Hiking News

Concern grows over the future of hiking on Oahu

Posted by on Apr 19, 2015 @ 9:15 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

A 27-year-old female hiker died after falling 500 feet off the Makapuu Tom Tom Trail in East Oahu. The tragic accident is just one of many search and rescue attempts firefighters have responded to this year alone. Oahu hiking clubs fear the recent increase in accidents will cause landowners and the state to close down more trails.

Landowners have already cracked down on websites featuring the popular trail. Two hiking clubs on Oahu say the over-exposure of these popular trails are leading to the trails “downfall.” Seasoned hikers within those clubs say social media brought the allure of Oahu’s trails to the mainstream. “The social media in the last several years has opened up a new world of information to people who may live in Oklahoma,” said Ralph Valentino, a member of the Hawaiian Trail & Mountain Club.

By doing a simple a hash tag search, you’ll discover hundreds of posts on the Tom Tom Trail, with many taking photos at the “puka”, which they find a great photo opportunity. “It’s the guys with the Go-Pro cameras,” said Randy Ching, a hiker with the Sierra Club. “They go up to these really dangerous places, and they upload it to these websites. People go there and they say, ‘Wow! That’s amazing! I gotta do this.’”

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Once-Abandoned Ascutney Basin, VT Now Has Miles of Trails

Posted by on Apr 18, 2015 @ 9:44 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The closing of Mount Ascutney Ski Resort five years ago left an economic and recreational void in the village of Brownsville, Vermont. Thanks to the Sport Trails of the Ascutney Basin (STAB) and its partnership with the town of West Windsor, the area has once again become a destination.

The western base of Ascutney now features approximately 34 miles of non-motorized, multi-use recreational trails, the result of exhaustive and persistent efforts from volunteer STAB members over the last decade. Led by co-founders Jim Lyall and Erik Schutz, STAB advocates to build and maintain accessible, low-impact trails in West Windsor and surrounding communities.

While STAB’s efforts aim primarily to serve local outdoor enthusiasts, the area attracts users from throughout the Northeast. Usage logs based at parking areas recently have revealed users from throughout New England, New York, Quebec and beyond.

Last summer, STAB embarked on an “Ascutney Trails” branding initiative, creating a website and logo for the network along with new signage. The group is also working on a new map with suggested routes and fully named and numbered trails.

The area received an additional boon at a special town meeting last October, when voters agreed for the town to purchase a 460-acre parcel of the resort land, which will become part of the West Windsor Town Forest after the sale’s closing date this summer. That will permanently conserve roughly two-thirds of the network.

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Shovels up! Grooming hiking trails is a good deed and a good workout

Posted by on Apr 18, 2015 @ 9:23 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Shovels up! Grooming hiking trails is a good deed and a good workout

While shoveling scoop after scoop filled with rocks, you wonder why anyone pays money to work out. If you want to do some heavy lifting, the good folks at the Washington Trails Association would be thrilled to have you. They’ll put you through the trail-work grinder for free — rain, cold or shine.

Twenty-plus volunteers, from kids on up, arrived on a Sunday at Tiger Mountain in Issaquah to work on one of the most heavily used trails in the country. Everyone was a hiker interested in giving back to an organization that puts incredible time and resources into maintaining the state’s trails.

You might help dig a trench under a slope that seeps water onto the trail. Trails are not supposed to be muddy. Shoveling dirt can be fun, though it may seem weird at first to dig into trails you usually take care to preserve. Underneath the dirt is heavier muck.

You will use grub hoes, shovels and other big tools to dig out rocks, either tossing them down the hill or filling in other trenches. You will be amazed how much a few volunteers could do in one day.

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Wind Gap named Appalachian Trail Community

Posted by on Apr 17, 2015 @ 9:10 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Wind Gap named Appalachian Trail Community

The Appalachian Trail has put Wind Gap, PA on the map – a map of communities along the 2,180-mile trail, that is.

Designation as an Appalachian Trail Community means Wind Gap will be highlighted in guidebooks and hiking maps, and the recognition could be a financial benefit to the borough.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy created the Appalachian Trail Community program to assist communities with sustainable economic development through tourism and outdoor recreation, while the communities, in turn, help preserve and protect the trail.

The conservancy website lists only 35 other locations as designated communities along the trail that runs from Georgia to Maine.

There are no designated communities in New Jersey and five in Pennsylvania, including Wind Gap, which was awarded the distinction in March; nearby Delaware Water Gap received its designation in 2014.

One of the benefits of being named a trail destination means trail guidebooks will list the amenities available to hikers in Wind Gap. Hikers on long distance hikes need places along the trail to wash clothes, stock up on food and pick up mail.

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Hiking Jamaica’s Rasta Highlands

Posted by on Apr 16, 2015 @ 10:53 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Trade winds snap at the bamboo and coconut palms. Two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old stone churches crumble into the hillsides. As you approach the shabby hot-springs mecca of Bath Fountain, a shirtless Rasta on horseback rides slowly down the center of the road, as if time still moves at an ancient, unmotorized pace.

Up ahead, the gnarled, near-vertical peaks of the Blue Mountains rise out of the morning mist, majestic but also menacing. “Up here is hills and jungles and rivers — natural life,” says Eddie, who runs a coconut stand down the coast in Port Antonio and offered to guide us on a trek where few nonlocals go. “The place wi goin’ a different kinda place, mon.”

The plan was to hike for two days over the John Crow and Blue mountains, which form a jagged spine across the eastern part of the island, retracing trails first carved by slaves who escaped from Spanish plantations in the 1600s.

These trails were used commercially until the 1960s to haul bananas to the coast for export (the local Gros Michel variety was once the most expensive in the world) and as a trade route for locals carrying goods back and forth to market in Port Antonio before decent roads and cheap cars came to the island in the ’80s. Now, despite a government effort to promote a section of the trail known as the Cunha Cunha Pass as a tourist destination, the only people up here seem to be pot farmers, who hide their crops in the banana plantations, and mountain men like Eddie and his crew.

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Joshua Tree: Put on those high desert hiking boots

Posted by on Apr 15, 2015 @ 8:37 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The desert of Saturday morning cartoons may be a barren and lifeless place. But hike the high desert above the Coachella Valley, near Palm Springs, and you’ll discover a landscape teeming with wildlife and dramatic geologic displays of monzogranite, exposed monoliths and fantastical twisted rock forms.

Discovered flower-clad yucca and wildflowers, and discover a fan palm oasis and an alpine wilderness high above the desert floor.

Two different ecosystems, the Mojave and Colorado deserts, meet in Joshua Tree National Park, resulting in a large number of plants and landforms sculpted by strong winds across this 794,000-acre park. The Mojave sits on the western side at 4,000 feet above sea level, and it’s home to forests of the whimsical, spiky Joshua tree, a star attraction in itself.

Hike the Maze Loop Trail, a see-all-the-park-features circuit that begins near the park’s west entrance and leads through stands of Yucca brevifolia or Joshua trees, with its treelike trunk and spiky, prickly branches all akimbo. Some bear clusters of white, waxy flowers, ready to bloom. Each tree is distinctive.

Scramble over strange rock formations and through desert washes and slot canyons to reach a maze of high walls and twisting canyons. Here, granite rock piles look like someone stacked them to resemble an eagle’s head or a recumbent Snoopy.

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Hiking in SW Portugal

Posted by on Apr 15, 2015 @ 8:29 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

What comes to mind when you think of Portugal? Cathedrals? Historic sites? Sixteenth Century explorers? Former colonies in Asia? Lethal jellyfish? How about some of the best hiking in the world.

Think about hiking a week in the Algarve, Costa Vicentina and Alentejo regions in SW Portugal. For the first four days you hike along the Atlantic coast, including two days on the Rota Vicentina, the old fisherman’s’ trail that runs along the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Walking along the flat, sandy path on the cliffs you will gawk at rugged headlands, walls of rock and empty crescent beaches pounded by foaming surf. Hike down a steep, narrow trail to a beach and back up again on the other side.

In places you hike through pine forests and wade through streams, soon to be waterfalls, as they rush over the cliffs into the sea. Whitewashed fishing villages break up the wild views every few miles. The trail is easy to follow.

After the Rota Vicentina, a taxi can shuttle you about an hour north and inland to the Alentejo region, a place of lakes, rolling hills and forests of oak and eucalyptus.

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Hiking to the highest point of Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake

Posted by on Apr 14, 2015 @ 9:09 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

There’s nowhere in Utah quite like Frary Peak. When you reach the top of this hike, you’re rewarded with the unique-to-Utah feeling of being completely surrounded by water.

The 7-mile roundtrip hike will take the better part of a day, but the views of the Great Salt Lake, bison and the unique territory of Antelope Island are worth the trek.

At 6,596 feet, Frary Peak is the highest point of the island, so prepare to climb. You’ll gain just over 2,000 feet over 3.5 miles up the trail. Most of the trail is exposed, so start early if you’re hiking on a hot day.

To get to Frary Peak, take the causeway to Antelope Island and pay the $10 fee for a vehicle with up to eight people or bike in for $3 per person. You’ll come to a fork in the road where you will turn left toward the visitors center. From there, signs point to the Frary Peak trailhead parking lot.

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Canopy View Trail at Muir Woods National Monument

Posted by on Apr 13, 2015 @ 9:16 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Muir Woods National Monument, just north of the Marin Headlands portion of Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California, was set aside in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt via the Antiquities Act. The landscape had been preserved by William Kent and his wife, who had purchased it three years earlier to prevent the old growth forest from being turned into a reservoir. They then donated the tract to the federal government and asked that it be named in honor of John Muir.

Though the national monument covers only 560 acres, there are six miles of trails that weave through it, a modest trail system but one that can be expanded greatly if you tie into the trails in Mount Tamalpais State Park that surrounds the national monument.

The Canopy View Trail (aka the Ocean View Trail) lies a short distance down the main path from the monument’s visitor center, just beyond Founders Grove with the Pinchot Tree. This redwood was dedicated in May 1910 to Gifford Pinchot, then head of the U.S. Forest Service, for his efforts in seeing the national monument designated.

Though the steep grade that takes the trail towards the roof of the national monument might seem formidable if you’re not used to hiking, the grade quickly levels out as the trail winds through the towering forest near the top of the monument. The trail actually takes you slightly outside Muir Woods and into the state park.

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Hiking In Style: Wyoming’s Trails Get A Touch Of High Class

Posted by on Apr 11, 2015 @ 9:41 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

On Easter Sunday, six hikers tumble out of cars and gather at the East Trailhead of Turtle Rock, East of Laramie. Chuck Adams, the hike’s organizer, gathers them in a circle.

He says, “This is the fourth High Society hike that’s been in the works. The other three have occurred in Oregon, so this is the first in Wyoming so congratulations. You should feel special.”

They are special. These aren’t ordinary looking hikers. Instead, they are wearing dresses, knickers, vests, suit jackets. They’ve accessorized with rope, vintage binocular cases, bow ties, felt hats, kerchiefs, leather sheathed knives, looking like characters out of a Jules Verne novel or a Tin Tin book.

Well-dressed playfulness in nature – that’s the whole point of the High Society Hiking club. Chuck Adams is the club’s founder and got the idea from a hike he did in Italy. He says after seeing women on the trails there in heels and dresses, it got him thinking.

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Wonderland Trail hiking permits suspended at Mount Rainier

Posted by on Apr 11, 2015 @ 9:27 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Mount Rainier National Park officials are no longer taking reservations for hiking the Wonderland Trail for this summer because of an “overwhelming and unprecedented demand.”

This year, the park received about 2,600 reservation requests as of March 31, the majority are for hiking the Wonderland Trail. That’s far more than can be reserved at backcountry camps along the trail this summer, said a news release. Before 2013, the number of wilderness reservation requests received at Mount Rainier during the first two weeks of the reservation window averaged about 800, said the release. That number jumped to 1,400 in 2013 and then 2,000 last year.

The park’s current reservation procedure provides that reservations received between March 15 and April 1 each year are processed in random order starting on April 1, said the release.

“Visitors may still seek walk-up reservations throughout the summer.” The best locations for a walk-up permit are the ranger stations at Longmire, White River and Carbon River, said the release. Another option is to hike the Wonderland Trail in smaller segments, which will improve chances of getting a permit both by reservation and in person.

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African-American Hiking Group Turns to Nature For Beauty and Community

Posted by on Apr 9, 2015 @ 12:17 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

African-American Hiking Group Turns to Nature For Beauty and Community

Rue Mapp kept finding herself the only African-American on organized hikes. Tired of being “the only one,” she started Outdoor Afro and found out she wasn’t. “I realized that when you identify all the only ones, and people did identify themselves as such, we were actually quite numerous,” she says.

Now there are Outdoor Afro chapters across the country. Volunteers like Zoe Polk lead hikes, camping trips and bird walks to help African-Americans reconnect with the outdoors and with each other. The group uses social media, too — to post resources, tips and photos of black people enjoying the outdoors.

“If this is your first time with Outdoor Afro, a couple of things to know about us,” she says. “We are not a competitive hiking group. Our purpose is to have community in nature and share with each other. So we’re not going to be leaving anyone behind today!”

Getting out on a hike “just allows you to put some breath into your life and just be honored and inspired by the beauty in the world and be able to hold that as well as the ugliness in the world that we also have to endure.”

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Well-kept secret may soon be a hiking hot spot

Posted by on Apr 8, 2015 @ 8:43 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

A little-known trail in northwest Nebraska has burst into the national spotlight. The Bison Trail, a three-mile hike between the Hudson-Meng Education and Research Center and Toadstool National Geologic Park, has been named one of the top 10 trails for a memorable spring hike by USA Today. It’s listed among such well-known spots as the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and Kalalau Trail in the Napali Coast State Park in Kauai, Hawaii.

The research center where the trail begins is tucked into the hills and surrounded by Ponderosa pines and mixed grasslands. It’s home to a modern archaeological excavation in progress.

Within a mile of the center hikers encounter a preserved grassland region — part of the Oglala National Grasslands — that is a bird watchers paradise. A diverse collection of songbirds, as well as rarely seen species such as long-billed curlews and sharp-tailed grouse, can be seen. Pronghorn and mule deer frequent the area.

Wildlife is drawn to the area by a natural spring — one of the only sources of water between the White and Cheyenne Rivers, which are about 30 miles apart.

“People get excited by efforts to save the Amazon rain forest because nearly 50 percent has been lost. But we’ve lost 99 percent of this nation’s grasslands,” said Dennis Kuhnel, director of the National Grasslands Visitors Center.

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Being Found: How to Increase your Survivability by Understanding How Search and Rescue Personnel Work

Posted by on Apr 8, 2015 @ 8:27 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

When was the last time you were hiking and looked up only to realize that your real and perceived locations no longer matched? It’s a common and unsettling experience to say the least. In these moments, humans tend to use a combination of observational, logical and investigative techniques to reorient themselves and get back on track. However, any combination of factors can undermine a person’s chances for success:

  • Lack of familiarity with the environment (causing perception error)
  • Decreased cognitive capability (due to medical issues, environment, panic, exhaustion, etc.)
  • Inability to use key skills and techniques (due to training, experience, lack of awareness, etc.)
  • Equipment failure, physical disability or an overwhelming dose of Murphy’s Law.

The result is being lost, which can be a terrifying and life threatening experience. One of the most dangerous environments in which this can happen is the rural/wilderness areas that surround our familiar man-made environments. Since most people aren’t trained or equipped to survive in these circumstances indefinitely, a key part of survival for the lost person is being found.

This article shares what the average hiker/camper/outdoor enthusiast can do to increase their chances of being found by examining how Wilderness Search and Rescue Personnel approach the missing person incident.

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Hiking, not climbing, Smith Rock in Central Oregon

Posted by on Apr 7, 2015 @ 1:58 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

Yes, the less vertically inclined, too, can find a suitable adventure at Smith Rock.

Although Smith Rock State Park is mostly known as a mecca for rock climbers, the hiking opportunities within the park should not be ignored. And often, the park’s trails can put a hiker in a spot to watch climbers scale some of the most difficult routes in the West.

It is a 30-minute drive north from Bend to Terrebonne to hike Smith Rock State Park and see as much of the park as possible from its highest vantage points — without actually climbing the rocks.

Besides, climbers need all that gear: rope, carabiners, belay devices, a partner they can trust with their lives. Hikers need just shoes, suitable clothing, water and some food.

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World’s most dangerous walkway reopens after 15 years

Posted by on Apr 6, 2015 @ 8:50 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

One of the world’s most dangerous hiking trails is open for business after being closed for 15 years.

The El Caminito del Rey trail, also known as King’s Little Pathway, is a 5-mile-long path in Spain that takes four to five hours to complete. The trek was as beautiful as it was dangerous until officials closed it in 2000 after too many travelers began falling to their deaths.

Local authorities shut it down and destroyed the entry points. Anyone caught trespassing received a hefty fine of $6,500, but that only encouraged daredevils to sneak in and post videos of their excursions on YouTube.

Eventually, the government decided to rebuild it and make it safer to attract tourists. Officials reopened the trail this week after it underwent $2.5 million worth of renovations.

It takes hikers through steep gorges on thin boardwalks. The project’s director said that even though it might not be the scariest hike in the world anymore, it still offers stunning views and exciting paths that you can live to tell about.

Cite…

 

Hiking in Maine: Producing a wonderful guide for discovery

Posted by on Apr 5, 2015 @ 9:25 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The Maine coast ranges more than 230 miles from Kittery to Lubec as the crow flies, but an incredible 3,500 miles when every nook and cranny, and some 3,000 islands are accounted for on the undulating margin along the Gulf of Maine between New Hampshire and Canada.

The topography of the coast is as varied as could be, a natural museum of sandy beaches and rocky headlands, bold ocean cliffs and blueberry barrens, quiet salt marshes and wildlife-rich estuaries, long finger-like peninsulas and deep-water coves, spruce-studded islands and wide bays, pristine lakes and ponds, free-flowing rivers and streams, woods of pine and oak, maple and birch, gentle hills and mountain peaks of pink granite.

Hundreds of miles of foot trails await hikers for many hours and days of exploration through the wealth of conservation lands that protect these special places, from state parks and public lands to federal wildlife refuges, a national park and an estuarine research reserve, to private land trusts and conservation organization properties of every shape, size and character.

Maine’s coastal trails vary widely from easy forest paths to moderate oceanfront rambles to strenuous mountain treks, and a measure of each are included in a new guide book. Most of the described hikes will provide an uncommon measure of solitude, while on a handful you will almost always see at least a few people.

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The Science Of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things

Posted by on Apr 3, 2015 @ 10:53 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

Most people are in the pursuit of happiness. There are economists who think happiness is the best indicator of the health of a society. We know that money can make you happier, though after your basic needs are met, it doesn’t make you that much happier. But one of the biggest questions is how to allocate our money, which is (for most of us) a limited resource.

There’s a very logical assumption that most people make when spending their money: that because a physical object will last longer, it will make us happier for a longer time than a one-off experience like a concert or vacation. According to recent research, it turns out that assumption is completely wrong.

“One of the enemies of happiness is adaptation,” says Dr. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University who has been studying the question of money and happiness for over two decades. “We buy things to make us happy, and we succeed. But only for a while. New things are exciting to us at first, but then we adapt to them.”

So rather than buying the latest smartphone or a new car, Gilovich suggests you’ll get more happiness spending money on experiences like going to art exhibits, doing outdoor activities, learning a new skill, traveling, and of course, hiking.

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