Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
They’re endless.
But here are two posted by Frank in Oz that I’m seriously considering for my Adventure Racing kit. Click through for details.
Blisters? – Not this time, Sue tries Injinji hiking socks with success – Our Hiking Blog
Ultralight D-Ring for your pack – Our Hiking Blog
Obviously our best hikes map of the world should be interactive in the way used by Modern Hiker in California:
screenshot
This is a home-grown Google Map with hiking information in Los Angeles and Southern California. Every trail I’ve written up for the site is accompanied by a pin, color-coded by difficulty. Clicking on a pin will give you a thumbnail image and short description, and a link to the in-depth review.
This is a great way to get a visual idea of where these trails are in relation to you, and is a great resource for planning your next hiking trip.
click through to test it: Mapping Out Your Weekend – Modern Hiker
Man! We suck at maps on this site.
My favourite travelogue over the past few months has been Erin McKittrick and Bretwood (Hig) Higman’s Journey on the Wild Coast:
“From the Puget Sound to the Bering Sea: Four thousand miles along the edge of the Pacific, by foot, raft, and skis.”
After 8 months, they are only half way finished. (The original plan was 9 months for the entire 4000mi.)
The text and photos are terrific. But it was this video that really brought home to me the difficulty of travelling Alaska in winter.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
It’s well worth checking out Erin’s post: Midway Reflections
Last year I hiked Syncline Loop in Canyonlands, Island in the Sky, Arizona. Awesome. (My trip report.)
Upheaval Dome, the crater there, is only one of 174 such structures as listed on the Earth Impact Database. I wonder how many others have good hikes.
This year I MISSED the chance to see Meteor Crater though it was only 35mi (55km) east of my hostel in Flagstaff, Arizona. (The weather was terrible in January.)
The site was formerly known as the Canyon Diablo Crater, and scientists generally refer to it as Barringer Crater in honor of Daniel Barringer who was first to suggest that it was produced by meteorite impact.
Meteor Crater lies at an elevation of about 1740 m (5709 ft) above sea level. It is about 1,200 m (4,000 ft) in diameter, some 170 m deep (570 ft), and is surrounded by a rim that rises 45 m (150 ft) above the surrounding plains. The center of the crater is filled with 210-240 m (700-800 ft) of rubble lying above crater bedrock.
Surprisingly, the site is privately owned with an entrance fee for tourists.
official website – Barringer Crater
The most interesting anecdote for visitors:
On August 8, 1964, a pair of commercial pilots in a Cessna 150 flew into the crater for a closer look but were unable to climb out due to downdrafts. They ended up circling the interior until their fuel was exhausted and crash-landed. They survived their ordeal and continued to fly while the remaining wreckage is pointed out to visitors.
Leave a comment if you have an impact crater hike to recommend.
Most of the more interesting blogs than this have already commented on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study by Oliver Pergams from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
… Since the late 1980s, the percentage of Americans taking part in such activities has declined at slightly more than 1 percent a year. The total effect, Pergams says, is that participation is down 18 percent to 25 percent from peak levels. …
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.flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }Lassen National Park in Northern California.
it’s not clear that the number of hikers has been reduced. But if they have, there’s more room in the wild for me. And you.
What’s the problem?
We are usually VERY careful with the keys to the vehicle. (It’s best to have two or more sets with you and hide one set close to the get-away vehicle.)
In some cases, it’s the difference between life and death.
… Sandra Ordner, 47, of Daphne, whose body was found last week outside her locked SUV at a North Carolina mountain parking lot, died of hypothermia hours after she told her husband she was going hiking, the local sheriff said Thursday.
Macon County, N.C., Sheriff Robert Holland said that it had been extremely cold and raining in the hours before Ordner’s body was discovered in the parking lot of the Whiteside Mountain Trail.
Ordner’s keys and cellular telephone were locked inside her 2002 Land Rover sport utility vehicle, Holland said. …
Must be the crappy, global freezing winter we are suffering in North America. A year ago I was in Taz. (Wish I was there right now.)
Nadine from Calgary, Canada has a wonderful blog on TravelPod.
She’s trekked in Patagonia, the Andes and is now Down Under.
They had a fantastic time on the South Coast Track, one of the best coastal hikes in the world.
… The next morning we were up before sunrise again, and onto the boats at first light in calm water. We had to paddle an aluminum boat across with our gear, drop the gear off, tie up a second boat to our boat with oars, row back to the side we started on, leave a boat and oars, and row back. The three crossings of the boats were really fun, and good practice for something we would do a few days later 🙂 We then crossed over a dune onto Prion Beach, took off our boots, and walked barefoot for nearly 4km on the hard packed sand at the surf line!!!! It was slightly windy, but just gorgeous walking. …
Later on the adventure:
… Crossing this mountain range often stops people for a full day or more, going either way, since it should not be crossed in bad weather. 100km per hour windows and blowing snow are common. Luckily for us, today was turning out to be a scorcher. …
Nearing the top, the rain forest gives way to cloud forest, with all sorts of things just growing on anything. Really beautiful. Then it tops out without any trees, and we could see our entire route forwards and backwards! 40km ahead of us and 40km behind us!
See the rest of the trip report and photos.
My own mini-trek there in 2007 did not go nearly as well as Nadine’s. I covered only about half the distance I had hoped after nearly losing a shoe in a mud pit.
South Coast Track – besthike information page
I must say I do. Though not “natural”, there’s something classic about walking a rotting wooden sidewalk in the wilderness.
Frank in Oz edits the wonderful Our Hiking Blog.
A recent post included some of my photos from a 2007 Overland Track hike in Tasmania. It’s a series of photos showing the wooden boardwalks.
see more – The Overland Track – Track images
Frank’s post got me thinking about other boardwalk hikes.
The West Coast Trail, for example:
original – flickr – Christine Rondeau
On flickr, I found more. Atop Whistler Mountain in Canada:
original – flickr – sbat
And the famed Milford Track in New Zealand:
original – flickr – amy&kimball
Leave a comment if you have a favourite boardwalk walk.
The only way to bring media attention to this great trek, I reckon:
Papua New Guinea’s historic Kokoda Trail has been closed to tourists until a dispute over a proposed copper mine is resolved, Australian media is reporting.
Local Koiari landowners have felled a tree across the track near the village of Naoro, 55km from Port Moresby. Villagers say they will stop travellers who try to pass until the PNG government allows the Australian company Frontier Resources to dig up 600m of the track to mine a $US5.9 billion copper and gold deposit.
The Koiari people have been offered a 5% stake in the mine that could deliver them more than $US100 million over the proposed 10-year life of the mine.
Australia, who is seeking a world heritage listing for the trail, is lobbying the PNG Government to kill the mine project in favour of the tourism dollar.
About 5000 tourists travel walk the 96km Kokoda Trail each year. One of the world’s great treks, it links the southern and northern coast of PNG, and was the scene of bitter fighting between Australian soldiers and Japanese troops in 1942.
related post: Kokoda Trail – Papua New Guinea
more Kokoda Trail photos – flickr – Nomad Tales
Tom Mangan, hiking columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, and popular blogger, took me out to one of his favourite hikes.
The forecast was for rain. Tom considered a dozen options for me, finally settling on Mt Tam. Beautiful in any weather. Year round.
First, look at Tom’s trip report and photos from that glorious day:
… So here’s where we went: Straight up the hill via the Ben Johnson Trail. We caught the Dipsea Trail in an open area looking out over the Pacific, above, then we dived down into another canyon till we got to Steep Ravine Trail, which we took to the Pantoll trail head. From there it was a short jaunt on the Alpine Trail and a steep dive back downhill along the Bootjack Trail, which was glorious, and back to Muir Woods. Nine or 10 miles of the finest hiking the Bay Area has to offer. Might even make Rick’s “Best†list.
I’ve added Mt Tamalpais to our list of the best hikes in North America.
(There are so many good hikes in California, it’s really quite difficult to name those that are “best”.)
A few more of my own pics:
original – flickr
I always enjoy Tom’s photos. This trip I got a chance to see the kinds of shots he looks for. And how he sets up, sometimes using his new “GorillaPod“:
original – flickr
Adding challenge to the beautiful, appropriately named, Steep Ravine Trail, is a 10ft ladder.
original – flickr
(Note how much superior is Tom’s photo of this ladder. I still have a lot to learn.)
more of my Mt Tam photos on flickr
besthike.com 