day in Washington, James Hansen told Congress and the world that global warming wasn’t approaching — it had already arrived. The testimony of the top NASA scientist, said Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley, was “the opening salvo of the age of climate change.” Thirty years later, it’s clear that Hansen and other doomsayers were right. But the change has been so sweeping that it is easy to lose sight of effects large and small — some obvious, others less conspicuous. Earth is noticeably...
read moreA couple from Florida got sick of trekking into the backcountry only to contend with hordes of other people. So they embarked on a search for the most remote spots in every state. “I was walking down a very crowded Florida beach on a training hike,” Ryan says, “and I was in my late thirties. Something was welling up inside me. I knew I wanted to do something grandiose that’d never been done, and then I thought, ‘How can I get as far away from this circus as possible? Remote.’ And the word kept reverberating in my head over and...
read moreHiking is one of just a few sports that doesn’t require a gym membership or a pile of expensive gear. That being said, one necessity for an exceptional hike is beautiful scenery. Traversing green forests and taking in breathtaking views along the way makes for an unparalleled experience, and each state has at least one town that’s home to a handful of picturesque trails. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed trail database and online guide Hiking Project, which lists close to 150,000 miles of trails across the country. 24/7 Wall St. ranked the town or town...
read moreTwo hundred years ago, New Hampshire innkeeper Abel Crawford had a problem: guests at his White Mountain hotel were clamoring for the chance to summit the iconic Mount Washington. But without an established path, those intrepid enough to try would often get lost or return in tatters, having battled with scree and brush for miles. So Crawford, and especially his son Ethan Allen Crawford, took up the Herculean task of cutting an 8.2-mile-long trail to the top. They felled trees. They moved boulders. Foot by foot, they lay their path over the...
read moreHigh Desert Partnership began about 15 years ago, as a conversation between Chad Karges, who was then deputy manager for the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and a cattle rancher named Gary Marshall. Relations between local ranchers and refuge employees had been volatile for decades, as the two sides butted heads over livestock and wildlife. The bad blood extended beyond the Fish and Wildlife Service, to the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service, whose management decisions were tied up in litigation. Karges knew something had to...
read moreAntarctica’s ice sheet is melting at rapidly increasing rate, now pouring more than 200 billion tons of ice into the ocean annually and raising sea levels a half millimeter every year, a team of 80 scientists has reported. The melt rate has tripled in the past decade, the study concluded. If the acceleration continues, some of scientists’ worst fears about rising oceans could be realized, leaving low-lying cities and communities with less time to prepare than they’d hoped. The result also reinforces that nations have a short window — perhaps...
read moreAt the headwaters of the Amazon River system in eastern Ecuador, the nighttime jungle is not quiet at all. The chatter of nocturnal canopy birds and crickets, mixed with the submarine sonar–like pinging of tree frogs, is startling to the first-time visitor. The 80 or so Waorani villagers who live here find comfort in these sounds. They tell them that their ancestral home is healthy, that it still teems with life, that the relentless march of oil wells and logging into the jungle hasn’t reached here yet. Inside a dirt-floored hut constructed...
read moreSome of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated. “We report that nine of the 13 oldest … individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years,” they wrote in the scientific journal Nature Plants, describing “an event of an unprecedented magnitude.” “It is...
read moreAlthough some of us are still recovering from the winter or dreading another nor’easter, spring has officially started in Maine. As temperatures rise, many have already begun looking for a way to get outside and celebrate the outdoors. Luckily, Maine has no shortage of outdoor attractions, and many are accessible to those with limited mobility and people with disabilities. Acadia National Park is boasted as one of the most accessible in the nation. The park is home to several wide carriage roads and there are accessible trails surrounding...
read moreThe national Coalition of Recreational Trails has granted its annual achievement award for trail design and construction to Conserving Carolina and its trails coordinator, Peter Barr, for Wildcat Rock Trail. Conserving Carolina opened this 3-mile trail in the Hickory Nut Gorge to the public in 2017. Senator Richard Burr and Representative Mark Meadows presented the award to Barr on June 2, 2018, on Capitol Hill. Marianne Fowler, co-chair of the Coalition of Recreational Trails presided over the ceremony. Barr was joined by Jay Leutze,...
read moreYellowstone National Park is an incredible natural laboratory. Researchers from around the world travel to Yellowstone every year to conduct scientific studies across a range of disciplines, from A(nthropology) to Z(oology) and everything in between. Managing this constant influx of scientists is a full-time job, not only in terms of ensuring that their work is used to better manage park resources, but also taking advantage of the unique environment at Yellowstone. This combination of conservation of resources and capitalization on...
read moreWhen it comes to being young at heart, the residents at Tellico Village are trailblazers. In 2017, a group of residents wanted hiking trails, but the cost would have been too substantial to take on. They decided to build trails themselves. “As retirees, it’s great when you accomplish something like this,” said Jim Lilley, a resident and athletics director at Tellico Village. “It’s a great accomplishment.” The crew building the trails is a mix of gender, age and background, according to Brian Johnson, a new resident. “I’m...
read moreOur planet has a population of over 7.5 billion people and as a result we dump a massive 2.12 billion tons of waste per year. This is partly because 99% of the stuff we buy gets thrown out within 6 months of purchasing – this isn’t including food, human, electronic and medical waste either. This waste ends up in a variety of different locations; landfill sites, dumps, and worst of all the ocean. If it continues at its current rate, in 10 years time there could be over 80 million tons of plastic floating in our seas – and that...
read moreThe “Route of Parks” should be emblazoned in your mind: “Road trip!” Technically, the “route” is a rebranding of a portion of Chile’s epic Southern Highway, or Carretera Austral, which stretches from the industrial city of Puerto Montt in the north to the skinny tip of the country in the south. As part of that, this January, the Chilean government signed an accord with the nonprofit Tompkins Conservation to place an additional 10 million acres of combined public and private parkland under its protection. The goal is to create a...
read moreThe Cradle of Forestry in America invites nature enthusiasts of all ages and knowledge levels to the Pink Beds BioBlitz on Saturday, June 16, 2018. Be a citizen scientist with naturalists and forest scientists to discover the diversity of life in this special part of Pisgah National Forest, and add to knowledge gained about the area. Those who would like to participate can come the day of to the Cradle of Forestry in America’s outdoor amphitheater before 1:00pm. Following a brief welcome they will split into zones throughout the Pink...
read moreIt might be easy to think you won’t run into a bear while on a hike – but it can happen, and it’s important to always be prepared. Colorado Parks and Wildlife gave a few tips for what to do if you run into a bear on the trail. If you surprise the bear, you should: stay calm stay still let the bear identify you before leaving the area When leaving the scene, back away from the bear and avoid turning your back to it. Running from the bear can make you appear as a threat. Talk in a normal tone of voice if other people are present and...
read moreThe building that currently houses the Crane’s Nest Nature Center & Store at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon was built in the mid-1930s by members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, at the same time as many of the other structures at Refuge Headquarters. In fact, most of the historic infrastructure located throughout Malheur Refuge was installed by CCC crews stationed there between 1935-1942. The stone blocks used to construct many of these buildings-including the one housing Crane’s Nest-were quarried near Buena...
read moreAmphibians matter to humans more than we tend to realize. The number of amphibian species around the world has been plummeting at an incredibly rapid rate in recent decades, and this decline poses a serious threat. About 200 species of frogs have vanished since 1980, according to a 2015 study. These extinctions are due to many factors, including herbicides, habitat loss, invasive species, general pollution and chytrid fungus. The latter causes chytridiomycosis, which Save the Frogs calls “quite possibly the worst disease in recorded...
read moreOnce, the West’s public lands were valued primarily for the timber, minerals and fossil fuels they held, which were extracted and then sold around the world. In the 1970s, more than two dozen Western counties relied on timber for at least a fifth of their revenue, while energy companies expanded onto public lands for coal and natural gas. Small communities swelled with loggers and miners and the businesses that supported them, providing an economy that helped preserve the West’s rural feel. Today, though, natural resource economies are...
read moreLake Mead is the country’s biggest reservoir of water. Think of it as the savings account for the entire Southwest. Right now, that savings account is nearly overdrawn. For generations, we’ve been using too much of the Colorado River, the 300-foot-wide ribbon of water that carved the Grand Canyon, supplies Lake Mead, and serves as the main water source for much of the American West. The river sustains one in eight Americans — about 40 million people — and millions of acres of farmland. In the next 40 years, the region is expected to add at...
read moreYou may be overwhelmed before you even start your first hike. You may also be so worried about your physical ability to hike, your stamina, and safety that you are hesitant to even set foot on the trail. There is plenty of advice on the Internet. As a first-time plus size hiker, accept the challenge to get outside and enjoy nature. Don’t wait until you lose that 20 pounds you’ve been dreaming of or until you get to some future fitness goal. If you keep putting it off, you will never get out on the trail. The best part of hiking is that your...
read moreHealthy forests are important for clean and abundant water supplies. A recent USDA Forest Service study examined how wildland fires, including megafires, and prescribed burns affect river flow. The study is the first nationwide look at fire impacts on surface freshwater resources. Led by Dennis Hallema, research hydrologist and ORISE fellow, the research team analyzed three decades of data on fires — along with climate and river flow datasets from 168 river basins in the lower 48 states. “The impacts of wildland fires on water resources are...
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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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