Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.
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Charles Darwin was a hiker

He got into hiking in his 20s, but it was trekking and scrambling in little know wilderness on four continents visited on his five-year-long H.M.S. Beagle voyage between 1831 and 1836 that cement him as one of the most worldly hikers in history.

 “Mount Darwin” is the highest peak in Tierra del Fuego. On February 12, 1834, Captain FitzRoy named a mountain after him on his birthday. …

Mt. Darwin

Darwin walked mainly to discover plants and animals unique to those regions.

I learned all this by reading his travelogue Voyage of the Beagle.

By the way, the famous phrase “survival of the fittest” comes from Herbert Spencer’s 1864 publication, “Principles of Biology.” The term is largely thought to have been coined by Darwin regarding his thoughts on evolution; however, this is a wrong assumption.

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Bikepacking the Great American Rail-Trail

By BestHike editor Rick McCharles

This summer I plan to cycle the western end of the new Great American Rail-Trail.

I’ll camp and also hike the best trails en route.

The preferred route connects 125+ existing rail-trails, greenways and other multiuse paths spanning more than 3,700 miles. About half of the route is on dedicated trails now, the other half in the works.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

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Hiking to Bob Hope’s estate, Palm Springs

Trip report by BestHike editor Rick McCharles

Known as the Araby Trail, a short day hike takes you up to the Bob Hope estate, a saucer-shaped home once owned by Hope and also at different times by Steve McQueen and William Holden.

Not far from the airport, the trail starts above a trailer park — somehow symbolic of the divide between rich and poor.

It’s about a 1,000-foot ascent over 1.6 miles one way to get to the top.

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2 Foot Adventures mobile gear shop

PCT schedule 2019:

  • Warner Springs, CA – March 15 to May 16
  • Lone Pine, CA – May 24 – June TBD
  • Etna, CA – July TBD – Aug TBD

I met Mary and Charlie at Warner Springs and really appreciated their advice on very light hiking gear.

I bought my first pair of Injinji toe socks. They worked well.

2 Foot Adventures carry Granite Gear, my pack of choice for many years.

But I was convinced to try a Hyperlite next time I’m buying.

100% waterproof Dyneema®. The external mesh pockets are bigger than my Granite Gear. Weight is a bit more, however, at 2.17 lbs | 34.82 oz | 987g (Black).

There’s no doubt I should switch from sleeping bag to quilt soon. The Jacks R Better “Sierra Sniveller” 20 degree is my choice, so far.

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visiting the Salton Sea, CA

Trip report by BestHike editor Rick McCharles

Surprisingly, the Salton Sea is now 50% saltier than the ocean.

There are a number of camping and picnic areas. In April I saw very few visitors.

One of the world’s largest inland seas and lowest spots on earth at −236 ft (−71.9 m) below sea level, Salton Sea was re-created in 1905 when high spring flooding on the Colorado River crashed the canal gates leading into the developing Imperial Valley.

For the next 18 months the entire volume of the Colorado River rushed downward into the Salton Trough.  By the time engineers were finally able to stop the breaching water in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born at 45 miles long and 20 miles wide – equaling about 130 miles of shoreline.

Salton Sea State Recreation Area covers 14 miles of the northeastern shore and has long been a popular site for campers, boaters and anglers.

I walked a couple of miles along the shoreline.

Returned further inland along a series of use trails.

A unique and interesting environment.

Official website

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walking the Keystone XL pipeline route

When writer Ken Ilgunas set out to walk the 1,700-mile proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline and talk to the people he met there, he expected challenging debates about climate change, energy security and national sovereignty. In researching his new book, “Trespassing Across America: One Man’s Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland,” he expected to experience the wisdom of the people and decipher the pipe’s symbolic meaning. He expected enlightenment.

Instead, he found a country we wish were just a caricature: an America that does not actually value debate, or enlightenment, or wisdom at all. …

LA Times review

Ilgunas is a very interesting and thoughtful writer.

He’s personally against the pipeline.

I listened to an interview on the Backpacker Radio podcast.

The Keystone Pipeline System is an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, commissioned in 2010 and now owned solely by TransCanada Corporation. It runs from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin in Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas, and also to oil tank farms and an oil pipeline distribution center in Cushing, Oklahoma. … 

 

… The proposed Keystone XL (sometimes abbreviated KXL, with XL standing for “export limited” Pipeline (Phase IV) would connect the Phase I-pipeline terminals in Hardisty, Alberta, and Steele City, Nebraska by a shorter route and a larger-diameter pipe. …

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hiking Coachella Valley Preserve, Palm Springs CA

AKA Thousand Palms Oasis Preserve.

Trip report by BestHike editor Rick McCharles

I’d wild camped up high overlooking Palm Springs.

Next morning I headed for Coachella Valley Preserve before it got too hot.

Entrance by donation. Owned and well-managed by The Nature Conservancy, Bureau of Land Management, Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish & Game and California Department of Parks & Recreation

On the San Andreas fault-line, underground springs force water up to the surface.

Most visitors walk about 2 miles round-trip on the McCallum Trail to McCallum Grove.

It’s an interpretive walk with plant species identified.

I was told the Preserve was recently closed due to flooding — and wildlife quickly returned.

McCallum is closed, as well, during the heat of the summer (May 1 – Oct 1).

There are actually 28 miles of trails (easy to moderate) and I continued out into the desert out into Moon Country.

Almost immediately I ran into the first rattlesnake of my life.

There are plenty of lizards to keep them fed.

It was April — wildflower season — and I was lucky enough to see some.

I saw no other hikers climbing up into a dry wash. Most stick to the 2 mile loop.

If you get to Palm Springs, California, I highly recommend a visit.

Official site – CoachellaValleyPreserve.org

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Hikertrash: Life on the Pacific Crest Trail

I did enjoy this entertaining trip report published 2014.

Carl and Erin decide — on a bit of a whim — to thru-hike the PCT.

Through blisters and shin splints, jaw-dropping landscapes and craptastically unspectacular forests, searing heat and pouring rain, complete hilarity and utter exhaustion, this is the story of what day-to-day life is really like on one of America’s greatest trails.

As told through Hummingbird’s journal entries, this is the story of life on the trail – the people you meet, the things you see, and how,mile by mile, you eventually become Hikertrash. …

What Is Hikertrash?

Hikertrash: a long distance hiker, shabby and homeless in appearance, rarely bathed and rank in odor, more at home outdoors than in society, with a deep reverence and respect for all things wild.

Amazon