Category: uncategorized

From an excellent article by hiking author John McKinney:

“Walk out the door and find good health. There is no fever that a 10-mile hike can’t cure,” suggests Garrison Keillor, the wry host of National Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion.

Millions of Americans who like to hike believe that hiking contributes to good physical and mental health. And yet, until recently, nearly all evidence offered for the benefits of taking a hike was anecdotal, and very little hiking-specific scientific research supported that belief.

In 2004, Austrian researchers announced the results of an intriguing study demonstrating that different types of hiking have different influences on the fats and sugars in the blood. For the study, one group hiked up a ski resort mountain in the Alps and descended by cable car, while the other group rode the cable car up and hiked down. After two months of hiking, the groups switched hiking programs and repeated the experiment.

As expected, hiking uphill proved to be a great workout and provided measurable health benefits. Unexpectedly, researchers from the Vorarlberg Institute for Vascular Investigation and Treatment discovered that hiking downhill also has unique benefits.

Both uphill and downhill hiking reduced LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. Only hiking uphill reduced triglyceride levels. The study’s surprise finding was that hiking downhill was nearly twice as effective as uphill hiking at removing blood sugars and improving glucose tolerance. A second study of uphill/downhill hiking was conducted this summer, but results have yet to be announced.

… read more – Miller-McCune – For Good Health: Take a Hike!

(via Backpacker)

No question. The South Coast Track is one of the best, most adventurous treks in the world.

Anne Stockley posted a comprehensive set of photos that lay out the highlights and challenges.

She was lucky to get some sunshine. Some blue sky!

The weather in Tasmania is the great concern. You can get stuck in mud like this.

To see her photos in higher resolution, click through to Pbase – Flight to Melaleuca and follow the links. Click SLIDESHOW on each page.

Want to plan a trip to Tas for yourself?

Check the besthike South Coast Track information page.

That’s the title of a post by Kraig Becker on my favourite travel site, Gadling.

The Inca Trail, one of the best known and most popular treks anywhere in the world, culminating with hikers arriving at Machu Picchu following a stunning four day journey through the Andes. Unfortunately the popularity of the trail is also one of its drawbacks, with literally hundreds flocking to it on a daily basis during the high season. Those crowds can deminish the experience for those who prefer solitude on their adventures.

Fortunately, there are some excellent alternatives to the Inca Trail that offer more challenging hikes, little to no traffic, and scenery seen by only a select few. Here are three of the very best of those alternatives:

Salcantay Trail

Choquequiro

Cordillera Huayhuash

Gadling – Alternative Treks to the Inca Trail

Click through for details on each.

Our own list of best hikes in Peru:

* Ausangate Circuit
* Huayhuash Circuit
* Alpamayo
* Santa Cruz Trek
* Inca Trail
* Salcantay to Machu Picchu
* Choquiquirao to Machu Picchu
* Ticlla Circuit
* Colca Canyon
* Misti
* Gran Vilaya (Kuelap)

our best hikes in the Central Andes page

Ausangate and Huayhuash are the best for hard core hikers willing to trek at high altitude. The Inca Trail is often a disappointment to serious hikers.

You can always visit the famous ruins by train, a wonderful trip on its own.

I am experimenting with moving my besthike.com/blog/ website from Bluehost to WordPress.com

If it works, this will be the new home of the blog. Bluehost will continue to host the besthike site.

I keep hearing that hiking is getting less popular in North America.

Not so in Norway:

… the Norwegian Trekking Association has 222,291 members. Around 7000 of these joined this year, an increase of 3.6 percent compared to last year.

A trend?

Head of communications at DNT, Merete Habberstad speculates as to why membership keeps increasing:

“It may have something to do with the current situation, I don’t know. However, in the past we’ve seen that times of financial troubles have given our organisation more members,” Habbarstad says.

All-time growth for Trekking Association

related article: When the going gets tough, Norway’s ‘tough’ go hiking

Stand Up Paddle Surfing A.K.A. Beach Boy Style Surfing.

It was amazing to me how many people were carrying paddles on their surfboards in Kauai, Hawaii.

Sadly I did not meet Crystal when I was there.

(via wicked outdoorsy)

A mountain pine beetle infestation has already killed off billions of trees in British Columbia, Canada.

The mountain pine beetle epidemic in British Columbia is coming to a close, but only because the pests are running out of food, a forestry representative says.

The latest figures from the B.C. government and the Council of Forest Industries estimate the beetles have infested more than half of B.C.’s marketable pine forest. …

CBC

In 1998 there were only a few infected trees in my Province, Alberta. It’s a big problem here today as the beetles move in from BC.

The beetles kill the trees by boring through the bark into the phloem layer on which they feed and in which eggs are laid. Pioneer female beetles initiate attacks, and produce pheromones which attract other beetles and results in mass attack.

The trees respond to attack by increasing their resin output in order to discourage or kill the beetles, but the beetles carry blue stain fungi which, if established, will block the tree resin response. Over time (usually within 2 weeks of attack), the trees are overwhelmed as the phloem layer is damaged enough to cut off the flow of water and nutrients.

In the end, the trees starve to death, and the damage can be easily seen even from the air in the form of reddened needles. Entire groves of trees after an outbreak will appear reddish for this reason. Usually older trees die faster. After particularly long and hot summers mountain pine beetle population can get out of hand and that’s when there starts to be a problem. There are too many beetles and they start killing off big areas of trees.

Wikipedia

Prince George, British Columbia – dead and dying trees – flickr – D&J Huber

Is there any hope?

I don’t know. I would think some predator would take an advantage of the infestation.

Cold winters can stifle infestations. But we’ve had record warm winters of late where I live. (A cold snap we had in 2008 might help.)

Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado used selective burning to try to stem the beetles.

Alberta is trying some preemptive prescribed burns. Others regions are clear cutting though there’s very little demand for the wood.

Not nearly the best hike in Peru, none-the-less, everyone still wants to do the famous walk to Machu Picchu.

… the trek is full up until September. Restrictions imposed by the Peruvian government on the number of people allowed to hike the trail haven’t diminished its popularity and this year’s peak season sold out with unprecedented speed.

… in 2005, the government acted to limit those trekking the “classic” four-day route to 500 a day as the rapidly growing number of walkers threatened to overwhelm the route’s infrastructure and damage Inca ruins. In reality, only around 200 people can now set out every day on what was previously a virtual free-for-all because the necessary expedition support staff are included in the permitted total. These include guides, cooks and the legendary local porters, whose ability to trot around the trail carrying three times their own body weight with only sandals on their feet never ceases to amaze trekkers struggling to carry a water bottle while clad in state-of-the art hiking gear. …

A Guardian article suggests some of the standard guided alternative treks:

Salkantay Trail

Lares Valley

Colca Canyon

Cordillera Huayhuash

They recommend some Trekking and volunteering itineraries, as well.

Here’s our own list of best hikes in Peru:

Ausangate Circuit TOP 10

Huayhuash Circuit

Alpamayo

Santa Cruz Trek

Inca Trail

Salcantay to Machu Picchu

Choquiquirao to Machu Picchu

Ticlla Circuit

Colca Canyon

Misti

Gran Vilaya (Kuelap)

Peru is one of the best destinations in the world for hikers. There are MANY wonderful choices.

Huayhuash Circuit – original – flickr

If you are looking to one-up your hiking buddies, this might do the trick.

As quoted by Treehugger:

… this is din-ink. A set of pen caps, including a fork-cap, a knife-cap and a spoon-cap, that replaces the normal pen cap …

Dining in 2015: Din-Ink

A year ago, we did a Christmas countdown of our top 10 hikes in the world.

It’s almost holiday time again.

Starting December 16th, besthike.com will post our list of the best hiking regions in the world starting with #10.

We’ll reveal one each day culminating Christmas morning with the #1 hiking region on Earth.

That’s it. Our Christmas present to regular readers.

Leave a comment below if you care to nominate any specific region. Or to hazard a guess at which region we’ve chosen #1.

Greenland? Antarctica? Kalahari?