Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Egg masala dosa, garlic naan and coffee.
The vegetarian restaurant at Pilgrim’s Book House. If you’re into trekking, climbing or spirituality, this is one of the best bookstores in the world.
I picked up a classic, Nepal Himalaya by H.W. Tilman (1952). Some reading to supplement my audio books. I’ll need it during my acclimatization days at altitude.
I love the look of this volcanic scramble …
Black Butte Trail
Length: 5.2 miles round-trip
Hiking time: 4 hours
High point: 6,325 feet
Total elevation gain: 1,850 feet
Difficulty: moderate
Season: mid-May through mid-November
Water: none; bring plenty …
The Black Butte Trail is Hike 45 from 100 Classic Hikes in Northern California, third edition. I discuss the same route in Hike 63 of 75 Hikes in California’s Mount Shasta and Lassen Volcanic National Park Regions, revised edition.
Click through to John’s site, Northern California Hiking Trails, for links to his guidebooks.
Grand Prize
Revelations — Jerry Moffatt
by Jerry Moffatt and Niall Grimes
Phyllis and Don Munday Award, sponsored by the Alpine Club of Canada
Vertebrate Publishing (UK, 2009) 978-1906148119
Check the rest of the Winners of the 2009 Banff Mountain Book Festival.
Mostly mountaineering titles, as usual.
I feel a little sheepish recommending a book glorifying what some would call industrial terrorists.
But I do.
Amazon.com Review:
Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a “comic extravaganza.”
Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it’s true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief. The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. …
–Gregory McNam
It’s offensive in many ways. But I enjoyed it thoroughly as many, many have before me.
Author Edward Abbey is a hero and inspiration to hikers.
The dangerous 800+mi Hayduke Trail in the American S.W. was named after the lead character.
Oct. 31st – Nov. 8th, 2009
Speakers include Ultramarathon Man Dean Karnazes, Royal Robbins, climber Chris Sharma, speed climber Ueli Steck, and extreme skier / BASE jumper Karina Hollekim.
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I spent a week at the 2007 festivals. My review:
Good, not great.
I’ll likely never return mainly because hiking is very under represented in Banff. It’s all about mountaineering … despite the fact that most of those attending are not mountaineers.
No need to spend money traveling to Banff in November: … too late for hiking, too early for skiing.
Instead, I recommend you try to get a ticket for both of the two “World Tours”.
1) Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour
A selection of the winning films tour North America and abroad following the event. To find out when it’s going to play close to where you live, check the calendars linked from the official website.
2) Radical Reels
The Radical Reels Film Tour complements the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, and focuses on dynamic, high-adrenalin films featuring sports such as skiing, climbing, kayaking, BASE jumping, snowboarding and mountain biking. …
Click PLAY or watch the 2009 trailer on YouTube.
Both are great. Super popular even with those who hate the outdoors.
Hank Leukart and friends head for one of the 10 most dangerous hikes in the USA, Buckskin Gulch, Utah.
Yup. Worst case scenario. It rained while they were hiking the world’s longest slot canyon:
… I hear the sound of a single thunder clap.
“Did you hear that?!” Rich asks me, nervously.
“Yes,” I say, uncomfortably. “But it sounded like it was very far away. I haven’t felt any raindrops.”
“I think we should turn back now,” says a worried Suzanne. Next to the water-susceptible Flat Stanley, she is the most risk-adverse hiker in our group.
“I am not turning back now,” Wendy says firmly. But our major concern is that there are only two safe places for us to camp: at the confluence of the Paria River and Buckskin Gulch (11.5 miles away) and atop the apparently impossible-to-find Middle Route escape trail (6 miles away). If we choose to continue, we must reach one of these two exits, because camping on the floor of the canyon is a recipe for certain death in the case of a flash flood. …
Part 1 – flat stanley escapes a flash flood in buckskin gulch
It’s a cliff hanger, literally.
Flash flood strikes. But we must wait until Hank posts part 2 of the trip report to see how they survived. Here’s one clue:
Read more superb hiking “essays” on Without Baggage. They are more akin to magazine articles than online trip reports.
by Besthike editor Rick McCharles
One of the best day hikes out of my home town, Calgary, is Banded Peak. But it’s a big day:
Something like 37 km return, a 1416m (4645ft) height gain.
Perhaps 27km on the bike and a 10km return hike/scree scramble to the 2,934m (9,626ft) summit.
Here’s the final deceptively easy looking approach.
Banded Peak, together with Mount Glasgow, Mount Cornwall, and Outlaw Peak, forms a small range which lies between the Little Elbow River to the north and the Elbow River to the south. …
It’s become a tradition with the families of some of my hiking buddies to take their sons on this adventure as something of a rite of passage to manhood.
On Sept. 19th, 2009 we took three 13-yr-olds. They had to get to the top … or die trying.
Rob Glaser, our leader, was far from certain that a group this big could finish. And finish in time before night fall.
Here we are on the summit. Everyone made it. Somehow.
It was extremely windy on top. I’d estimate 80km/hr (50MPH).
Other than that, the weather was great for this time of the year. We were lucky.
Our best fun was some of the scree runs on descent.
Happily, we all made it back to the trailhead by 5:30PM.
Victory.
more photos from this adventure
Guidebooks:
Kananaskis Country Trail Guide – Vol. 2 Scrambles In the Canadian Rockies 3rd edition
related: Banded Peak Challenge for Easter Seals Camp Horizon
Dreaming …
Via Ferrata are, in effect, a range of protected scrambling routes, comprised of skilfully installed fixed cables, ladders and gorge-spanning bridges, which assist ascents to high levels, from which you walk on, often to a nearby rifugio, or back to the starting point via a path.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I wouldn’t want a guided trip. But one instructional session would be valuable.
The gear costs about $200. Helmet, and carabiners. Or you can rent it for about $10 / day.
Best timing would be the first 3wks of July. Or September.
There are plenty of good guidebooks.
Jeni and just about everyone else told me to travel to the most beautiful lake in the country. It looks like a fjord.
You get there from Berchtesgaden, 30km south of Salzburg. Hitler’s mountain residence, the Berghof, was located near here though Der Fuehrer rarely visited due to security worries. Today the Nazi Eagle’s Nest is a restaurant.
Nationalpark Berchtesgaden was established in 1978 and has gradually become one of the region’s largest tourist draws. While technically in Germany, this spot is surrounded on 3 sides by Austria.
The day I was at the lake a boatload of tourists disgorged every 10min to visit a famed pilgrimage church.
From the church I climbed up an interesting gorge to Kärlingerhaus, a popular mountain lodge.
Nice. But my real goal for the day was to reach the Steinernes Meer. The stone sea. A bleak and rocky plateau.
Weird. Geologically ineresting. And beautiful.
At Riemann-Haus I could have escaped back down to the valley.
Instead I had a beer on their deck. And listened to some Army mountain climbers sing group songs before setting out for the cliffs.
Immediately after … I got badly lost. (A gorgeous sidetrip, as it turned out.)
What direction would you go if your guidebook told you to take route 411?
A highlight of this hike for me personally was seeing many Chamois up close. For the first time.
Even better was crossing a high mountain pass alone to meet Mt. Watzmann.
What a great evening I had up there!
This is the best hike in the Bavarian Alps. A hiking region surrounded and overshadowed by more famous neighbours: Dolomites, Austrian Alps and the Swiss Alps.
But I’ll be adding the Stone Sea to our list of the best hikes in Europe.
It’s fantastic.
I posted 80 photos from this 3 day hike on flickr.
There’s only one guidebook in English: Walking in the Bavarian Alps. It’s one of the weakest Cicerone guidebooks I’ve used.
From Australia …
… Outer Edge, has broken new ground in outdoor publishing by dedicating the majority of its latest edition (on shelves 29 July) to unearthing active Indigenous adventures across Australia and beyond.
“We believe it’s a first for any outdoor magazine – to theme nearly an entire edition along Indigenous lines and specifically to focus on Indigenous adventures that go well beyond the stereotypical cultural tour options trotted out time and again as a core Indigenous tourism product,” says editor, Patrick Kinsella. …
Good idea.
Outer Edge home page
besthike.com 