photos – Page 40 – besthike.com

August 6, 2007

Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, Utah

I’ve been getting to the “Four Corners” of the USA for hiking about once a year.

Next trip I plan on checking out Grand Staircase – Escalante and Capitol Reef.

The best hiking photos I can find on this region are posted by Phil Armitage:

The 1.7 million acres of the Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, together with the nearby Death Hollow wilderness and Capitol Reef National Park, contain some of the best canyon hiking to be found in the Southwest US.

Although the region is famous for its slot canyons, backpacking trips, and technical canyoneering possibilities, the relatively sparsely visited area also has easier trails that can be accessed out of the small towns of Boulder and Escalante.

This page summarizes some of the best day hikes I’ve found in the Escalante. …

Day hikes in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, Utah

July 26, 2007

trekking the Drakensberg in South Africa

The best web overview of hiking in the land of the original “trekkers” is Safari Now.

With over 1,950 listed hikes, South Africa is a fantastic hiking destination.

… All laid out hikes are signposted, usually with painted icons on rocks, and most hiking authorities supply maps. Most multi-day hikes offer accommodation in basic, but clean and adequate, hiking huts that usually have a million-dollar view to go with the low rent facilities.

Hiking in Southern Africa – Safari Now

The best region of all is the Drakensberg.

The impressive bulk of the mountains the Zulus called Ukahlamba – the barrier of spears – and the Voortrekkers called the Drakensberg – the dragon mountain – is an impressive rampart of sandstone and basalt that separates the well watered Indian Ocean coast from the dryer, harsher interior.

Most of the escarpment falls under the Ukahlamba-Drakensberg National Park. This beautiful montane grassland is bright green in summer after the rains and fades to a delicate blonde, often with snowy highlights, in winter.

It’s a great hiking destination with a range of trails from walks of an hour or two to long epics such as the Drakensberg Traverse, which takes about three to four weeks.

Drakensberg

maps of Drakensberg

Check this superb photo set on the Drakensberg Traverse:

More photos from this set by Greg Fullard on flickr.

Greg says: “The Drakensberg (Dragon Mountain) is an incredible mountain range located in the centre of South Africa. It is my soul’s home ….”

July 12, 2007

watching slideshows on flickr

We post our hiking photos on flickr, the best photo hosting service we’ve found.

Weâ€™ve launched an improved version of the Slideshow.

Hereâ€™s the feature comparison:

Old Version â€” sucks
New Version â€“ rules!

You wanted bigger photos!
You wanted to see titles descriptions!
You wanted to see your photos on a black background!

Flickr Blog : Announcing Slideshow 2007

If you look at photos on flickr, here’s an important tip: During slideshow mode, if you hover your mouse over the centre of any photo, an “i” should appear. Click that and you will get a text overlay on the pictures during the slideshow.

Invisible-until-you-hover links on photos and videos are becoming quite popular. But it’s definitely not intuitive.

Thanks George.

July 12, 2007

hiking Snow Peak, Idaho

We hiked Snow Peak, the most spectacular mountain off the popular, scenic St. Joe’s River near Spokane, Washington.

hiking Snow Peak, Idaho
looking up at a final off-trail scramble to the fire tower

This region would be completely undeveloped if it wasn’t for the lumber industry and big game hunting. (We got lost trying to find our way to the trailhead.)

We 3 hikers shared the trail that day only with a solo mountain goat.

annotated Snow Peak hike photos – flickr

The jumping off point for Snow Peak is historic Avery (#5).

July 11, 2007

hiking Willmore Wilderness in Canada

If you are looking for wilderness, consider hiking the Willmore Wilderness north of Jasper, Alberta.

You can get “into the wild”.

One of our contributors, George Novak, will be there in about 10 days. He plans to cycle as far as possible, then bushwhack further towards the mountains.

There are very few developed hiking trails in Willmore. But it’s gorgeous:

To get a feel for the region, check an excellent trip report jammed with video clips and photos: Willmore Wilderness Park Â« the electronic experiment

Willmore Wilderness – Wikipedia

July 6, 2007

hike the Stein Divide, British Columbia

The Province of British Columbia has over 800 Provincial Parks and Recreation Areas. …

At over 250,000 acres, Stein Valley Nlakaâ€™pamux Heritage Park is one of these large parks.

The park protects the entire extent of the Stein River making it the last fully intact watershed in the Southwestern mainland of BC.

The river supports five species of salmon while the surrounding valleys and mountains are home to a full range of wildlife INCLUDING resident Grizzly Bears and wolverines!

This was a place that I was dying to visit, and my chance came in September 2005. A cancelled trip to Yellowstone left me with a week of free time.

We had hoped to walk over the Stein Divide and then proceed past Tundra Lake and down to Stein Lake in the Stein River valley proper. Unfortunately the trail was rough, and in many areas there was no trail, just a route marked by cairns. We spent a lot of time hopping across boulders large and small. Our progress was slow, and we had to scale back our plans and turn back at Tundra Lake. We did so with great regret but as the saying goes, â€œitâ€™s best to leave a place hungry.â€ We did and I hope we and others will come back.

Check out the great photos of the trip.

June 26, 2007

trekking Svaneti in Georgia – photos

Follow-up from our trekking Svaneti in Georgia, Asia post.

These mountains really are fantastic. A few more examples:

Tetnuldi

Mt. Ushba (“Matterhorn of the Caucasus”)

GEORGIA & SOUTH CAUCASUS blog

June 22, 2007

contest winning hiking photo – Bluepeak

Rogier of Bluepeak.net won an award and had a couple of other captures nominated in a BC Parks Photo Contest.

His winning pic.

â€œyoung explorerâ€ – Golden Ears Provincial Park

If you are not subscribed by RSS yet to Bluepeak, I recommend it.

June 19, 2007

photos – Tibet and Xinjiang, China

Our list of the best hikes in China is weak for a number of good reasons.

Researching hiking in remote Xinjiang Province, I came across the website of a top notch photographer.

Jian Shuo Wang from Shanghai posted details on a popular hike to Kanas, China’s deepest freshwater lake.

Lake Kanas lies near the Altai mountains, an imposing range where China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan meet.

map – Shangrila Adventure

Weather is the determining factor here. Best window for hiking is late September – mid-October. It’s high altitude.

Though horse trekking is far more popular than walking in this culture, I want to hike.

Just a small taste of his photos from that trip.

81 years old woman in Riwa

See many more from this trip on his personal website.

Even better, I think, is a related collection by Bian Ka.

And more terrific captures by Maphis Cheng.

It’s well worth the time clicking through some of these photo pages.

China and Tibet are HUGE. The hiking possibilities boggle the mind.

June 11, 2007

flooded – Valley of Geysers, Kamchatka

Just today we posted our first hiking recommendation for Kamchatka, Russia â€” having missed completely the news story being reported over the past week:

Scientists mourn devastation of Valley of Geysers

Wildlife in the Valley of Geysers may be threatened by the rubble that has caused flooding (below).

Teams of scientists have been sent to the Valley of Geysers, on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia, to report on the condition of the World Heritage site after a massive landslide in the Kronotsky national reserve.

The slide, which lasted only seconds on 3 June, loosed an estimated 4.5 million cubic metres of rock, gravel, snow and ice. A deluge of material into the Geyser River created a dam the size of 30 football fields, officials estimated. This has since been breached by waters building up behind the dam, clearing some of the valley and allowing at least some of the geysers to spout again.

The extent of damage to the region is unclear, including to scientists contacted by Nature who have study sites in the area.

news @ nature.com – Scientists mourn devastation of Valley of Geysers …

See a sobering series of before-and-after photos.