Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Stein Valley is one of the best hikes in North America.
It’s high on my personal list of hikes to do … SOON.
Wild and remote, the “route” is about 90km and has a total elevation change of at least 4300m. High elevation is about 2150m.
It’s tough. You probably want to schedule 7 days. Perhaps 9 days to enjoy some side tripping. Carry ALL your food.
Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.
Without question you should purchase the only guidebook. And perhaps maps, as well.
What a life. What a life story.
Rick Ridgeway was one of the first Americans to summit K2 in 1978.
He’s climbed new routes and explored little-known regions on six continents.
Spent a total of 5 years sleeping in a tent while adventuring.
A pioneer in filming extreme outdoor pursuits.
You might have read one of his other books — Seven Summits (1988), an account of how Frank Wells and Dick Bass planned to climb the highest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents.
Ridgeway later had some adventures with Reinhold Messner. In this book he doesn’t mention the controversy that Canadian alpinist Pat Morrow and then Messner claim to have completed the Seven LEGITIMATE Summits. 😀
Ridgeway — born 1949 — has outlived most of his climbing partners. A rare survivor.
His wife of near 40 years died too before he published his life story in October 2021.
It’s a summing up.
BEST in this book are his lifelong adventures with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, and Doug Tompkins, who cofounded The North Face.
In fact, it was Ridgeway who was paddling with Tompkins in southern Chile 2015 when they capsized. Rick was rescued. Tompkins died of hypothermia.
Yvon Chouinard is still alive as well. Age 83.
All three of the do boys, as the friends called themselves, eventually made environmental protection the main focus of their lives.
I highly recommend this book.
It is hard to imagine my life if I hadn’t met Rick Ridgeway. Rick invited me on my first National Geographic expedition and taught me how to film, but more importantly he shared how to tell a good story. In Life Lived Wild Rick recounts the most poignant moments of his legendary career as an explorer, climber and conservationist, but mostly, as an extraordinarily observant and compassionate human being. He captures the essence of a lifetime of storytelling. — Jimmy Chin, Adventurer and filmmaker
I met Alan Wechsler on the John Muir Trail this past summer. I hiked in parallel with his group, finishing the same day at Whitney Portal.
Alan convinced me to put Vermont’s Long Trail in autumn on my personal life list. He suggested I follow the changing of the leaves starting late September and hiking south.
272 miles (437 km). 70 backcountry campsites.
Alan is a writer and photographer based in the Northeast. He recently spent a year section-hiking the Long Trail in various seasons. His 73-page narrative describes the challenge and history of the trail, along with the people he met along the way, and is generously illustrated with his photos. Download the e-book here:
Click PLAY or watch the teaser on YouTube.
The 2021 Banff Centre Mountain Film and Book Festival is happening virtually and in-person this year from Saturday, October 30 to Sunday, November 7!
Featuring over 75 films, live events in Banff and Canmore, and 30 virtual programs to watch from the comfort of your home over nine epic days. Get your festival passes, Tuesday, October 5—available to purchase only until November 2 👉
BanffCentre.ca
Cicerone is by far the best publisher of guidebooks for hiking Europe.
Podcast episode 28 gives an overview of their 162 guidebooks to Europe.
Too many good choices in that continent. This is a good place to start.
Listen here.
I read Almost Somewhere by Suzanne Roberts in advance of our upcoming JMT hike.
Day One, and already she was lying in her journal.
It was 1993, Suzanne Roberts had just finished college, and when her friend suggested they hike California’s John Muir Trail, the adventure sounded like the perfect distraction from a difficult home life and thoughts about the future.
But she never imagined that the twenty-eight-day hike would change her life. Part memoir, part nature writing, part travelogue, Almost Somewhere is Roberts’s account of that hike. …
Amazon
… 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 …
Bo Normander posted an excellent trip report from 2017:
Lisa Germany (from Australia) posted her trip report.
Or you can listen to an interview where she describes Greenland and the ACT in detail.
Jeff “Legend” Garmire is an adventurer who climbed the Colorado 14ers, survived The Great Western Loop, broke the Arizona Trail self-supported FKT, Long Trail Unsupported FKT, and the Colorado Trail Unsupported FKT and much more.
Free Outside is his telling of his Calendar Year Triple Crown: Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail.
I listened to the audio version which Jeff reads himself.
Fast paced. No dull moments.
8000 miles averaging over 30 miles a day.
I enjoyed the book.
It’s real to his experience. So real that no editor seems to have corrected spelling nor typos.
Seemed to me the CDT would be my least favourite of the three — overall. Too many cows. Too much dirty drinking water.
A good book. And important look at the role of parents in the raising of their children.
The Adventurer’s Son is Roman Dial’s extraordinary account of his two-year quest to unravel the mystery of his son’s disappearance in the jungles of Costa Rica.
… Before he left, Cody Roman Dial emailed his father: “I am not sure how long it will take me, but I’m planning on doing 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out. I’ll be bounded by a trail to the west and the coast everywhere else, so it should be difficult to get lost forever.”
They were the last words Dial received from his son.
… Roman had raised his son to be fearless, to be at home in earth’s wildest places, travelling together through rugged Alaska to remote Borneo and Bhutan. Was he responsible for his son’s fate? Or, as he hoped, was Cody Roman safe and using his wilderness skills on a solo adventure from which he would emerge at any moment?
Amazon
You might have seen the documentary Missing Dial on National Geographic channel.
The parents agreed to participate out of desperation to continue the search for their missing son. They are disappointed in how it turned out. Wild hyperbole and speculation.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
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