Category Archives: books and magazines

870-mile Wales Coast Path

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The Wales Coast Path (Welsh: Llwybr Arfordir Cymru) is a long-distance footpathwhich follows, or runs close to, the majority of the coastline of Wales.

It opened on 5 May 2012, and offers a 870-mile (1,400 km) walking route from Chepstow, Monmouthshire, in the south to near Chester, in the north. …

The idea was developed from a desire to build on the economic success of the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and the Isle of Anglesey Coastal Path. …

The whole path is accessible to walkers and, where practical, some sections are suitable for cyclists, families with pushchairs, people with restricted mobility, and horse riders. …

The Wales Coast Path is not a National Trail …

You can continue on Offa’s Dyke Path if you want to make a circuit. Guidebook author Paddy Dillon did just that while writing the book.

Read his 2015 article on the experience.

“Hidden Gem” hikes USA

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Have you heard of any of these?

1) Gore Range, Eagles Nest Wilderness, Colorado
2) Gap Run, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
3) Jones Hole, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah
4) Indian Point, Garden of the Gods Wilderness, Illinois
5) Redwood Canyon, Kings Canyon National Park, California
6) Sal Hollow, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky
7) Sahale Glacier Camp, North Cascades National Park, Washington
8) Charon’s Garden, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma
9) Yankee Paradise, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia
10) Mt. Cabot, White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire

Find a new adventure in the book “Backpacker Hidden Gems: 100 Greatest Undiscovered Hikes Across America.” Author Maren Horjus, Backpacker Magazine’s destinations editor.

best way to hike Lofoten Islands, Norway

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Lofoten is without question one of the best hiking destinations in the world.

Bunes Beach hike

But it’s remote.

Also, Norway is very expensive.

The gateway for most people is the town of Bodø, the end of the train line north. It’s often cheaper and easier to fly as the train is a 17 hour overnight journey.

From Bodø you have options. If you don’t have your own transportation easiest is to make a loop by ferry and bus.

Take the fast passenger ferry Bodø to Svolvær. About 4 hours.

Your first hike should be Fløya & Devil’s Gate. The trailhead is about a half hour walk from the ferry landing.

From Svolvær you would take buses or hitchhike the only highway west through islands A to V to F to M. 

M Moskenes (Moskenesøya) has the best hiking. Save it for last.

Reine is the best base town for Moskenes. You can do 3-4 awesome hikes out of the same town.

From the village of Å (the last letter of the Norwegian alphabet) you can catch the slow ferry back to Bodø. About 4 hours.

By far the best hiking guidebook is Hiking the LOFOTEN ISLANDS by Kristin Folsland Olsen. Published 2017 in English, it will help you decide which hikes to do. Most are day hikes and many are scrambles. No need to order it online. It’s widely available on the islands.

The weather is dreadful. For any 7 day period during the hiking season you may have several days of serious wind and rain. These should be rest days if you have time.

If you have your own vehicle — or decide to rent a car — you can go when and where you want. That’s ideal.

related – travel 2 walk – trip report: Norway – Bødo & Lofoten Islands, August 2017

 

hiking Yellowstone to the Yukon

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This looks good.

Karsten Heuer’s journey was intended to show that such a system of parks and corridors is feasible. He set out in June 1998 from Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, on the beginning of a 3,400 kilometre hike that would end, 18 months later, in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.

Along the way, he faced personal problems, including the breakup of his relationship with the woman who had planned the journey with him. He came to terms with difficult public relations problems when he spoke to loggers and others with a stake in the economic exploitation of wild lands. And, above all, he overcame extraordinary physical challenges: ferocious storms, avalanches, apparently impassable rivers in full flood, and bears that mistook him for dinner.

Accompanied by occasional human companions and a remarkable border collie named Webster …

walking-the-big-wild-y2y

Y2Y.net

walking-the-big-wild

Arctic Circle Trail, Greenland

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… At just over 100 miles long, and taking 7 to 10 days to complete, the Arctic Circle Trail crosses the largest ice-free patch of West Greenland.

This splendid backpacking route, lying 25-30 miles north of the Arctic Circle runs from Kangerlussuaq to Sisimiut – both with airport access.

a summer walk, ideally from mid-June to mid-September, when the tundra is bursting with life; during the long winter, snow and ice, short days and bitter cold are the norm …

Cicerone

Bo Normander posted an excellent trip report from 2017:

GUIDE TO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE TRAIL IN GREENLAND

Robert Macfarlane ‘outdoors’ books

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Robert Macfarlane is a British writer, PhD at Emmanuel College, Cambridge,  and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

He’s also much smarter than you and I.

Macfarlane’s first book, Mountains of the Mind, was published in 2003 and won the Guardian First Book Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. …

The Wild Places was published in September 2007. …

The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot, the third in the ‘loose trilogy of books about landscape and the human heart’ …, was published in June 2012 …

Landmarks, a book that celebrates and defends the language of landscape, was published in the UK in March 2015. …

I started Old Ways … Found it brilliant, eloquent, academic intimidating, dense. Too much for me, in fact. I didn’t finish.

It’s as much poetry as prose. 

Some day I’ll download all Macfarlane’s books to Kindle. Read them in the tent on a long, long, long hike.

I’m expecting an honorary PhD in the outdoors for that study. 🙂