Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.
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Sunset Crater, Arizona

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

Climbing to the rim has been closed for decades. Hikers were doing too much damage.

sunset-crater

I did the partly wheelchair accessible 1-mile (1.6km) trail Lava Flow Trail and some of the 1-mile (1.6km) Lenox Crater Trail. Both were snowy.

Sunset Crater AZ

Sunset Crater AZ

But if you are passing anywhere close to Flagstaff, Arizona, any time of the year. I recommend you make this stop. The Visitor Center is excellent.

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The date of the eruptions that formed the 340-meter-high cone (1,120 ft) was initially derived from tree-ring dates, suggesting the eruption began between the growing seasons of A.D. 1064–1065. However, more recent geologic and archaeological evidence places the eruption around A.D. 1085. …

On the same road trip visit nearby Wupatki National Monument.

Wupatki Pueblo
Wupatki Pueblo

If you book in advance, Rangers offer guided hikes from October through April. Anywhere from two hours to two days.

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Chile – Torres Del Paine Circuit

Jan Kozlowski is trekking the world. He’s next off to southern Africa.

We’re now following his website which includes his trip reports. Jan welcomes YOU to post your trip reports on his site, as well.

Here’s a sample – Chile – Torres Del Paine

torres11

more Torres photos

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scrambling Red Rock Canyon, Vegas

I met up with my friends from Couer d’Alene, Idaho. Their gymnasts were competing at the Lady Luck Invitational.

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d-red-rock

Branch Whitney:

Red Rock Canyon (20 miles west of Las Vegas) is home to the best scrambling (climbing up, over, around, and down rock) routes in the world. If you liked mazes when you were a kid, you will love Red Rock Canyon. …

Las Vegas’ best kept secret: Hiking and rock scrambling just minutes from the Strip

We’d never seen Red Rock Canyon so busy. Seems my favourite tourist destination in the city is no longer off the radar.

Entry fee.

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boycott Utah

Support Patagonia and Black Diamond.

The company this week threatened to pull out of Salt Lake City’s biannual Outdoor Retailer Show, a trade show that brings in 45,000 visitors spending more than $40 million each year. …

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) vowed to sue the White House last month after Obama set aside 1.35 million acres, including sacred tribal lands, to become Bears Ears National Monument. The Navajo Nation and conservationists alike hailed the designation as a victory. But Reyes, later joined by the state’s Republican governor and lawmakers in Washington, D.C., denounced the move …

Patagonia Is Gearing Up For War With Utah Republicans Over National Monument

Most Republicans in the USA seek to sell of public lands to the highest bidder. 😦

boycott-utah

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Summit by Harry Farthing (2016)

Even if you have zero interest in alpinism or Nazis, I highly recommend this book. It’s very entertaining throughout.

In the autumn of 1938 Germany’s Reichsführer, Heinrich Himmler, is growing frustrated at the British using their regional power in India to block passage of an SS expedition to Tibet. Determined to spite them, he plots to steal something the British hold dear and have failed for the seventh time that spring to achieve – a first summit of Mount Everest.

Seventy years later, seasoned mountain guide Neil Quinn’s ninth visit to the top of the world’s highest mountain in the charge of the sixteen-year old son of a Long Island billionaire begins to unravel. As a desperate fight for their lives begins in the freezing air high above Tibet, Quinn stumbles across a clue to a story that questions everything he thinks he knows about the great mountain. …

GoodReads
summit

Amazon

The author reads the audio version. That always adds something for me.

Farthing was inspired by 11 other mountaineering books. I’ve read at least 3 of those.

Watch an interview with the author.

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cycling Port Alberni to Victoria on the NEW Spine Trail

A signature recreation destination in Canada, the Vancouver Island Spine Trail will span more than 700 kilometres from Victoria to Cape Scott. Traversing wild coasts, ancient and working forests and joining island communities, the trail will be a month-long journey in its entirety. …

It’s not finished. But I plan to cycle — and hike a bike — a section in 2017. I’ll start in Port Alberni … and see how far south I can get.

click for larger map
click for larger map