Today, being lost in Yellowstone National Park is as simple as turning on the wrong road after you lost your complimentary map or you can not locate the restroom in the Old Faithful complex. For Truman Everts, being lost in Yellowstone was a struggle between life and death. Everts’s account details his 1870 adventure in Yellowstone after finding himself separated from his travelling companions.
The separation began Everts’s thirty-seven day struggle for survival in a pre-developed Yellowstone in which Everts had to find what little food and shelter he could just to survive.
Readers will find this account to be a real-life struggle for survival reminiscent of Jack London’s fictional work. The editor, Lee Whittlesey, does a superb job of editing Everts’s story by providing the reader with additional information and the historical background of the book.
The work is also illustrated with many early day photographs of Yellowstone which provides an stunning visual account of early-day Yellowstone National Park. This book will be appreciated by anyone looking for an exciting true-life adventure story as well as historians of the American West. People who have been “lost” recently in Yellowstone will also appreciate the book, even if their modern-day adventure pales in comparison to Evert’s
His bad luck was horror show. Everything went wrong. He was treed one a night by a cougar, for example.
Almost his only food for 37-days was the root of a plant commonly known today as Everts thistle or elk thistle.
It’s a shame he could not catch fish. (He did gulp down a couple of mineral tainted minnows.)
Art Wolfe, an internationally acclaimed photographer, invites you to experience the world with him as he travels and photographs Patagonia, Peru, Bolivia, Alaska, Ethiopia, Madagascar, India and South Georgia Island. Watch in HD (high definition) as Art captures images of majestic glaciers, expansive deserts, teeming rainforests, remote mountain peaks, and exotic tribal gatherings right on location.
A wonderful sample of the program takes you to the rarely photographed North Face of Mt. Fitz Roy:
From Allie Comeau on the Sierra Trading Post blog:
According to reports, he’s taking Katie Holmes and their daughter, Suri, on a cross-country camping trip this summer.
Photo Credit: Vanity Fair, 2006
… they’re bringing along a team of bodyguards and a Scientology advisor so they’ll be traveling in more of a troupe than a family (but at least they won’t have to worry about bears). …
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.
hiking Mt. Washington, BC by ski lift
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.
Book fast if you want one of the 30 spots. Late July 2009.
It’s a fund-raiser for the trail association.
Hiking a long-distance trail from end to end in one push, or thru-hiking, is a badge of honor for those who have accomplished such a feat. It takes a lot of planning to coordinate food, water, campsites, and the like. Plus, you have to be extremely fit to carry your lodging and all of your food on your back for days on end.
But there’s a great way to get a similar experience without sacrificing all of your weekends to planning from now through May. The Tahoe Rim Trail Association, steward to the 165-mile Tahoe Rim Trail in Nevada and California, is offering people the chance to participate in a 15-day guided thru-hike with support in the way of food and other supplies. You’ll still need to be in good shape and carry a backpack with personal gear and one- or two-days’ worth of food and water. But that’s pretty cushy, by most thru-hikers’ standards. …
I’ve come to do the legendary Zuni Acoma trail, famous for hard going and rugged terrain as it traverses ridge after ridge of charcoal colored lava flows. The route also makes up a section of the 3,100 mile Continental Divide Trail, running from Canada to Mexico.
I’m fortunate to be hiking with Bureau of Land Management ranger Karen Davis, an Acoma Indian, and park ranger Susan Olin. I’m eager to learn as much as I can about the cultural elements in this part of New Mexico, a place that has seen 10,000 years of human habitation, but where, ironically, the peak population actually occurred around 1000 AD, when nearby Chaco was in it’s hey day. And I’ve got a lot to learn about the natural history in this quirky place where volcanic vents, spatter cones, sandstone arches and elaborate cave systems add variety to the usual New Mexican lodgepole forests and pinion trees. Having experts along will add a crucial element to this journey. …
In celebration of its 40th anniversary, Mountain Travel Sobek is doling out 40 free adventures. Travelers who book a trip by Apr. 17 can bring a friend for free. Destinations include: Machu Picchu, Morocco, the Swiss Alps, and more.
Today, being lost in Yellowstone National Park is as simple as turning on the wrong road after you lost your complimentary map or you can not locate the restroom in the Old Faithful complex. For Truman Everts, being lost in Yellowstone was a struggle between life and death. Everts’s account details his 1870 adventure in Yellowstone after finding himself separated from his travelling companions.
besthike.com 