Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy today was awarded $100,000 for its Sitton Creek Protection and Restoration project, which will enhance water quality in the Mills River watershed and expand public access by adding 178 acres to Pisgah National Forest. CMLC was one of Duke Energy’s Water Resources Fund grant recipients. Duke Energy today announced grant awards...
Learn MoreSara Fry is on a mission to map — accurately, and practically single-handedly — the trails of California’s iconic High Sierra. “This needs to be done,” Fry said. “This is totally my passion.” Fry, who has logged over 10,000 miles on trails since 2012, launched the nonprofit Sierra Mapping Project in May, 2015 after realizing that there is a huge need for accurate trail...
Learn More“Drill, Baby, Drill” became a popular campaign mantra back in the 2008 election cycle. But now we’re hearing the opposite call: “Leave It in the Ground.” Is there a middle ground that can supply the energy we need without causing significant climate damages? Yes. And it doesn’t involve exploiting all available resources, nor banning their use. What if we continued to...
Learn MoreBased in Milton, MA, the Blue Hills Reservation is home to 125 miles of walking and hiking trails. Many of them pass through forests and around ponds, but quite a few also lead up and down steep, rocky hills. The views from the top are spectacular. Managed by the state’s Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the Blue Hills Reservation is open to the public...
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The ascent and inevitable struggles of 399 and her offspring are in many ways representative of all grizzlies in the modern American West. Theirs is a tale of one of the most successful wildlife recovery programs in the world – a resurrection that has taken the bear from the brink of extinction in the Lower 48 to a population of as many as 1,000 in the Greater...
Learn MoreThere was a pair of shoes from Pope Francis and sneakers from the United Nations secretary general, Ban-Ki Moon. Most were from ordinary citizens, like Gloria Montenegro, a 65-year-old Parisian, who left two pairs. All together, 11,000 pairs of shoes were on display in the Place de la République in Paris on Sunday morning in a silent demonstration – in place of cancelled...
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On Monday, November 30, 2015, roughly 40,000 heads of state, diplomats, scientists, activists, policy experts, and journalists will descend on an airport in the northern Paris suburbs for the biggest meeting on climate change since at least 2009 — or maybe ever. The summit is organized by the United Nations and is primarily aimed at producing an agreement that will serve...
Learn MoreUnable to convince members of Maine’s congressional delegation to introduce legislation for a North Woods national park, supporters are now hoping President Obama will use his authority to designate a national monument as a step toward eventual park status. In June 1916, President Woodrow Wilson accepted the donation of roughly 6,000 acres on Mount Desert Island to...
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In July 2013, the Mountain Fire burned more than 26,000 acres in Riverside County, California with both the fire and the immediate rainstorm destroying miles of the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail. Almost 15 miles from Garner Valley near Paradise Corner to Saddle Junction had to be closed for safety reasons. Much of this trail remains closed. For the past two...
Learn MoreThe 11,000 pictures Jeb Bradley has snapped of New Hampshire’s White Mountains may sound like a lot, but maybe not when spread across The Grid. Bradley, a Republican state senator from Wolfeboro, is among five dozen diehard hikers who have completed The Grid challenge, in which hikers summit each of New Hampshire’s 48 mountains higher than 4,000 feet in each month of the...
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For years, I have shied away from advertising here at Meanderthals, choosing to place the focus on hiking and conservation rather than garish commercialism. I know that you would much rather look at scenic photos from the Smoky Mountains than flashing, blinking promotions that smack you upside the head and eventually simply get ignored. Over the years I have turned down...
Learn MoreBuilt at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, Harpers Ferry, WV has become America’s chronicler of centuries of confluences: of a coastal collection of states and a people striking out across a continent, of freedom and shackles, of North and South. The town, of course, was seared into our nation’s consciousness by the failed slave insurrection here in...
Learn MoreAs part of the ongoing, multiyear revision process for the Forest Plan for the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests in Western North Carolina, the U.S. Forest Service is evaluating more than 300,000 acres in the forest for potential wilderness designation. Wilderness areas are the nation’s highest form of land protection, designed to protect unspoiled areas for future...
Learn MoreFor fiscal year 2015, a record-breaking 6,827 volunteers reported approximately 272,477 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 record number of...
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In the Southwest, the obvious draw for a marathon hike is the 817-mile Arizona Trail. Like many people with a day job whose long-term plans include hiking the entire route from Mexico to Utah, you can chip away at the miles in opportunistic grabs and passage-long chunks. Turns out, this bit-by-bit style is the way most hikers approach the Arizona Trail. Sirena Dufault,...
Learn MoreAmericans have often been told that meeting scientific climate targets is impossible without threatening jobs and costing a fortune. But a new report shows that the opposite is true. “The Clean Energy Future: Protecting the Climate, Creating Jobs and Saving Money,” by the respected economist Frank Ackerman and his colleagues at Synapse Energy Economics, shows that the...
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The first LifeStraw water filter was introduced by Vestergaard in 2005 for public health use in developing countries. The filter converts microbiologically contaminated water into safe drinking water that meets US EPA standards for water quality. Since then, the LifeStraw brand has expanded to include additional water filters and purifiers with more features (e.g.,...
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You know the last place you want to be the day after Thanksgiving is fighting traffic and stampeding hordes of deal-obsessed shoppers in the malls. So instead, head outdoors for some respite from the crass commercialism of Black Friday. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park – by the way, the most popular national park in the country, for many good reasons, one of...
Learn MoreTo find the largest waterfalls in the Columbia River Gorge, all that’s required is a drive out Interstate 84 to the many viewpoints and trailheads east of Portland, OR. To find the largest trees in the Gorge, however, you’re in for a lot more work. In an area with a long history of logging, precious few groves of old-growth trees remain intact. The ones that...
Learn MoreThere’s a bargain to be found in the woods this holiday season. The San Francisco nonprofit Save the Redwoods League is offering free passes on Black Friday – Nov. 27, 2015 – to redwood parks from Monterey and Santa Cruz to the North Coast. The idea is to offer individuals and families a chance to start a new Black Friday tradition by walking among big...
Learn MoreMary Moynihan has the math all worked out. She will need to average 21.8 miles per day, which comes out to about 12 hours per day. She will need to hike at a speed of 2½ to 3½ mph. And if her math is correct, she will hike a total of nearly 8,000 miles — in one calendar year. It’s called the Calendar Triple Crown, and only a handful of hikers have ever accomplished the...
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In 1968, the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails became the first “National Scenic Trails,” but ten years later Congress designated the third. Splitting the country’s midsection like a corkscrew, tight-roping the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to Canada, the 2,700-mile Continental Divide Trail is acclaimed as the third jewel in the hiking world’s Triple Crown. The CDT has...
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In June 2008, the PA Appalachian Trail Act was amended by Act 24, requiring the 58 PA municipalities along the Appalachian National Scenic Trail (A.T.) to take action to preserve the natural, scenic, historic, and aesthetic values of the Trail and to conserve and maintain it as a public natural resource. The legislation was prompted by a Commonwealth Court case related...
Learn MoreThe trio of do-gooders — Seth Orme, Joe Dehnert, and Paul Twedt — named their effort the Packing It Out initiative. Their goal was the removal of more than 1,000 pounds of litter as they hiked from Georgia to Maine. They hit the trail in March, and by August 15th had met the goal. To remove this much debris they relied on the help and generosity of good samaritans who...
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The Skylands Region is home to rolling hills and endless acres of farmlands. It also boasts the highest point in New Jersey—aptly named High Point State Park in Sussex County. The Gateway Region is the most urban part of the state, but that doesn’t mean it offers less hiking than the state’s other regions. The best thing about hiking these parts is the potential for...
Learn MoreGarlic mustard, Japanese stiltgrass, Oriental bittersweet, and other non-native invasive plants are creeping across backyards, parks, forests, and roadsides throughout the southeastern U.S. Scientists are still trying to understand what drives their relentless spread. Invasions are often assessed by measuring species richness, or the number of non-native species known to...
Learn MoreNeal Clark has been watching his feet a lot this fall day. The young environmental lawyer chose flipflops for this tour of the Utah desert with the blithe self-assurance of someone comfortable outdoors. Remarkably, he’s stumbled into thorns only once. Now, he cautiously threads a gap between banks of cryptobiotic crust. The castle-like colonies of microorganisms anchor...
Learn MoreSnowed under by an avalanche of empty plastic bottles, in 2011 National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis told the system’s 408 parks, national monuments and historic sites that they could stop selling bottled water at their concession stands and offer public water bottle filling stations instead. According to Jarvis, the environmental impact of single-use plastic...
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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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