You are three days into a two week solo backpacking trip. You’re just reached the peak of the mountain and are parched. You take off your fullpack, unzip the back pocket, and are horrified to find that the water bottles you had at the last campsite are no longer there. The sun is getting hotter. You are starting to feel weak. What do you do?
Stay calm, know the symptoms
While people have been known to survive without food for weeks, water is an...
By alexfrey in Hiking on Apr 1st, 2010 | No Comments
This is a guest post by Jeff Dolan. He has hiked extensively in the Smoky Mountains and runs www.hikinginthesmokys.com, the most comprehensive site on the internet for information on hiking Great Smoky Mountain trails. For more information on the hikes listed below, check out his website.
Every hiker has a list of favorite trails. After many years of hiking in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I decided to compile a list of what I consider...
By AllTrails Staff in Jobs on Apr 1st, 2010 | No Comments
Do you love hiking in the Seattle area? Would your friends classify you as an avid hiker? If so, we need your help!
Earn $50.00 by becoming the Seattle Community Manager for AllTrails.com. AllTrails.com currently provides information on over 40,000 trails and is looking to build a stronger community of trail contributors in the Seattle area.
Seattle Community Manager Job Description:
Create a profile for yourself on AllTrails.com
Create a list of...
While many are deterred from taking outdoors vacations with children, our National Park system makes it easy to design family friendly vacations in nature. National Parks not only allow kids to see some of the nation’s most amazing natural wonders from a young age, they can also be a great educational resource to spur the creative minds of future environmentalists, geologists, and naturalists. These five parks belong on any summer-vacation short-list.
Grand...
Hiking one mile can burn upwards of 150 calories. Replacing these calories with solid nutrition is key to staying energetic and healthy on the trail. For your next trip, check out these foods (with links to amazon.com attached).
Mixed Dried Fruit – The ideal backpacking food: lightweight, nutritious, high in fiber, and impossible to crush, break, or damage!
Cliff Bars - There are more energy bars on the market then you can count, but Cliff bars...
By alexfrey in Best Of on Mar 22nd, 2010 | No Comments
The internet contains a plethora of hiking information, but it can be challenging to find it amongst all the shoddy salesmanship, fluff, and downright spam. Check out these seven websites (as well as AllTrails) for reliable information that you can trust.
www.sidestep.com – Our choice for air reservations – searches airlines websites as well as travel aggregators like cheaptickets.com and orbitz to find you the best deal.
www.backpacker.com/destinations...
By alexfrey in Hiking on Mar 15th, 2010 | No Comments
The air was getting cooler, and the other hikers were getting more frequent. Two telltale signs that we had neared the top of the aptly named Grandview Trail’s steep ascent towards the rim of Arizona’s Grand Canyon, and the conclusion of a four-day backpacking trip with tantalizing extremes of climate, views, solitude, and geology.
Day 1 – South Kaibab Trail from South Rim to Cottonwood Creek Campground
Four days earlier as we started our adventure...
By alexfrey in Gear on Mar 14th, 2010 | 2 Comments
Whether you go to bed dreaming of the adrenaline rush that will come from conquering the state’s highest mountain, or wishing for the tranquility of walking next to a crystal-clear stream flowing through an old-growth forest, finding a solid pair of hiking shoes is the first essential step to entering an exciting world of adventure. There are a few important things to know before you pull out a credit card.
1) Determine the best type of...
While we had completed the Torres del Paine “W” Trek there was a lot more to see in the park so we decided to take a tour of the Eastern Lakes region. We first headed to Rio Paine Waterfall. During the summer the waterfall is quite impressive due to the shear volume of water that is flowing down from the mountain range and is definitely worth checking out. As we went farther east we encountered large groups of guanacos which are indigenous...
Day 5 was the last major hiking day of our trek. Setting off we knew it was suppose to be one of the most strenuous days with a 4.5 hour 800m ascent and an equally time consuming decent. This was the last leg of the Torres del Paine “W” Trek and would hopefully provide us with an up close view of Las Torres (aka The Towers).
The trail was broken down into 3 sections (see route map). The first 1.5 hours of the ascent was rocky with vegetation...
