At 2am, you begin the trek up. Once you reach the Ijen plateau, you stand and look down at the dazzling, electric-blue fire. This comes from the burning of sulphuric gas, which emerges from cracks of the Ijen volcano.
As the sun slowly rises, the site looks even more surreal, as the turquoise blue lake there unfolds.The lake is the site of a labour-intensive mining operation, in which baskets laden with blocks of sulphur are manually carried up from the floor of the volcanic crater. The lake is recognised as the largest acidic crater lake in the world.
A two-hour hike is required to reach the rim of the crater, followed by a 45 minute hike down a narrow stairway. Despite its dramatic setting, the Mount Ijen trek is a relatively moderate one, suitable for any first timers. However, a mask is a must to avoid getting choked by the thick and pungent sulphuric gas.
After tackling Ijen, the next target is to hike Mount Semeru, which is the highest volcanic peak of Java. The start point is at 2,100m above sea level. The stratovolcano Semeru (also known as Mahameru) is very steep, rising abruptly to 3,676m from the coastal plains of eastern Java.
The Ranu Pane – Semeru route goes through a lot of beautiful scenery at Waturenjeng, Oro-Oro Ombo, Cemoro Kadang, Banjangan and Kalimati, where you camp overnight before ascending Semeru the next morning.
It’s that time of the year when the weather is warming up leaving people wanting to explore nature.
When it comes to hiking you don’t have to be an expert, but you do have to be prepared before taking a step into the wilderness. Henry Jackson who is director of education at outside world outfitters says to first be fully aware of your body before considering a trail.
“Instead of watching TV in the evenings go for a short walk with the kids or the dog just to get your body accustomed and active again, that will go a long way when you’re going into the wilderness,” said Jackson.
Amy Wheight who is an interpretive ranger at F.D. Roosevelt State Park says to choose practical trails to take. “Don’t let ego get in the way, everyone can’t do 23 miles in one day”, said Wheight.
When you’re physically ready to challenge the adventure, it’s great to plan out your trip. Rangers at F.D Roosevelt State Park say visitors usually take unplanned hikes leaving them injured or lost.
Pack water and food, carry a first aid kit, let someone know you’re going on a hike and most importantly experts say to carry and know how to read a map.
Chaunaca is on a well-established trekking route through the Cordillera de los Frailes, a jumbled geologic mass that rises just west of Sucre, Bolivia’s official capital, best known for its whitewashed Spanish colonial neighborhoods and universities. Though the edge of the mountains can be reached from the city in about an hour, the villages within them feel worlds away.
The scenery would be enough to draw you to the cordillera, with its upthrust layers of multicolored sedimentary rock set around a crater that’s encircled by rugged river canyons. But you may be equally intrigued by the indigenous Jalq’a people who live there and who are known for intricate weavings that represent a fantastical underworld filled with spirits and mythical animals. In the same way that a place like Varanasi exudes a distinctly Hindu aura, and Cairo is palpably Islamic, you wonder how it would feel to be in a place where the culture is strongly associated with strange, subterranean dreamscapes.
Turn off the highway and follow a dirt road into the mountains through pungent groves of pine and eucalyptus until you reached a place called Chataquila, where a church sits atop the eastern ridge of the cordillera, at 11,800 feet above sea level. It was there, in 1781, that Tomas Katari, the leader of an indigenous rebellion against Spanish rule, was executed, adding to the spiritual and emotional potency of an important place of pilgrimage.
From there, you begin hiking into the heart of the cordillera, down the so-called Inca Trail, which is believed to have been built about 550 years ago (though may be much older) and was used during pre-Hispanic times for communication and trade.
Kiwis work hard to make hiking attractive. The maintenance on the trails hiked is impressive: crushed-rock trail beds; comfortable clearance even in the most dense areas of the beech- and fern-dominated rainforests; boardwalks that meander over wetlands; and well-built, if sometimes unnerving, suspension bridges that span the roiling creeks.
Richard Davies, a recreation manager for New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, says millions of dollars are pumped into the country’s park areas annually, much of it devoted to trail development and maintenance.
“It hasn’t happened by chance,” Davies says of the manicured trails. “All our staff are working on certain service standards – how much vegetation is cleared, the gradient of the track, whether the watercourses are bridged or not. We can provide a really consistent service. Wherever you go in the country you get a similar experience.”
From hikes in the Bay of Islands on the North Island, to the southern regions of Fiordland National Park on the South Island, you will find this to be true. And there is good reason for the effort. The spectacular scenery this island nation has to offer is unsurpassed. Peter Jackson didn’t just film his J.R.R. Tolkien epics here because he didn’t want to leave his home country. The vertical landscapes, whether they anchor themselves in mountain rivers, broad lakes or the Pacific Ocean, perfectly lend themselves to fantasy.
Puget Sound’s southern end is close to Seattle, yet just far enough away. Unlike the steep stair-climber slopes in the mountains around Seattle, the area around Olympia tends to feature rolling terrain and smaller hills. Plentiful parks make finding a hike easy, and the hikes’ accessibility makes them friendly to families and those with limited time or physical capabilities.
Take Mima Mounds Natural Area Preserve, a 635-acre park just south of Olympia, for example. The derivation of its namesake earthen humps is still uncertain despite much study and speculation; theories range from pocket gophers to windblown sediments to extraterrestrials. Trails give visitors various ways to explore these strange lumps in the Earth’s surface. A .5-mile paved trail is ADA-accessible, and easy loop hikes meander among the mounds, which are at their best when wildflowers bloom in April and May.
Right next to Mima Mounds, the multiuse trails at Capitol State Forest are often populated with mountain bikers, horseback riders and ATV users in summer. But during the rainy season, hikers have the forest mostly to themselves. A 6.5-mile loop whose trailhead is practically across the street from Mima Mounds leads to pretty Mima Falls and connects to a collection of longer and sometimes steeper trails through the forest.
Combine hiking and paddling at Millersylvania State Park, a sprawling camping and recreation spot surrounding Deep Lake. Interlocking loop trails go past wetlands, through meadows and into forests. On this hike through the moss-draped old growth, you will likely hear the hoots of great horned owls above and the low croaks of frogs below.
Today is the 5 year anniversary of the launch of Meanderthals: A Hiking Blog. Started as an online means of enhancing information available about hiking in the Carolinas, Meanderthals has expanded over the years to include news about hiking, conservation and the environment, as well as reviews of goods and services that are of interest to the outdoors community.
There are now more than 200 trail reports from places near and far like Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests, North and South Carolina State Parks and Forests, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the giant peaks of the Colorado Rockies, and the redrock canyons of Utah and Arizona.
The reviews section includes two dozen gear reviews, five film reviews, and 10 book reviews. The gallery section enables the ability to search for your next hike by visual appeal, or to explore photo essays that give you a look behind my camera lens.
It all started on March 24, 2011 with a trail report about Table Rock State Park in South Carolina. What comes next is as much up to you as it is to me. I always welcome your comments on every post and photo, and I encourage you to make suggestions for improvement by contacting me via email. Help me find that next great trail, or publicize the selfless work being done by wilderness volunteers. We’re all a part of making outdoor recreation better and better.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Aliso Creek Regional Riding and Hiking Trail is a well maintained class-one bikeway and soft recreational trail extending from the foothills of Orange County, California to the boundary of Laguna Beach.
The continuous fifteen miles of asphalt bikeway designed for multi-use travels through five south county cities. The soft trail mirrors the asphalt bikeway path on either side of the Aliso Creek traveling from the mountains to the sea.
The ten-foot-wide bikeway was originally designed in the 1970s when the old El Toro Road was abandoned during the construction of a much larger and safer road.
The County of Orange added the Aliso Creek Riding and Hiking Trail to the Master Plan of Recreational Trail Opportunities adopted by the Board of Supervisors. The County has employed a full time dedicated team to inspect and maintain the trails and bikeways throughout the County of Orange. The team keeps the trail open year round, responds to service requests, and plans routine repairs to long-term maintenance projects.
A historical site of an adobe house built in the 1840s by Jose Serrano whose Rancho Canada stretched to the north is featured at Heritage Hill Historical Park. This hacienda was a welcomed spot for travelers following the old Spanish “El Camino Real” during the late 1800s and was recognized in 1996 by the Historical Society and the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day® (NTD) is a celebration of America’s magnificent Trail System, occurring annually on the first Saturday in June. NTD features a series of outdoor activities, designed to promote and celebrate the importance of trails in the United States. Individuals, clubs and organizations from around the country host National Trails Day® events to share their love of trails with friends, family, and their communities. NTD introduces thousands of Americans to a wide array of trail activities: hiking, biking, paddling, horseback riding, trail running, and bird watching and more. For public and private land managers alike, National Trails Day® is a great time to showcase beautiful landscapes and special or threatened locales as thousands of people will be outside looking to participate in NTD events.
National Trails Day® evolved during the late ‘80s and ‘90s from a popular ethos among trail advocates, outdoor industry leaders and political bodies who wanted to unlock the vast potential in America’s National Trails System, transforming it from a collection of local paths into a true network of interconnected trails and vested trail organizations. This collective mindset hatched the idea of a singular day where the greater trail community could band together behind the NTD moniker to show their pride and dedication to the National Trails System.
June 4, 2016 is this year’s event, the country’s largest celebration of trails. National Trails Day events will take place in every state across the country and will include hikes, biking and horseback rides, paddling trips, birdwatching, geocaching, gear demonstrations, stewardship projects and more. If you are interested in leading or organizing an event
A high route is designed to be the finest backpacking experience available in a single mountain range, watershed, or canyon system, offering an unrivaled concentration of best-of features. When worthy terrain peters out, a high route terminates; it does not continue on for days or weeks through marginal landscapes before reaching another notable destination. Depending on your prior familiarity with an area, a high route can be a defining capstone course or an ambitious attempt at one-stop shopping.
High routes are not recognized by land managers, and they are not marked in the field. They are largely off-trail and do not hesitate in traveling across extensive talus, scrambling on class 3 slabs, or plunging through thick brush. Vertical relief is extreme.
The first in the U.S. was the 195-mile Sierra High Route, which is a more adventurous alternative to the John Muir Trail. Despite other opportunities, especially in the West, only recently have other options been formalized.
Guides are now available for the 97-mile Wind River High Route, 125-mile Kings Canyon High Basin Route, and 104-mile Southern Sierra High Route. Efforts are underway to develop a Glacier Divide Route and a Trinity Alps High Route. The concept is likely to expand, including to non-mountain wilderness areas like the Colorado Plateau.
Just off the Continental Divide, deep in Wyoming’s Absaroka Range and Teton Wilderness, Younts Peak brushes thin air at 12,156 feet. When the melt season arrives, snowfields in a cirque high up on the massif’s north face and other flanks are adorned with countless rivulets. Trickling off the snow, they weave in the mountain’s tundra, forming into small creeks as they gather in the denser vegetation below and provide the initial waters for the North and South forks of the Yellowstone River. Beneath Younts’ west wall, the two branches unite to power the surge of the largest undammed, free-running river in America as it commences its 670-mile odyssey to meet the Missouri beyond Sidney, Mont. And what a journey it makes!
From its spawning grounds 28 air miles below Yellowstone National Park’s southeast corner, the fabled river enters a narrow deep canyon fighting its way down a boulder-strewn course. For about 10 miles the newly formed river passes through a forest of pine, spruce and fir fitted with small meadows and willow flats. The 1988 fires that burned a great deal of acreage in Yellowstone National Park also touched this corner of the Teton Wilderness, and as a result some new aspen growth is being observed. The conifer mix is changing, and lodgepole is coming back in places, while exhibits of wildflowers — including arnica and fireweed — are sprouting up under the burnt snags.
Numerous unnamed streams and waterfalls tumble off the Continental Divide to the west and from Thunder Mountain and volcanic cliffs on the east. Industrious beavers have created ponds in many places. The rough Continental Divide Trail follows the river on its north and east side, with many small but easy creek crossings. Here the river connects with some of the nation’s finest wilderness landscape — beautiful, untamed and gaining its wild soul. Far from any road, this is the gorge of the Upper Yellowstone.
Tuacahn Split is a fun but strenuous hike located near Tuacahn Center for the Arts in Ivins, Utah. It takes you through a maze of sandstone that leads up above Snow Canyon State Park. Throughout the hike you will see the breathtaking views of red sandstone and black lava rock that are so familiar to everyone in the St. George surrounding area.
The trail is about three miles long with an elevation gain of about 1,200 ft. Most of the trail is unmarked, and many areas will require a bit of scrambling and climbing. Hikers will need to make sure they have the strength to pull themselves up over ledges as well as lower themselves down. This is not a hike for children or dogs, and should only be taken on by experienced hikers, preferably with a guide.
The trail begins just outside of the Tuacahn parking lot. As you ascend the red sandstone mountain there will be one spot where you must swing your body up and over a boulder. It can be scary, but if you can make this first hurdle you can handle any of the other heights on the trail.
Looking back you’ll see a beautiful view of Tuacahn and the surrounding area, and will be able to hear the comings and goings of Tuacahn High School. The hike continues in a series of ‘staircases’ as you make your way further and further upward. One staircase in particular is extremely steep and will look near impossible when you are at the bottom.
Make sure you look back after completing each staircase because the views are spectacular. After the staircases are the splits. You will need to lower yourself into narrow crevices in the rock. There are two of these, but the second is definitely narrower than the first. Hiking guides often say the hike gets its name because hikers will split their pants as they stem down the crevices.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club (RATC), and the United States Forest Service announced the opening of an approximately 1-mile relocated section of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) near Pearisburg, Virginia. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Friday, March 18, 2016 at the A.T. trailhead near historic Pearis Cemetery along VA Route 100 in Pearisburg.
The new route will significantly improve the hiking experience for Trail users. It eliminates two road crossings, is no longer in close proximity to private homes, and hikers can enjoy a gently graded woodland walk between Cross Avenue and Route 100. The Trail now traverses the face of the stone wall from which the Bluff City neighborhood takes its name, and the steep terrain, thriving forest, and views of the New River provide a rich and scenic hiking experience along the new route.
Construction of the section was a significant undertaking, as the Trail was cut into the side of a bluff and elevated with numerous sections of stone cribbing. The project, which took more than 15 years to complete, represents thousands of volunteer hours from the RATC and the ATC’s Konnarock Trail Crew. Crews from the RATC put the final touches on the footpath.
“Community members and Appalachian Trail enthusiasts from near and far are invited to be among the first to explore the new section and celebrate with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club, and the official Appalachian Trail Community of Pearisburg,” said Andrew Downs, regional director for the ATC. “The Town of Pearisburg has been very supportive of this relocation project and the many crews of volunteers who helped build it.”
Don’t let the name Hellhole Canyon scare you off. In early March the 6-mile hike in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park is alive with striking desert blooms, a lush palm oasis and hidden waterfalls. Sure, the start of the route into the sun-beaten canyon is hot.
Flowering indigo, beavertail cactus and desert dandelions buzz with insects along the seemingly misnamed trail. Camera-toting hikers, including the California Native Plant Society’s Bay Area members, wander among towering ocotillo, yellow brittlebush and red chuparosa.
Some hikers will say there are no waterfalls. That is easy to believe in what appears to be a vast, waterless landscape. But keep hiking, determined to find waterfalls in a desert. You will be rewarded.
Farther in, canyon wrens laugh as the trail scrambles over boulders and criss-crosses a creek meandering through a lush, shady palm oasis until at last you find secluded Maidenhair Falls, a slender cascade dropping 18 to 20 feet into a small pool beneath a wall of ferns.
Anza-Borrego is one of California’s southernmost state parks – stretching nearly to the Mexican border.
In the Yukon, Carcross/Tagish First Nation youth are building world class singletrack trails and ski touring, redefining their people’s mountain culture and leading their elders toward a new future.
The preamble and aftermath of the Gold Rush, and manic rush of the Alaska Highway some 45 years later, changed all of this. Endless streams of people and riches flowed through these valleys, first in a stampede that posed a brief and annoying interruption to daily life, and then as a lingering houseguest who brought with them a highway, guns and trucks full of booze.
Decades of boom-bust industry have left their mark on Montana Mountain. The daring feats of catskinners are etched across the mountainside, permanent reminders of industry’s dogged pursuit of silver and gold. Far below in Carcross, the scars are more subtle, but equally persistent—the decaying foundation of the former residential school, empty liquor bottles discarded under groves of spruce trees, caught along the stunning, windswept expanse of beach and dunes extending beyond the schoolyard fence.
In 2006, Carcross/Tagish First Nation (C/TFN) undertook a small initiative with a big dream. The Singletrack to Success (S2S) Project’s vision was to “build a destination, one trail at a time,” and to employ its youth in doing so. It was the year before C/TFN signed its land claim agreement with the Yukon and Canadian governments, marking the return of autonomy over its lands, resources, and people. The question of economic self-sufficiency loomed large on the collective conscience of C/TFN citizens. The environmental impacts of mining were deemed too great; no, this Nation needed to find another way. Tourism offered a viable option, and trails—the “paydirt” of the adventure-fueled travelling set—were a tangible starting point.
When Drew Peterson tells people he works as a U.S. Forest Service wilderness ranger, they may assume his job is defined by solitude. But that is not always the case: On a busy summer day, a wilderness ranger may stop to talk with as many as 300 people, such as on a recent day patrolling the popular Green Lakes Trail off the Cascade Lakes Highway.
“It can take up to six hours to hike up the trail,” Peterson said. The trail runs about 4½ miles from trailhead to Green Lakes.
Describing what a wilderness ranger is and what exactly he does quickly becomes complex. Peterson, 32, who now primarily patrols wilderness in the Ochoco National Forest but occasionally helps in the Deschutes National Forest, said the work combines about a dozen jobs, including customer service, trail maintenance and rule enforcement. Peterson’s job is to make sure people are doing the right thing.
The current form of the program, in which wilderness rangers go to wilderness areas around the Deschutes National Forest, started in 2010, said Jason Fisher, who supervises the five rangers in the national forest.
Though the title may bring up notions of adventure and exploration, often the work focuses on educating people about what they should and should not be doing. “It’s not what a lot of people expect,” he said.
Passing through wilderness requires adhering to federal rules and regulations, which Peterson and other wilderness rangers enforce.
Patagonia: land of refugees and romantics, restless souls and wilderness crusaders. What it is about this place that compels people to gamble all that they know for the chance to explore its volatile nature?
Rare are the places in the world that are as evocative as Patagonia, where the raw solitude of wilderness mingles with a certain sense of potential, where refugees from oppression, wilderness crusaders and restless souls seem to congregate in a vast cathedral of fjords, glaciers, mountains and grasslands.
The scale is such that you could point a compass south on the Carretera Austral from Puerto Montt, Chile, where Patagonia approximately begins, and drive 1,200 kilometers to the highway’s terminus at the dusty town of Villa O’Higgins near the Argentine border, and not have reached its furthest corners.
It is a place of soaring tangerine coloured granite towers, windswept plains of pampas grass, estancias (ranches) the size of small countries and weather systems that can turn cobalt blue skies into a surging turmoil of cloud in the time it takes to down a glass of Malbec and a meal of freshly grilled meat.
Deep in the southwestern desert, Heather Anderson’s signal is skittish and broken. She’s been in the backcountry for nearly three weeks, checking off summits on the Sierra Club’s list of premier desert peaks—the final miles of the 4,000 she’s hiked in the past year. By the time her backcountry call made it to the cell in my mother’s kitchen, we’d been forced to break phone dates due to poor reception and unabashed confusion regarding what time zones she was straddling—a mixup that says more about Anderson’s unconventional and nomadic lifestyle than her organizational skills.
On the trail, she goes by Anish, but within hiking communities, 34-year-old Heather Anderson is also known as “the ghost,” for how she seems to appear out of thin air. It was late summer of 2013 when she set the record for the fastest self-supported hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. She covered the 2,654 miles from Mexico to Canada in 60 days, 17 hours, and 12 minutes, a distance the trail’s association recommends allowing five to seven months to complete and only about a third of hopefuls complete. Alone, she put in consecutive 18-hour days, hiking between 40 and 50 miles in daylight and darkness. This quiet and consistent rigor secured Anderson’s status as an elite athlete. Yet still, she kept walking.
This past August, Anderson set the record for the fastest known time on the Appalachian Trail, shaving four days off the men’s record and a whopping 36 off the women’s when she trekked the 2,180 miles from Maine to Georgia in 54 days, 7 hours, and 48 minutes. Take gender out of the question, she is the first person in history to simultaneously hold the self-supported record for both trails.
Armen Kazaryan says adamantly, “I don’t need to see the route, I feel it by my feet,” as he swiftly navigates the lush terrain of Southern Armenia for an afternoon hike. Armen is probably the only blind hiking tour guide in the world, or at the very least, the only one in Armenia.
It was in Kapan, capital of the Syunik region, surrounded by some of Armenia’s most breathtaking landscapes that made Armen realize perhaps he had gained more than he had lost. His senses rejoiced in the healing powers of nature and he reconnected with the people and landscapes that so profoundly shaped his youth.
Recognizing the incredible potential of Southern Armenia to provide joy and healing to others, it wasn’t long before Armen and his wife made the bold decision to launch an NGO called ARK Armenia, which immediately started marking hiking trails in the region, making various landmarks accessible to the tourists passing by. Before long, they were acquiring volunteers, who provided valuable labor, helping build the region’s first eco-camp and marking more hiking trails.
Armen says, “Too long it’s been neglected as a touristic destination by the international community. The situation needs to change, needs to become more sustainable and encourage eco-friendly practices. Tourism is a great place to start for that.”
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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