My favourite vista in Death Valley is one of the most popular.
As well as being a curious film by Antonioni (1970), Zabriskie Point is an elevated overlook of a colorful, undulating landscape of gullies and mud hills at the edge of the Funeral Mountains, a few miles from the edge of Death Valley …
The blissful couple at 17,768-foot Thorung La in Nepal.
… The 128-mile horseshoe-shaped route circles Nepal’s heaven-high Annapurna range, and it’s been hailed as the holy grail of trekking since it was first opened to foreigners in the early 1980s. Travel writers and hikers everywhere gush about the trail …
Season
October is the most popular, thanks to reliably pleasant weather (80°F and humid at 2,000 feet; 20°F and dry at 17,000 feet) and clear skies. …
Map and Books
The best trail guide is Annapurna Trekking Map and Complete Guide, by Partha S. Banerjee (Milestone Guidebooks, $10); it can be found at every bookstore in Kathmandu. Use Trails Illustrated map Annapurna #3003 (natgeomaps.com, $17) and Nepal (Lonely Planet, $25) for pre-trip planning.
Permit
Every trekker needs a permit ($25), but no reservations are necessary. Just pick one up in Kathmandu at the Annapurna Conservation Area Project office on Tridevi Marg (open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily). ntnc.org.np/trekking.php
Trailhead
The trek starts in Besisahar (catch a bus at Kathmandu’s Gongabu Bus Park; they leave regularly) and ends in Pokhara (return on a Greenline Tours bus, greenline.com.np).
Cost (Less Airfare & Rental Car) DIY: Less than $500 // Guided: $1,000-$1,499
Cheap and Easy
Annapurna’s teahouses beat the huts on other classic treks in terms of convenience, cost, and local color. Teahouses charge about $12 per day for a room and meals, and they’re never more than three hours apart, making is easy to keep a flexible itinerary. But that’s not to say there aren’t rules. Here are six: Choose a teahouse before 3 p.m. to beat large guided groups to the nicest places; choose a smaller one for better meal service; take showers immediately after arriving (most hot water is solar heated); order breakfast before going to bed to speed your morning departure; and bring a padlock for your room and a ground pad for the beds, which may be foam, straw, or just blankets.
The Crux and The Crucible Adventure Race starts tomorrow early. Teams hope to finish each of the next 2 days within 14hrs.
Hints from event organizer David Adlard lead us to understand it’s going to be a difficult, particularly grueling course. Best strategy might be to go for only the mandatory check points, and finish safely within regulation time.
Me?
… I’ll be a comfortable volunteer, cheering on the serious athletes.
… On Saturday, at Idaho’s Farragut State Park, the second phase of the inaugural Adventure Sports Week will kick off with adventure races for athletes of many calibers. Some of the sport’s top athletes will be there, including five-time world champion Mike Kloser and two-time world champion Danelle Ballengee, who made national news in 2006 when she fell during a Utah trail run and might have died if her dog hadn’t gone for help.
But the weekend is designed to offer something to everyone. Short-course adventure races are available to amateur athletes interested in sampling the sport, said Todd Jackson, one of the co-founders.
“All you need is yourself and a partner and a mountain bike. …
Ski Touring : March – May 1
Road Biking : May – October
Mtn Biking : June – October
Trail Running : June – October
Hiking : June – October
So much in the Dolomites depends on the huts being open. To come to the Region and have the huts all closed would mean missing out on a lot of the culture, it would also mean a heavier pack. May and June can have periods of great weather for cycling, and the roads are empty. But, it can be quite wet as well. Again, the huts are closed from late April to 20 June.
The time frames above are not fixed, only general references. Also, for the off season you can visit lower, nearby areas and hit the Dolomites in periods of perfect weather. The Lake Garda area is a fantastic escape when the weather is bad, or the perfect spot to base yourself off season.
An interesting thing occurs in Italy each August. The majority of the country goes on holiday. Literally. Unless you live in a holiday area (like the Dolomites), you go on vacation. The interesting thing is that Italians like to stay in Italy, they see little reason to leave, they know it is about the best place on the planet. Why risk leaving where the food is bad and the coffee terrible (good point)?
So, they pack nearly everything they own into their tiny cars and head to either the Dolomites or the beach. At about the same time, the Germans, who love the German speaking Sud Tirol Region, arrive en masse in campers, big Audi’s and motorcycles.
Given the option – do not come to the Dolomites in August – steer clear. The roads are frightening, the trails have traffic problems, the huts are full and the locals are somewhat grumpy. …
Best was The Adventure Blogger, Kraig Becker, giving us a nice shout out on his Gadling travel blog:
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho plays host to Adventure Sports Week 2009 , which got underway this past weekend in beautiful Farragut State Park, located just outside the mountain community. Hundreds of endurance athletes descended on the region to take part in the first time event, which is already becoming one of the premiere outdoor sporting competitions of the year.
Billed as “10 days, 24 races, 1 big party”, Adventure Sports Weekly has something to offer just about anyone who enjoys an outdoor athletic challenge. For instance, things kicked off this weekend with a triathlon clinic, and ramped up from there with two orienteering competitions, a pair of duathalons, and three triathalons, including an official XTERRA series event, which was won by Dan Hugo and Melanie McQuaid in the men’s and women’s categories respectively.
Things don’t slow down any next weekend either, when the adventure racers take center stage for the Crux and the Crucible races, both of which combine mountain biking, trekking/trail running, and kayaking, amongst other discplines. There will aslo be marathon and half-marathon length trail runs, a paddling race, and more. …
Want to see the highest and lowest elevations in the continental USA from one vantage?
Telescope Peak is the highest point within Death Valley National Park, in the US state of California. It is also the highest point of the Panamint Range, and lies in Inyo County. From atop this desert mountain one can see for over one hundred miles in many directions, including west to Mount Whitney, and east to Charleston Peak. The mountain was named for the great distance visible from the summit.
Telescope Peak is also notable for having one of the greatest vertical rises above local terrain of any mountain in the contiguous United States. Its summit rises 11,331 feet (3,478 m) above the floor of Death Valley (Badwater, -282 ft/-86 m) in about 15 miles (24 km), and about 10,000 feet (3,050 m) above the floor of Panamint Valley in about 8 miles (13 km). …
Hiking Telescope Peak by the normal route involves a 14 mile (23 km) round trip hike. The trail starts in the cool western part of Death Valley National Park at Mahogany Flat campground. The trail slowly winds itself up to the summit 7 miles (11 km) later at a steady gradient of roughly 8%. …
This superb, popular hike starts a few miles past the famed Charcoal Kilns.
The beehive shaped kilns were built in the 1870s to make charcoal for local mines. Here is the start of the Wildrose Peak Trail, a good alternative to Telescope.
Though often called “challenging”, I found this hike surprisingly easy. Weather is a big factor. And I tented one night rather than doing the entire big trip in one day as most do.
There are some pretty, rolling miles along a ridge walk. Some hikers do not make it to the top due to feeling ill effects from the 3000ft climb.
The lush high alpine contrasts starkly with bleak Death Valley below.
At the peak I found an impressive summit box. To the many souvenirs and prizes that had been contributed, I added a Summit Stone on behalf of artist DSD.
Here’s the sunset view from my campsite.
Mt Whitney and the Sierras
It’s normally snowed in between November and May. You can still hike, but bring crampons.
No hiking permit required. In fact, if driving in from Lone Pine, California in the Sierras, you won’t even be able to buy a Park Pass ($20 for 7-days) which is supposedly required to hike Telescope. This mountain is on the very edge of the Park.
Tom Harrison Maps are available. And several good guidebooks. But this hike is very straight forward. If you can find your way to the trailhead by personal vehicle, you won’t get lost on the trail.
=== Sound too easy? Consider this extreme alternative:
… An established, but more advanced, climbing route is from Shorty’s Well (elevation around -250′) to Telescope Peak. This provides a net gain of elevation of roughly 11,300 ft (3,400 m) The route follows Hanaupah Canyon for over 10 miles (16 km) until Hanaupah Springs is reached. This route can be done in one day by experienced hikers, and has one of the largest elevation gains that can be gained up a single summit. …
A few weeks ago – on my first day of mountain biking in the Rockies – I nearly rode into a big black bear on the main trail at Canmore Nordic Centre.
In 2009 are there more bears in the Rockies? Closer to people?
Or am I simply hearing about more bears? And more cougar encounters?
trailex.org tracks encounters and information about trail safety in the Bow Valley (from Banff to Bragg Creek).
That site was set up by the husband of Isabelle Dube who was killed by a grizzly near Canmore.
… Dube, 36, was jogging with two friends when they ran into a grizzly. She scrambled up a tree, but the bear chased after her and mauled the young mother, leading to her death.
She was the first person to be killed by a bear in Alberta since 1998. Since then, two more Albertans have been killed.
Robin Kochorek, a 31-year-old Calgarian, was killed by a male grizzly last July as she was mountain biking on a trail in the Panorama area near Invermere, B.C.
Don Allan Peters, 51, a father of two daughters, was mauled to death by a grizzly last November while he was hunting about 150 kilometres northwest of Calgary. …
Having grown up in bear country, I still sleep well in a tent in the Rockies. I really don’t worry about them.
Cougars are a greater danger. But those encounters much rarer.
My prediction: there will soon be a public backlash against bears near people areas in the Canadian Rockies.
UPDATE: 60-year-old trail runner, Thomas Nerison, of Kalispell, Montana, narrowly avoided serious damage when he was bitten by a Grizzly in Glacier National Park last Sunday.
The Outdoorzy Blog is now The Outpost. You can reach the site through the same url – blog.outdoorzy.com. We just gave the site a much needed face lift. The new format is organized way better and allows for more fun features such as polls and ratings.
We’re pretty stoked about the new layout and branding …
besthike.com 