More than two dozen new projects at national parks across the country will give kids and adults the opportunity to participate in recreation and exercise programs thanks to 25 Active Trails grants from the National Park Foundation, the official charity of America’s national parks.
“From Zumba and yoga, to paddling along the seashore, to guided hikes for veterans, our national parks are places for healthy living, wellness, fun, and healing,” said Susan Newton, senior vice president of grants & programs at the National Park Foundation. “Thanks to our Active Trails program, we’re able to help people from all backgrounds discover how they can actively enjoy our national parks in ways that speak to their unique interests.”
“National parks, both urban and rural, can provide opportunities to improve one’s physical and mental health,” said Sara Newman, Director of the Office of Public Health at the National Park Service. “The scientific evidence is mounting to demonstrate that physical activity in the outdoors can lead to numerous health benefits, and we are proud our parks are a health resource for this nation. These National Park Foundation grants will help all visitors experience our parks as places to recreate, inspire, reflect, and be active.”
Since 2008, the National Park Foundation has granted more than $3.35 million through its Active Trails program. As of early 2015, Active Trails has engaged more than 12,000 volunteers and 740 project partners at national parks across the country.
The people of Grenada all seem to have spirited gifts. Maybe it stems from the love they feel for their country and the relaxed laid-back lifestyles they share.
The paradisiacal island is located in the Eastern Caribbean, just 100 miles north of Venezuela.
It boasts 440 picturesque square kilometres, one sixth of which is preserved as parks and natural wildlife sanctuaries.
As well as being the island’s central focal point, Grand Etang National Park is home to a 13-acre lake in a volcanic crater 1,740 feet above sea level. It also has numerous hikes leading to Seven Sisters Waterfalls.
Abundant flora that embrace the routes. Towering mahoganies and giant gommier trees unite with broad-leafed ferns and vine-draped Fijis.
Bunches of bamboo shoot skyward like piles of pick-up sticks, trunks of banyan trees fan out like well-played accordions and countless towering palm fronds billow above in the sultry breeze.
As well as hosting opossums, armadillos, mongoose and Mona monkeys, lush vegetation provides shelter for frogs and chameleon-like lizards that can grow up to four feet long.
Near Seattle, WA, one of the North Sound’s most popular and scenic hiking trails is in danger of being logged. Unless the state can allocate $7.5 million, the 100-year-old trees that cover Oyster Dome — between Mount Vernon and Bellingham – will be cut down by the Department of Natural Resources.
Craig Romano tackles the popular hike off Highway 11 on a pretty regular basis. The guide book author has hiked 18,000 miles of Washington trails and says Oyster Dome’s six-plus miles are some of the very best.
“It is the only place where the Cascades meet the Salish Sea. So 2,000 feet up, it rises right out of the Salish Sea, and you’re overlooking the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Mountains,” explained Craig.
That’s why a decade ago, even though Oyster Dome is in a state forest where the DNR is required to log, a promise was made to protect it. The state agreed to buy 1,600 acres of private land, add it to the Blanchard Forest, and log it instead of Oyster Dome.
But 10 years later, the Legislature has funded less than half of the $13 million needed for the purchase, and local hikers are starting to panic.
Before sunrise one morning in mid-December, two weeks into his winter attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, Thomas Gathman marched toward two of Mount Bigelow’s craggy peaks in western Maine as a snowstorm descended. By the time he’d bagged the first one, 4,088-foot Avery Peak, he was trudging through a foot of new fallen snow.
As Gathman stumbled across the adjacent, exposed ridge of the 4,145-foot West Peak, he faced whiteout conditions, with the temperature dropping to -20 degrees and wind gusting up to 70 mph. Gathman’s face mask was tucked securely in his pack and stopping to put it on would take time, so he pushed ahead, vying to reach the cover of trees before frostbite set in.
“I was fully, totally exerting myself for each individual step just to push through the wind,” Gathman saidin January as he resupplied near Hanover, New Hampshire, 200 miles south of Mount Bigelow. “I could feel the stinging sensation starting and turning into numbness on the exposed skin on my cheeks and nose and near my eyes.” After suffering exposure on the ridge for nearly 10 minutes, Gathman escaped below the tree line into relative safety.
That harrowing experience was just one of countless hazards encountered by the Real Hiking Viking as he attempts to become the first person on record to complete a solo, southbound winter thru-hike of the AT, having started in December. On December 4, Gathman set out from the 100-Mile Wilderness in Maine. Many of the thousands of hikers who attempt the trail each year start at Springer Mountain in Georgia and head north during the spring thaw in March or April. A handful have left in December heading south but, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s records, no one has ever successfully finished.
This feels like walking in soft marshmallows,” murmured Carolyn Dullum.There’s nothing like slow motion squish-walking down a gypsum dune.
Trail Snails, a local hiking group, trek a most unusual hike into the gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument, about an hour and a half from Ruidoso, New Mexico.
“I’ve hiked Alkali Flats many times,” said Barbara Willard, today’s leader. “It’s different. And when you get away from the picnic areas, you hear nothing. It’s so peaceful.”
And unique, too. Unlike hiking trails that are clearly defined in a forest or woodland setting, Alkali Flats Trail is marked only by tall orange markers stuck in dunes about a tenth of a mile apart. To hike the five-mile trail, one simply sights the next orange marker and gets there any way one wishes.
“Over and down the dunes, around the dunes, it doesn’t matter. Pick your own path.”
Another unique feature of Alkali Flats trail is that it’s footwear-optional. Mike Bilbo cheerfully shed his boots and socks and blissfully squished his toes in the soft, cool, moist gypsum sand. “You get traction and a pedicure at the same time,” he teased.
National park wardens in Great Britain are pleading with walkers to stop making cairns on the mountains. Snowdonia staff say footpaths and the fragile upland environment are being damaged by the custom of picking up stones and piling them up to mark routes.
The problem has become so severe that a demolition day is planned for cairns on the Cadair Idris in the South of the Snowdonia national park. Work has already begun to ‘rationalise’ some of the piles of stones in the northern part of the park.
Snowdonia National Park Authority said, over the years it has been the custom to build cairns on mountains to identify paths and junctions or dangerous places. But recently it has become common for walkers to identify the routes they have taken by placing a stone on a pile of stones to create a cairn.
“As the cairns are built, stone by stone, the footpaths are eroding and the fragile landscape is being damaged. Footpaths widen and the cost of maintaining the footpaths increase. But, even more dangerous, they can mislead walkers, especially in fog.
“Later this year, we will begin to rationalise the cairns, but in the meantime we are appealing to walkers to stop moving the stones on the mountains.”
This is a three-day hike in the southwestern part of Shan State, Myanmar — farming country known mostly for narrow, silvery Inle Lake, a popular destination for travelers. Bountiful and ethnically diverse, southern Shan is a patchwork of villages and farms growing sesame, wheat, potatoes, rice and chiles in a stunning highland landscape. Dirt paths and quiet roads connect villages, some of which host markets on alternate days.
It sets out from the former British hill station of Kalaw on a road that becomes a dirt path, passing through a stand of mountain pines that opens to undulating valleys dotted with villages.
A few hours into the trek, you pass a terraced garden of onions and cabbages, with shade trees and elegant, fenced gardens with rows of greens, garlic and eggplant. Then the terrain grows more challenging, with glowing checkerboards of sesame and rice planted on steep hillsides.
December through February is the best time to visit Shan State, when rainfall is low and temperatures milder, although overnight stops may be crowded with other travelers. The walk is of moderate difficulty, with steep climbs and limited shade. The distance can vary depending on your route, but for a three-day trip, count on walking at least five or six hours each day.
Nature and the wilderness is often portrayed as a place of peace and isolation, but any illusion that the wilderness of the Pacific Crest Trail is isolated and peaceful is proven false in Wild Child’s experiences along the trail. The Pacific Crest Trail hiking line is a male-dominated environment, peopled with strange men and women, and offers very little protection from physical or verbal violence stemming from racism, misogyny, or sheer sadism.
In Girl In The Woods, the hiker, who goes by the name “Wild Child”, is a young woman of 19 and a survivor of rape.
Wild Child grew up as Deborah “Debby” Parker, a sheltered child who lived under the wing of her protective mother and influential, high-achieving brother. On the second night of her stay at college, she was raped.
The emotional and psychological effects of the rape, compounded with the lack of empathy from her college and her family, became the catalyst for her decision to hike the entire Pacific Crest Trail.
Following Wild Child’s journey along the trail brings us to very close intimacy with her personality, her decisions, and her pain. Although survivor accounts and articles on the way rape affects psychology exist in abundance, Girl In The Woods vividly shows how rape shatters one’s sense of safety, trust, and control over one’s body and environment; more importantly, the book allows readers to witness the challenges of regaining that lost sense of security and control.
More than 600 UT students belong to a club that began with a hike between two YMCA leaders over 80 years ago. In October of 1924, Marshall Wilson and George Barber, YMCA leaders of a boys’ camp in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, decided to go on a hike. While hiking, the pair came to an agreement that they should start a club and begin leading trips to the Smokies for whoever was interested.
Today, the Smoky Mountains Hiking Club (SMHC) exists in Knoxville as an organization where outdoor enthusiasts and nature lovers get the chance to hike and camp in the Smokies. The club has a longstanding tradition of hiking, volunteerism, fellowship and conservation. The members go on hiking trips every week, primarily in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, although sometimes they venture into surrounding areas.
“We hike all over, though mostly on the Tennessee side,” Cindy Spangler, board member for the SMHC, said. “We also hike in Frozen Head, Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, the Benton MacKaye Trail, Big Ridge State Park, the Cumberland Trail, Big South Fork and the Norris watershed.”
The club also leads kayaking and canoeing trips, backpacking outings and city walks within Knoxville. The SMHC hosts picnics, a Christmas banquet and an annual nature photography contest as well.
One of the main activities the SMHC participates in is the maintenance of the Appalachian Trail. Club members volunteer and spend time cleaning up the trail to make sure it stays easily accessible to visitors.
Aravaipa Canyon is extremely narrow—at many points, probably no more than a quarter of a mile from rim to rim—which means that to explore the canyon you often hike right through the stream bed. Traverse the entire twelve-mile length of the canyon and you’ll cross the creek at least forty times, sometimes in water that’s knee deep.
Aravaipa Creek is a rarity in the desert—a spring-fed creek that flows year-round—and through millennia the water has cut a deep gash into the Galiuro Mountains. The canyon begins with heavy slabs of dark-red shale at the bottom, rises into rust-colored schist, and then rises further into cliffs of orange-and-peach limestone. Eons of the planet’s story are visible in a glance, whole epochs etched in the span of a thousand vertical feet.
The canyon slopes are pure Sonora Desert: tall, multi-armed saguaros, writhing agave, prickly pear, and patches of gray bursage and brittlebush. It’s a world of heat and thorn and rock. A whole other universe exists just below. Along the creek grow thickets of willow skirted with horsetail reed and cattails. Colonnades of cottonwoods arch above the streambed, where cool green algae cloaks the rocks in the water.
The oasis is home to all kinds of critters, including mallard ducks and green-winged teals and flocks of northern pintails with their long, brown faces. You may scare up a great blue heron, which will flap its wide wings and retreat upstream until you surprise it again, and then again. There are whitetail deer and packs of javelina, fierce-looking with their porcupine-like hairs.
Don’t get bitten by mosquitoes. That’s the advice offered to the public in virtually every article on the rapidly-spreading, mosquito-borne Zika virus. But if you love the outdoors and are a regular hiker, what can you do?
There’s no arguing with the advice. Zika, once considered a relatively mild flu-like illness, has now been linked to a surge in severe birth defects in Brazil and possibly to cases of paralysis.
But anyone who is a mosquito-magnet must be asking: Can humans really keep the blood-sucking bugs at bay?
“DEET” is the immediate one-word answer from Dr. William Reisen, professor emeritus at the School of Veterinary Medicine at U.C. Davis and editor of the Journal of Medical Entomology.
“DEET is the standard,” agrees Dr. Mustapha Debboun, director of the mosquito control division of Harris County Public Health and Environmental Services in Houston. “All the repellents being tested are tested to see if they beat DEET.”
DEET is shorthand for the chemical name N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide. It’s the active ingredient in many insect repellents, which don’t kill mosquitoes but keep them away.
A 2015 study tested eight commercial mosquito repellents, two fragrances and a vitamin B patch by releasing mosquitoes into a sealed chamber with a treated hand.
Now is the time for hiking in solitude and snowy silence at Wild Rivers, just north of Taos, New Mexico.
One of the less-traveled paths is the Pescado Trail that connects the Red River Fish Hatchery with the Wild Rivers Visitor Center. This trail gains about 800 feet over two miles and is considered a moderate trail in the summer months.
Add a foot or two of snow and the trail is more challenging during the winter. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Park Ranger Daniel Rael says, “We have gotten so much snow that the cross-country skiing and snowshoeing are fantastic.” The rewards for the climb up and over the ridge are dramatic views into the canyon of the Red River, along with glimpses of nearby Guadalupe Mountain and Flag Mountain to the east.
Although the hike can be accessed from either end, beginning the hike at the Red River Fish Hatchery cuts driving time significantly from Taos, with the trailhead being 22 miles away, rather than about 38 miles to the Wild Rivers Visitor Center. From the fish hatchery trailhead, the path crosses the Red River and follows it for a short distance.
A moderately steep path follows switchbacks up a rocky hillside and into the woods. The trail continues to climb through the forest of ponderosa pine.
North Carolina Forest Service officials have determined that the recent snow event has made DuPont’s trails extremely susceptible to damage from trail users because of soft, wet conditions. There will be temporary closures of all of the DuPont single track trails. Forest roads and two-track trails such as Triple Falls, High Falls, and Hooker Falls trails will remain open.
The 10,400 acre DuPont State Recreational Forest is located in Henderson and Transylvania Counties between the towns of Hendersonville and Brevard.
The intent of the DuPont State Recreational Forest Land and Resource Management Plan is to provide the ecological context within which management will be conducted on the forest, to describe the desired future condition of natural resources throughout the forest toward which management will be directed, and to outline appropriate management techniques to work towards those conditions. The goals and objectives presented in this plan were developed to support other statewide initiatives regarding natural resource conservation and education.
Look here for updates about trails reopening as information becomes available.
Update February 4, 2016: Single track trails remain closed in DuPont State Forest because of significant rain on February 3rd on top of all the previous snow melt. Ground conditions are extremely soft and susceptible to damage.
Update February 5, 2016: Single track trails, with the exception of Reasonover Creek Trail and Air Strip Trail, have reopened.
The Timberline Trail has always been one of very best hikes in the Pacific Northwest. A nearly 40-mile trek around the peak of Mt. Hood, the trail offers stunning angles of the mountain as well as views of the other giants of the Cascade Range: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Jefferson and the Three Sisters.
But for the last decade that loop has been incomplete – cut off after a 2006 debris flow washed out a seasonal bridge and large chunk of the trail near the Eliot Glacier field. The closure has forced hikers to cut their treks short, or else find more difficult paths across.
Thankfully, those hiking headaches will soon fade. The U.S. Forest Service announced this week official plans to reconnect the 40-mile trail, via a 1.5-mile re-route. Trail construction is expected to begin this summer, with the projected completion coming sometime in 2017.
“We’re thrilled to begin work on rerouting this trail to the new location so that crossing this area is safer for hikers,” Claire Pitner, eastside recreation manager for the Mt. Hood National Forest said in a press release. “The 1.5 mile reroute will minimize exposure to loose boulders which otherwise could pose as hazards for hikers.”
The new segment of trail will run south of the old path, crossing Eliot Branch at a spot the forest service hopes will be “more protected from the scouring action of the stream.”
The Aberdares Mountain Range is 160km from “tip to toe” and encompasses over 2,000sqkm of Afro-montane wilderness. There are several ways to tackle this pristine highland. One such hike is to Mt Satima, or Ol Donyo Lesatima, the highest peak at 3,999m and located on the south-eastern end of the range.
Leave Nairobi before dawn; on average, the hike takes seven hours. Drive north to Nyeri, about 140km by road, then access the Aberdares through the KWS park headquarters at Mweiga. Purchase tickets and pick up an armed KWS ranger. The resident populations of elephant and buffalo warrant bringing along a big gun. Inside the Aberdares National Park, drive about 20km to get to the starting point.
You start off in a patch of forest thick with pencil cedar, podocarpus and rosewood trees hung with sprays of reddish-pink flowers. Tassels of old man’s beard swayed from mossy boughs, and every now and then the canopy shakes from monkeys leaping around in the upper layers. Further up, the forest ends abruptly, giving way to drier ground covered with bushes, short trees and giant heather.
Wild mint and lemony scents drift on the wind. You then ascend into expansive moors of hardy tussock grass, groundsel and towering Senecia plants.
Sequoia groves are found throughout the Sequoia, Sierra, Stanislaus, Eldorado and Tahoe National Forests in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Multiple agencies, businesses and non-profits are collaborating to improve management and share scientific results regarding Giant Sequoia. Led by the National Forest Foundation, the Sequoia Work Group members believe better exchange of best management practices and access to research data is critical to the long-term survival.
Sequoias aren’t the only giants in California. Redwood trees are also in the Sequoia family. The NFF support redwood conservation throughout California and proudly supports the new movie Moving the Giants, recently featured at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and other venues. Moving the Giants follows David Milarch as he clones some of the world’s and largest living things, California’s coastal redwoods, and replants them in Oregon. This effort serves two purposes.
First, as the planet warms and conditions change in their southernmost range, it is likely that many of these trees will die. By cloning and replanting them further north in places where they were logged, Milarch will help preserve these majestic giants. Second, redwood trees are among the most effective carbon sequestration tools in the world. By planting these seedlings, Milarch takes part in a global effort to use one of nature’s most impressive achievements, treequestration, to re-chart a positive course for humanity.
Several items are essential for exploring the magical Southern Alps mountains that run across New Zealand’s South Island: insect repellent, rain gear and ear plugs.
The repellent is to ward off sandflies, those annoying black bugs that are the itchy scourge of hikers in Fiordland National Park. The park, which is bigger than Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks combined, is one of the wettest places on Earth. It gets an average 280 inches of rainfall a year, compared to Seattle’s 38.6 inches.
And while there’s plenty of peace and quiet to enjoy while hiking the region, you may want ear plugs to block the sound of snoring from exhausted hikers in the huts that offer lodging along the Great Walks. The Great Walks are routes featured by the country’s Department of Conservation (DOC) for their “diverse and spectacular scenery.” Five of the nine Great Walks are on the South Island.
The Great Walks are highly regulated by the DOC, which maintains the trails, checks for hiking passes and staffs the huts with nightly educational talks. The huts on the most popular Great Walks are large, clean cabins with bunkrooms.
The crystal-clear waters along the Milford Track make it relatively easy to spot the freshwater longfin eel, featured on an episode of Animal Planet’s “River Monsters.” Elsewhere, watch out for backpack-eating alpine parrots called keas. They are ever-present in high-altitude regions and they’re not afraid to peck at human gear in search of food.
The Buckeye Trail Association announced, in partnership with the Burr Oak State Park, Burr Oak Lodge and Burr Oak Alive!, the fifth annual Burr Oak Winter Hike will be held at the Lodge on Feb. 6, 2016 starting at 10 a.m.
This free event is being hosted by the Little Cities of the Forest Chapter of the Buckeye Trail Association. After the hike, lunch including cornbread, soup beans, and hot chocolate will be provided by Burr Oak Lodge free of charge to winter hikers.
The past years attendance at the annual Burr Oak Winter Hike has been a great success with an increasing number of hikers every year. There will be three hike options this year to give novices and seasoned hikers some variety. There will be a one mile hike, the second is a more rugged five miles with scenic features including Buckeye Cave, and the third will be longer for those looking for a challenging eight mile winter hike.
Portions of the hike will follow Ohio’s Buckeye Trail and the white blazed Bob and Mary Lou Paton Trail. The trail hosts the 4,600 mile North Country National Scenic Trail and the 6,800 mile American Discovery Trail through this part of Ohio as well.
Hikers will walk past forested hollows, impressive rock formations, and views of Burr Oak Lake while experiencing the hidden gem of Burr Oak during wintertime.
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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