News

Trekking across Arabia’s Empty Quarter in 50 days

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

A team of hikers set off on a 50-day trek from Oman on December 10, 2015 that will take them across the Empty Quarter – the world’s largest sand desert in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Led by British explorer Mark Evans, the three-man team will retrace the 1,300-kilometre route taken by a British civil servant, Bertram Thomas, in 1930, from Salalah in southern Oman, through Saudi Arabia, to Doha in Qatar. Despite the threat of warring tribes and a constant struggle to find enough water, Thomas completed the journey in 57 days. Mr. Evans,...

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A Summer at Grand Teton National Park

Posted by on Dec 11, 2015 @ 6:34 am in Conservation | 0 comments

This past summer, Christina Adele Warburg landed her dream job: Park ranger at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Christina lived and worked at Grand Teton’s Moose Entrance Station, welcoming people to the park. Now she’s sharing her experience and some great insider travel tips for anyone looking to plan a trip to Grand Teton. Unless you have lived it, it can be hard to understand how truly wonderful it is to spend a summer at Grand Teton. It’s driving to the post office and seeing wolves eating a moose carcass off the side of the road....

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Scientists Reveal ‘Leapfrog’ Migration in Golden Eagles

Posted by on Dec 10, 2015 @ 8:49 am in Conservation | 0 comments

A bird with the wingspan of an NBA player seems like it’d be pretty hard to miss. Yet the iconic Golden Eagle has proved so elusive in eastern North America that scientists are only now defining its range and coming up with population stats in the region. Todd Katzner, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, says there are a few thousand Golden Eagles that breed in remote portions of Canada—Quebec and Labrador—and winter in the Appalachian Mountains. His latest study, published today in The Condor: Ornithological...

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15 Benefits of Hiking

Posted by on Dec 10, 2015 @ 2:07 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

15 Benefits of Hiking

Are you finding it difficult to get motivated about exercise? Does sweating at the gym seem less than appealing? Then hiking is your solution. People who hike on a regular basis enjoy better overall health, markedly less stress and are more energetic in general. If you maintain a regular hiking program you’ll not only feel great when you hit the trail but you’ll enjoy optimum fitness. The better your condition, the more you’ll enjoy the hiking experience. No matter whether you’ve considered dabbling in the world of hiking, or if you’re an...

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Whistle-stopping the Appalachian Trail

Posted by on Dec 9, 2015 @ 8:11 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The Appalachian Trail platform on the Metro-North Rail Line is merely a whistle-stop in Pawling, NY but it is from here that hikers from the metropolitan New York region are able to directly step onto the Appalachian Trail. And while New York has the only whistle-stop on the entire Appalachian Trail, it is testimony to Metro-North’s commitment to hikers that it offers several whistle-stops in the Hudson River valley region – Manitou and Breakneck on the Hudson Line, and Mount Pleasant and the Appalachian Trail on the Harlem Line. The...

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Spend Winter in Olympic’s Quinault Rainforest

Posted by on Dec 8, 2015 @ 10:32 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

There are few truly Pacific Northwest events that can compare to watching winter arrive in the rainforest. While many avoid the region due to the strong winds, constant downpours and occasional snow showers, there is something amazing and unique about spending time out in the wilderness of the Olympic Peninsula. Tucked away deep in Grays Harbor’s Quinault Rainforest, one of the most underrated winter experiences is waiting for you. The Lake Quinault Lodge is an iconic lodge in the Pacific Northwest and by far the crown jewel of lodges around...

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Olympic National Park Can’t Possibly Afford Its Visitor, Infrastructure Needs

Posted by on Dec 7, 2015 @ 9:29 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Olympic National Park Can’t Possibly Afford Its Visitor, Infrastructure Needs

More and more people are visiting national parks, media channels are flooding consumer publications with features on the parks, congressional interest seems higher than ususal, and yet parks are struggling to get by, according to the National Parks Conservation Association. The parks advocacy group points to Olympic National Park as just one example of the funding struggles pulling at the National Park System. According to the group, Olympic “receives only approximately 60 percent of the funds it needs to adequately serve visitors,...

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Most Americans Want A Global Agreement On Climate

Posted by on Dec 6, 2015 @ 10:49 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Most Americans Want A Global Agreement On Climate

As Republican leaders herald Congress’ power to hinder a global climate deal, most Americans say the U.S. should join an international treaty requiring America to reduce emissions, according to a new poll. The New York Times and CBS poll released this week also notes that 63 percent of Americans favor limits on carbon emissions. The poll comes as delegates from nearly 200 countries are meeting in Paris in hopes of negotiating a climate deal that puts the world on a track to limit global warming to no more than 2°C. Many scientists believe...

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Life after Hemlock: Restoring Riparian Forests in the Southern Appalachians

Posted by on Dec 6, 2015 @ 10:38 am in Conservation | 0 comments

In the last decade, the hemlock woolly adelgid, a tiny sap-sucking insect native to Japan, has swept through southern Appalachian forests, leaving dead hemlocks in its wake. Hemlock branches no longer shade streams or tower over shrubs, and their loss has affected streamside, or riparian, forests. “Without hemlock, more sunlight reaches the forest floor,” says U.S. Forest Service scientist Chelcy Ford Miniat. The species that has benefited the most from the increased light is an evergreen shrub, rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum),...

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Age 19, Trekking 250 Miles Unsupported Across Iceland

Posted by on Dec 5, 2015 @ 9:22 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

What were you doing at 19-years-old? This week, four young British men set out in what they tout as the first mid-winter, unsupported crossing of the frozen island of Iceland. They are all 20 and under. The 250 mile journey will be documented and shared with the world online as well as made into a feature film in 2016. The expedition is dubbed “The Coldest Crossing.” They are joined by renowned climber Renan Ozturk of Camp4 Collective and Taylor Rees, a photojournalist and filmmaker, who will document the trip for the upcoming film. According...

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Hiking changes coming to the Grand Canyon?

Posted by on Dec 5, 2015 @ 9:05 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The Grand Canyon wants to change the way backcountry areas are managed as more outdoor enthusiasts take to the park’s open spaces, with proposals that would require hikers using the most popular inner-canyon trails to spend a few dollars on a permit. Millions of people visit the Grand Canyon each year, taking in the sweeping views from developed areas where they can stroll along the rim, grab a bite to eat and hop on a shuttle bus to other outlooks. Far fewer people venture into the 1.1 million acres that make up the backcountry,...

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Kauai’s Na Pali Coast: land of many cliffs

Posted by on Dec 4, 2015 @ 10:21 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The Na Pali Coast is a 17-mile stretch on the island of Kauai’s northwest corner. You can explore it by most means possible — by foot, boat and helicopter. By car is not an option: The terrain is too rugged for a road. Kauai is the fourth largest of the seven inhabited Hawaiian islands — more than 500 square miles — with dozens and dozens and dozens of beaches. Some of the coast’s brick-red cliffs (“na pali” means “many cliffs”) rise 4,000 feet above the Pacific. Valleys and ridges are carpeted in hundreds of shades of green. The ocean...

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December hiking can be delightful

Posted by on Dec 4, 2015 @ 10:09 am in Hiking News | 1 comment

December hiking can be delightful

Don’t discount the beauty and serenity of spending off-season moments hiking through the woods. The words ring in your ears each year as fall ends and you hunker down, preparing for winter. Perhaps you’re simply not ready for another long, cold winter. Maybe you simply crave solo walks in the otherwise bustling woods. Most people hike through regional parks when the weather remains favorable or a bounty of colors create a beautiful canopy in the forest. They splash in streams and kick up leaves, walking along favorite pathways and...

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#SinaiisSafe: Trekking, hiking with Bedouin tribes

Posted by on Dec 3, 2015 @ 1:17 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

Tourists, central to the livelihood of tribesmen in the Sinai desert, have stopped traveling to the area due to unrest and terror. Sinai is Safe, an Egyptian NGO, is running a grassroots hiking campaign that aims to change the image of Sinai-specifically South Sinai-as a danger zone it is often made out to be. It aims to revive tourism that is so important to its local Bedouin communities. The campaign was launched in 2014 as a collaboration between the local Bedouin communities, mainland Egyptians and international hikers from all over the...

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National parks set 16 free-entry days in 2016

Posted by on Dec 3, 2015 @ 12:46 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

ll national parks will offer free admission on 16 days next year to celebrate the National Park Service’s 100th birthday. “We added extra fee-free days so that everyone has a chance to join the party,” park service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said in a news release. The 16 free-entry days for 2016 will be: Jan. 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day April 16-24, National Park Week Aug. 25-28, National Park Service Birthday weekend Sept. 24, National Public Lands Day Nov. 11, Veterans Day The waiver does not cover added fees such as camping, boat...

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Grant awarded to expand Pisgah National Forest, enhance water quality

Posted by on Dec 2, 2015 @ 12:44 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

Grant awarded to expand Pisgah National Forest, enhance water quality

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 totaling $1 million to 13 nonprofit organizations in North and South Carolina. “We’re excited to receive the Duke Energy grant for our Sitton Creek project,” said Kieran...

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Hiking with a purpose

Posted by on Dec 2, 2015 @ 12:38 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

Sara 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 information. “There are a lot of these trails that haven’t even been hiked by the Forest Service in 15 or 20 years, so they don’t have any intel on them,” she explained. “And...

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There’s a Formula for Deciding When to Extract Fossil Fuels

Posted by on Dec 1, 2015 @ 5:02 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

“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 lease the rights to access fossil fuels on federal land but required the leases and royalty payments to reflect the full climate damages from these fuels? Doing so would put the...

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Hiking Skyline Trail at Blue Hills in Massachussetts

Posted by on Dec 1, 2015 @ 8:57 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Based 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 every day from dawn to dusk. In season, it offers camping, fishing, skiing (cross country and downhill), swimming, non-motorized boating, and even golf. There are trails for...

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Saga of the world’s most famous grizzly

Posted by on Nov 30, 2015 @ 1:17 pm in Hiking News | 0 comments

Saga of the world’s most famous grizzly

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 Yellowstone region, which includes parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, as well as an equal number in ecosystems around Montana’s Glacier National Park and farther to the west. As...

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Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change

Posted by on Nov 30, 2015 @ 1:33 am in Conservation | 0 comments

There 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 marches and other events – of support for action against climate change. The installation represented “a collection of millions of steps marching toward the same direction,”...

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The Paris climate talks: Yes oui can!

Posted by on Nov 29, 2015 @ 10:26 am in Conservation | 0 comments

The Paris climate talks: Yes oui can!

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 as the world’s blueprint for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the impacts of global warming. This is a major milestone in the climate change saga, and it has...

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A national park or a national monument? Maine North Woods groups shift focus

Posted by on Nov 29, 2015 @ 10:06 am in Conservation | 0 comments

Unable 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 create the nation’s first federally owned park land east of the Mississippi River. The place now known to many Mainers as simply “Acadia” didn’t start out as a national park...

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Portion of Pacific Crest Trail may re-open in spring 2016

Posted by on Nov 28, 2015 @ 8:35 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Portion of Pacific Crest Trail may re-open in spring 2016

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 springs, PCT hikers have had either to walk Highway 243 to Idyllwild or be fortunate enough to catch a ride to town. Now, maintenance on the trail portion east of Garner Valley has...

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New Hampshire Grid Challenge

Posted by on Nov 28, 2015 @ 6:18 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

The 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 year. It gets its name from the spreadsheet hikers use to track their progress toward the 576-hike finish line. “What is surprising having hiked at high altitude — I’ve...

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Welcome Wildland Trekking

Posted by on Nov 27, 2015 @ 6:31 am in Hiking News | 1 comment

Welcome Wildland Trekking

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 numerous opportunities to put those ads on these pages. None of them matched want I have in mind for Meanderthals going forward. That is until now. Welcome Wildland Trekking....

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History, beauty, and hiking in Harpers Ferry

Posted by on Nov 26, 2015 @ 8:17 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Built 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 1859 of rabid abolitionist John Brown, a spasm of an uprising extinguished by forces led by one of the US Army’s leading officers, Robert E. Lee. Meriwether Lewis came here in...

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USFS to study 300,000+ WNC acres for potential wilderness additions

Posted by on Nov 26, 2015 @ 4:54 am in Conservation | 0 comments

As 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 generations. In wilderness areas, roads, vehicles and permanent structures are prohibited, as well as activities such as logging and mining. Currently, there are six wilderness...

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Appalachian Trail Volunteers Report Record Number of Hours During Federal Fiscal Year

Posted by on Nov 25, 2015 @ 9:48 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

For 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 both volunteers and hours reported reveals a loyal commitment to the Trail. Volunteers donated time equivalent to what is completed by 131 full-time workers and contributed to...

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Connecting dots on the Arizona Trail

Posted by on Nov 25, 2015 @ 9:29 am in Hiking News | 0 comments

Connecting dots on the Arizona Trail

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, AZT Gateway Community Liaison, says, “You don’t have to hike the entire AZT to enjoy it. It’s a ‘choose your own adventure,’ where you decide how...

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Here’s how the U.S. can dump fossil fuels for good

Posted by on Nov 24, 2015 @ 3:51 pm in Conservation | 0 comments

Americans 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 U.S. could dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions and move toward 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 — while adding half a million jobs and saving Americans billions of...

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