… Authorities recovered the remains of two hikers in the hills near Palm Springs last week. They can tell that they’re hikers based on their clothing, but the bodies are so severely dehydrated that they can’t even pull fingerprints. …
I was shocked to see Kraig’s headline on the official blog:
Robyn Benincasa and Team Nike Out of Primal Quest Badlands
… the withdrawl of defending PQ champs Nike. Last week, team captain Mike Kloser suffered a crash while mountain biking, which left him with a broken collarbone, a collapsed lung, and five broken ribs, and while he is already on the mend, the injuried will obviously keep him out of the race. The rest of Team Nike reluctantly decided to pull out of Primal Quest rather than look for a replacement on short notice. …
The most popular hiking route in Iceland is known as Laugavegur and links the areas of Thorsmork and Landmannalaugar. It is 54 km long and passes trough extremely diverse landscapes, tall mountains, coloured rhyolite areas, geothermal fields with erupting geysers, ice caves, sprawling sands, magnificent canyons and ends in verdant bitvh forests. Not forgetting the famed natural hot pools in Landmannalaugar.
The route is divided into four days of hiking. Setting off from Landmannalaugar is most popular, with overnight stays at Hrafntinnusker, Álftavatn, Emstrur and Thorsmork. All those locations have wardens and facilities for hikers are good.
The route is well marked and should be safe for everyone. Its highest point is Hrafntinnusker, at just over 1000 metres above sea level. There may be winter conditions there even in mid-summer and this is were the risk of losing the way when passing through the remainder of the winter snow is greatest.
The Laugavegur is a famous hiking trail in South-West Iceland from the hot springs and solfatara fields of Landmannalaugar to the glacial valley of Thorsmork.
Starting July 17th, Merrell sponsored a contest with the aim of disseminating our love for our national playgrounds. …
The grand prize for this contest is a one-year free pass to all the National Parks for a family and a whole wardrobe of Merrell footwear and apparel to assure that these adventures are as enjoyable as possible.
To take part, all readers need to do is visit Merrell’s Facebook Fan Page (www.facebook.com/merrell), and post their favorite National Park story in 150 words or less on our Wall. Participants are encouraged to include pictures or videos of their previous outdoor adventures The stories receiving the most “thumbs up” will win.
Jeni and just about everyone else told me to travel to the most beautiful lake in the country. It looks like a fjord.
Königssee
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.
St. Bartholomä
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.
… 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. …
The Brenta Mountains in the Dolomites are popular with via ferrata (iron road), cable assisted, climbers.
They stretch 40km (25mi) on a north-south axis. I nearly chose to hike a lengthwise itinerary called The Mighty Brenta Dolomite Traverse. … Unfortunately transport to the trailheads was problematic.
Instead I crossed west to east from famed tourist trap Madonna di Campiglio to the most lovely mountain town I’ve found in Europe so far, Molveno.
Again I took a cable car to start as high as possible.
I was delivered to Rif. Tuckett and Sela.
The wildflowers are still going strong in late July. (They are nearly gone now in Canada.)
It’s great being instantly on top of the world. Just like heli-hiking. The start is mostly a traverse under the highest peaks. Amazing. Such easy access to this environment.
The sunset was a classic Dolomite experience. Wow.
Next morning the weather was fantastic. So I stashed my pack in the boulders and dashed up as high as I could go to Rif. Alimonta.
Wonderful. But daylight was burning. I turned back and pushed hard to get over the mountains.
Here was the crux of the hike when I was there. (It was not quite as bad as it looks in the photo. But it was challenging.)
I entrusted a Summit Stone to the virgin guarding the highest pass.
This is astonishing Rif. Pedrotti 2491m. Many famed climbers have stayed here.
Starving, but in a mad rush now to get DOWN off this mountain, I ordered a meal. It tasted FANTASTIC at this altitude.
No photos from my decent. I practically ran from 3000m to the lake at 868m in order to be sure I would catch a bus out of the valley.
That was one long, long exit.
Whew.
This was my personal favourite of the 4 Dolomite hikes I did on this trip. See the rest of my photos on flickr.
In case you missed it, our preeminent hiking blogger Tom Mangan is 
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