Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Seth Orme and Paul Twedt hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2015 with their friend Joe, picking up 1,100lbs of rubbish on their four-and-a-half-month journey and recycling items whenever they could.
This year, as part of their mission, which they call “Packing It Out”, the pair spent five months clearing the Pacific Crest Trail from the border with Mexico up to British Columbia in Canada. …
After half a decade of legislative holdups, New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument has officially been designated a national park. …
The new designation will … have positive impacts on the surrounding community: a 2018 study found that turning monuments to national parks could increase visitation by 21 percent (about 100,000 more visitors) in the first five years and result in a $7.5 million increase in the local economy, mainly due to increased visibility. …
related – hiking White Sands National Monument (2017)
I’m considering hiking the Indian Himalaya starting sometime July 2020.
Here are a few of the treks I’m considering.
Popular guided hikes out of Manali include:
Beas Kund (2-3 days)
Pin Parvati Pass (8 – 11 days) – DANGEROUS
Hamta Pass to Lahaul (5 days)
Ideally I’d like to hike there independently. But I might want to start with one guided hike.
Leave a reply if you have advice for me. Thanks.
Yes it’s windy in Patagonia.
And increasingly difficult to organize. Check our Paine information page for details.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Cam Honan:
Over the past five decades, UK-based Cicerone Press has established itself as the gold standard for hiking guidebooks.
I bought my first Cicerone guide in the mid-90’s, and since that time if I’ve been planning a walking trip in Britain or continental Europe, there’s a good chance I utilised one of their books.
Apart from hiking, Cicerone also publish cycling and mountaineering guides, and in recent times have begun to expand their coverage beyond Europe, and now increasingly feature other areas around the world such as the USA, the Himalaya, Andes and Atlas mountains.
by BestHike editor Rick McCharles
UPDATE. As of April 1, 2023 the Nepal government required that major treks can no longer be done independently. Hiring a guide for Everest is mandatory. The obvious alternative is the Indian Himalaya. We’ll leave this post PUBLISHED in case the government reverses this policy sometime in future.
December 2019. I’m just back from Nepal, my first trip since 2014 where I hiked Langtang.
Around 9,000 people died during the Nepal earthquake of 25 April 2015.
One tiny village in the Langtang Valley accounted for 243 of them: 175 villagers, 27 local tourism staff (guides and porters), and 41 foreign trekkers.
Yet in the 2018-19 fiscal year, a record 21,945 tourists (16,386 foreigners and 5,559 Nepalis) visited Langtang National Park.
So far as I could see, Nepal trails are busier than ever. And easier than ever as you could connect to the internet almost everywhere with a Nepal Telecom (Namaste) SIM card in my mobile phone. I didn’t once have to pay for electricity in the mountains.
The big 3 trekking areas for those who want to hike independently are
We love Nepal because it’s so easy and inexpensive to access many of the best hikes in the world.
Hiking other Himalayan nations is problematic for different reasons: Bhutan, China, Tibet, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan.
On the other hand, arriving in Kathmandu or Pokhara you are faced with a bewildering number of options. 😐
If you can only do one hike in Nepal it should be Everest Base Camp 3 Passes:
Kongma pass (5,535m)
Cho pass (5,380m)
Renjo pass (5,388m)
Plus Kala Pattar peak (5,545m) and Base Camp (5,380m).
Ideally you’d want 3 weeks. Two weeks would be risky in terms of rushed acclimatization.
The classic trek is the Annapurna Circuit. But but road construction has degraded the experience.
Though still popular in 2019, the Circuit now might be better for mountain biking than hiking.
Best of the alternatives is another classic:
Annapurna Sanctuary (ABC)
OTHER alternatives somewhat similar to ABC include:
Khopra Ridge (opened 2012)
Mardi Himal
Ideally, we’d love to do one continuous hike:
Annapurna Dhaulagiri Community Trek starting Banskharka (Bans Kharka) to acclimatize → continuing on 1. Khopra Ridge → connecting to 2. Annapurna Sanctuary (ABC) → finishing with 3. Mardi Himal .
The 2-3 week adventure in green connecting those 3 hikes would be far more enjoyable than the Annapurna Circuit.
You can do all on the same permit.
Our recommended route. Perhaps 14-16 days.
Drive to Syabrubesi, trekking Langtang first (top of the map). Then backtracking to the Gosainkund & Helambu trek, walking most of the way back to Kathmandu.
This will be far less crowded than either Everest or Annapurna regions.
You can easily and inexpensively hire a guide and/or porters on any hike in Nepal for your whole trip … or short sections. But we’d recommend you do those listed above independently.
If we were to do a guided hike we’d choose areas of Nepal where guides are mandatory. For example:
The Manaslu Circuit (lodges open since 2010) was fantastic and uncrowded before the 2015 earthquake. Reports are that it’s fantastic again in 2019.
The Tsum Valley sidetrip is still a recommended add-on in 2019. But China is developing a road. It could be a dusty construction zone soon.
Manaslu finishes on the Annapurna Circuit. In 2013 I did Manaslu with a guide — then continued independently on the Circuit hiking & cycling.
Since I was acclimatized, the high pass on the Circuit seemed easy.
Questions? Suggestions? Leave a comment on this page.
Skurka is one of the greatest hikers all time. All hail.
Click PLAY or watch this amusing bit on YouTube.
(via Adventure Blog)
American human rights activist and hiking guru Marinel de Jesus moved to Peru full-time.
Right now she’s fundraising to put together a documentary on mistreatment of porters on the Inca Trail.
KM 82 is the documentary that will tell the porters’ stories directly to the world and reveal the inequities behind the trekking tourism industry.
The women porters have recently become a part of the trekking industry and we want to support their voices to ensure that porter conditions improve and that they can work safely on the trails.
Details on indiegogo.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Inca Trail is one of the world’s best hikes. But this is one of many problems which makes us prefer the Salkantay Trek to Aguas Calientes followed by a visit to Machu Picchu. Salkantay can be done independently carrying your own backpack. For the Inca Trail you must be guided.
Our favourite hiking destination in the Canadian Rockies is Lake O’Hara, Yoho National Park, B.C.
For decades we’ve had hikers hitting redial on the phone trying to get one of the precious reservations:
Some good news:
Overnight camping spots will now be offered through the Parks Canada reservation system on a first-come, first-served basis starting Jan. 24, 2020.
“Historically you phoned in,” …. “That creates some frustration for visitors because they get a busy signal. There was no way to see if sites were reserved.
This means we need be online at midnight on Jan 23rd.
Much easier.
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