Author: Rick Mc

Career gymnastics coach who loves the outdoors, and the internet.
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hike the Haute Route, Switzerland

The Chamonix-Zermatt Haute Route is one of our top 10 hikes in the world.

Greg Witt of Alpenwild:

Like you, I love the Haute Route. I have a popular video series on the Haute Route and my company, Alpenwild, is the leading US tour operator doing hiking and walking tours in the Swiss Alps. It’s our specialty. That’s really all we do.

Last year we did the Haute Route 7 times with guided groups and had self-guided clients on the trail every day between June 28 and September 20. Our 2012 season is already well ahead of last year. In addition to our guided and self-guided tours, with Chamonix or Verbier starts, we are also offering a Deluxe Haute Route for 2012—a kinder, gentler itinerary for those who want the scenery but less elevation gain and without the huts. …

Check their guided tours for 2012.

Alpenwild plans to publish Best Hikes in the Swiss Alps: An Alpenwild Guide to Hiking in Switzerland as an e-book by year end. That will be a terrific resource.

If you lack language skills (French, German, Italian) the self-guided option is worth considering. All of the fun of independent hiking, but none of the hassle of finding a place to sleep each night.

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Pacific Crest Trail Journal

Kolby Kirk is some kind of Da Vinci of the trail. Check this sample page from his 2011 PCT journal.

I saw JEFF THROPE link to that on Adventure Journal:

… After being laid off from his job in April 2011, Kolby Kirk (The Hike Guy) decided he would attempt to complete as much as he could of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail.

Starting at the Mexican border near Campo, California, he walked for 159 days and nearly 1,700 miles. In that time, Kolby wrote 850 pages in his journals, a few of which he has started to scan …

Kolby is now working on a book …

Declination: Pacific Crest Trail Journals

More samples and links to Kolby via that post.

Adventure Journal was ranked #1 Adventure Blog by Ouside, by the way.

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why we hike – the research

In July 2010, researchers Marni Goldenberg and Briget Eastep caught up with the “herd” of hikers near Mount Shasta to discover the benefits of long distance hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Known as the “Research Girls,” they hiked for four days, interviewing a group of 37 male and 19 female hikers between 20 and 66 years old. The hikers participated in more than 13 hours of interviews and had hiked a cumulative 78,382 miles on the PCT at the time of their interviews. …

Female hikers appeared to gain self-respect, esteem, or confidence from their Trail experiences, especially through hiking and interacting with other people.

Male hikers appeared to enjoy warm relationships with others through their new perspectives gained from hiking, the new experiences and opportunities the Trail provides, and being in the wilderness or outdoors.

While the experience of long-distance hiking on the PCT is truly different for each hiker, the experience does offer numerous life values including a sense of belonging, self-fulfillment, a sense of accomplishment, appreciation, self-awareness, self-respect/esteem/confidence, warm relationships with others, fun and enjoyment of life, and transference of benefits of other areas of one’s life.

read more on Trail Space – Why do we hike?

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Expedition Idaho – the movie

Expedition Idaho Trailer, just released.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Expedition Idaho 2011 was a 6 day, 500mi adventure race hosted by Dave Adlard.

Legendary Randy Ericksen will be releasing the full official video early in the new year.

ExpId winners Thule went on to win the World Championships in Tasmania.

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tramping Tasmania

I’m looking at my second pilgrimage to Tasmania February 2012.

Click PLAY or get some inspiration on YouTube.

Located at the entrance to the WORLD HERITAGE listed CRADLE MOUNTAIN – LAKE ST CLAIR NATIONAL PARK is this cool temperate ‘ENCHANTED FOREST’ – a silent, cool damp place, where both trunks of trees and the forest floor are festooned with a luxuriant carpet of mosses and lichens. …

Thanks Frank.

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walking home from Mongolia

Rob Lilwall and Leon McCarron are surviving (so far) a mid-winter a 5,000km winter expedition through the heart of China.

Carrying all of their gear, they will start amidst the wastelands of Outer Mongolia from where they will head south by foot through the Gobi Desert. Crossing into China, they will follow the Great Wall down to the turbulent waters of the Yellow River, where they will inflate the kayaks in order to paddle downstream to the legendary city of Xi An. Leaving the water, they will then hike onwards through the snow-capped mountains of central China, until finally they reach their finishing point at the glittering skyscrapers of Hong Kong.

The Expedition

Or follow them on Facebook.

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Thru-hikes are expensive

Take a Long Hike has a sobering post …

… Let’s consider the Appalachian Trail, 2178 miles long. The days of averaging a dollar a mile are long gone, although it can be done. Twenty-three years ago, Roland Mueser, in his later book, Long Distance Hiking–Lessons from the Appalachian Trail, came up with an average cost of $3200.00 dollars or about $1.50 a mile. But that was 1989. …

So what about today? Figure about $2.50 a mile, or $5500.00 for the A.T., and that is conservative. One recent blogger said he wouldn’t feel comfortable unless he had saved $10,000 for the hike. …

Take a Long Hike – Thru-hikes are expensive

Ouch.

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Thule wins Adventure Race Worlds

Thule won it all in Tasmania, to nobody’s surprise.

It took more than five days of racing and, despite the extremely tough course being largely dominated by Team Seagate, the Swedes pipped rival teams at the post, thanks to a four-hour penalty time that Seagate had to serve out.

Team Silva took second place with Seagate coming in third after serving out what must have been a very long four hours.

79 teams from all corners of the world began the adventure race with six of those teams forced out. The remaining teams continue to race through Tasmania’s rugged wilderness and wet weather across a 700km course. …

Outer Edge

Mimi must be the #1 woman in AR 2011. Congratulations.

Thule Adventure Team — Martin Flinta, Per Vestling, Jacky Boisset and Myriametjacky Myriam.

In fact, 4 Swedish based teams finished top 6.

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hiking Macao

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

I was in Macao only for 2 days, camping at Hac Sa beach. And was pleased to get out for even one hike.

With no guidebook, I headed directly to the A-Ma Statue atop Alto de Coloane (176m). It’s a 20m-high white jade statue of the goddess who gave Macau its name erected in 1998.

I worked my way randomly through two contiguous Parks, the signage and maps quite helpful.

I decided to leave a Summit Stone atop the boulder right … but found I couldn’t scramble it.

In the end, I tossed the Stone up top, a reward for the next bolder boulderer than I. 🙂

The hiking was much better than I expected. Yet uncrowded.

In 3hrs I saw only one other hiker, and one trail runner. It was perfect November weather on a Saturday.

Seems people do not go to Macao for walking, even though it’s next door to the hiking Mecca of Hong Kong.

See more photos from my day hike.