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TerminalSaint posted:I forgot to mention, if you're driving up from Long Island and don't want to start at rear end AM, the park has a campground. A lot of people drive up the day/afternoon/evening before, camp out, and hit the mountain first thing. The downside is that you lock yourself into a date unless you're cool rolling the dice on the first come first serve sites. Weekdays they're a safe bet, weekends depend on the weather and time of year. My plan, tentative as it is right now, has me leaving the island early in the morning, doing a nice afternoon hike somewhere in southern VT, sleeping somewhere, and doing Pumpelly first thing in the morning. I hadn't even begun looking into where I might overnight, though car-camping was what I had in mind. How much do campsites go for at Monadnock?
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Nov 18, 2013 20:54
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:56 |
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Wow. I will never get used to the thought of $25 for a tent site. My mind's still in the mid-'90s when you could crash at Motel 6 just about anywhere for $25. I probably won't find any cheaper options aside from actually sleeping in the car somewhere, so I might as well factor that into my planning. Thanks for all the info!
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Nov 19, 2013 21:46
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DeesGrandpa posted:Alaska picture dump Outstanding stuff, man. Thank you for sharing!
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Nov 27, 2013 04:41
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Desert Solitaire is depressing, between the chapter on rafting Glen Canyon before the dam, and contrasting his Arches experience with the Arches frontcountry today. Still one of my favorite books.
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Dec 11, 2013 03:13
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This is probably an ignorant question, but I don't know what resources exist online for snow questions; Google tends to turn up ski area reports. Do the mountains in Maryland and northern Virginia (like Catoctin Park or Shenandoah NP) tend to get and retain snow cover in January and February? My friend and I want to escape what looks to be a snowy winter here in NY/NJ, and I was wondering what snow-free options we could get to in a weekend.
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Dec 19, 2013 04:05
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Mercury Ballistic posted:I live not too far from SNP. This time of year, it can go either way, but generally any snow cover will melt within a week with the exception of N facing slopes and valleys. Skyline Drive through the park is generally closed as they do not plow it, so to enter the park you need to walk in from the numerous trail heads on the periphery. Thank you for the info! That sounds pretty awesome, actually. Do you have any recommendations for 7-10 mile loops with views worth an 8 hour drive? Edit: Recs for cheap places to sleep in northern VA or MD would also be appreciated, if there even are such places. Time Cowboy fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Dec 19, 2013 |
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Dec 19, 2013 17:18
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I watched the NPS video on Old Rag. I only started going to the gym a couple weeks ago, so I dunno if I'll be ready for a mile of rock scrambling by February. Still, it looks really cool and I kind of want to try. Here's hoping for a nice warm week in February and no blizzards right before it.
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Dec 19, 2013 21:35
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65° and snow on the ground? Sure, why not! Yearly occurrence in Colorado, special opportunity here in the coastal northeast. A quick jaunt through Devil's Den, CT this morning:    Sadly, something I'm doing in the gym has not been kind to my knees. I've had bad knees for almost eleven years now, and this hike caused the worst pain I've gotten from them in a long long time. Elliptical machines and recumbent bikes shouldn't make my knees hurt on the trail... right?
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Dec 22, 2013 23:46
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Tagra posted:How is your arch support? Without proper inserts the cartilage under my patella gets irritated and hurts like hell during extended treks. The recumbent bike does irritate it unless I'm really careful about how I'm holding my legs to make sure the patella keeps tracking properly. As far as I know my arches are fine. I'm thinking I hosed up by trying the thigh press machine a couple times last week. My left knee was giving me warning pains when I tried it, and that's the knee that was giving me trouble today.
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Dec 23, 2013 01:46
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Have I missed any good books about hiking the big trails? I've read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (excellent), As Far as the Eye Can See by David Brill (reads like a community college writing assignment), Wild by Cheryl Strayed (pretty good), and The Cactus Eaters by Dan White (a book-length e/n thread, obsessed with how sexy his ex-girlfriend was). It's been a while since I found any others, so any recommendations would be awesome.
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Jan 3, 2014 18:06
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Tagra posted:I haven't read it, but my husband got "Blisters and Bliss" about the West Coast Trail and now that's all he wants to do. That looks like a guidebook. I want trail narratives, which seems to be a much scarcer genre. Ockhams Crowbar posted:That's the most succinct and apt description I've ever heard of that book. I put it down a quarter of the way in, when I realized what direction it was going in, and wished I'd put it down much earlier. In that case you missed quite a treat, because it only got worse from there! BeefofAges posted:I read AWOL on the Appalachian Trail before setting out on my AT hike. It was a pretty good read. Thanks for this, and for all the other recommendations.
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Jan 4, 2014 18:13
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Mercury Ballistic posted:"I hike" is pretty fun. Lots of anecdotes from the PCT and CDT from a thru hiker. That one sounds really interesting. Naturally it's the one my library system doesn't have and it costs $15 to get it on Amazon.
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Jan 4, 2014 18:23
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I usually hike solo, and even when I go with friends I'm the one with the camera, so there are precious few pics of me hamming it up on peaks. This is a predictable pose, but what else are you supposed to do with Storm King in the background and a winter storm coming?
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Jan 31, 2014 17:52
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I'm not doing fifty summits, but I'm in the early stages of (hopefully) hiking in every state and eventually every Canadian province and territory. I've done six states so far, and by the end of the year, if the money situation is favorable, I hope to bag another five. That said, Mount Marcy (New York), Mount Greylock (Massachusetts), and High Point (New Jersey) are on my to-hike list. All appear to be decent hikes, though crowded; High Point and Greylock also have roads to the top, with monuments and crap, which might not be too appealing once I get there.
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Feb 13, 2014 23:40
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Pryor on Fire posted:Hiking off trail is a real pain in the rear end and dangerous to boot in mountainous areas. Why would you want to do it? Trying to find a place to jerk off outside? That's what frontcountry port-a-potties are for.
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Feb 16, 2014 21:20
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All these awesome trails in Europe have me wondering, is there a good guidebook (or ANY guidebook) in English for the various long distance trails in Europe? Wiki has lists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_long-distance_paths, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long-distance_footpaths#Europe) but hardly any pictures or juicy descriptions.
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Mar 15, 2014 16:09
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BeefofAges posted:Hmm, socks are a good idea. My favorite hiking socks are wearing a bit thin in the heels. How durable are those boxerjocks? I'm getting in shape to do more serious hiking and definitely need some chafe-protection.
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Mar 24, 2014 17:03
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BeefofAges posted:After about a thousand miles the seams on the thighs start to split. That's about it. I also rub my thighs together more than most people due to some biomechanical weirdness. The quality of the materials and stitching is great. They don't skimp at all. I have a biomechanical weirdness called "being a fatass," so this sounds exactly right for me. Adorable lizard, by the way!
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Mar 24, 2014 17:48
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This is kind of a specific request, but does anyone know of a hike in southern New York / northern New Jersey / western Connecticut that features a lot of springtime wildflowers? I'm dying to see a color that isn't brown or dull green or flat gray. (Though I probably have to wait at least another month.)
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Mar 30, 2014 22:42
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Feedbacker posted:Good resource for that area: http://www.nynjtc.org The Trail Conference doesn't have wildflowers as a filtering option, so I thought it would be more efficient to ask for recommendations first. That said, I always forget they have hundreds of hike suggestions that aren't on my map sets.
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Mar 31, 2014 16:40
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The NY/NJ Trail Conference even sent an email. It's cute. Click for the rest.
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Apr 1, 2014 18:46
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Hughmoris posted:Can anyone recommend some easy day hikes near Albuquerque, Santa Fe or Taos? I'll be exploring that area in a few days, would love to find an easy hike with great views to take some scenic landscape photos. I'd be by myself and not much in the way of equipment. Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument has a great, easy 3 mile trail through eroded ash formations. It's near Santa Fe. There's also Bandelier National Monument next door, which has Pueblo Ancestor sites and lots of scenery, with trail options from about 2 miles to deep into wilderness backcountry.
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Apr 15, 2014 15:59
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I love picture day! cheese eats mouse, I hiked in Red River Gorge once as a kid (my hillbilly family had a tobacco farm way the gently caress out in the hill country in Wolfe County) and I've wanted to come back and hike it properly for a long time now. Of course, having a small child kind of nixes the whole "12 hour drive" idea. I hope you post more pictures of your hikes so I can experience them vicariously. I'm a bit sick of all the hiking areas around here (NYC area). I've been hiking Long Island, southern NY, and northern NJ for about three years now, and I'm just craving something different. Different rocks, different plants. I almost convinced myself to drive five hours to the Pine Creek Gorge in PA today, but in the end I settled for ho-hum ankle-twisting AT stuff in High Point, NJ. It's so overdeveloped it makes Bear Mountain seem like wilderness, but it was a nice walk, and my very first state summit!  My first glimpse of the summit penis.  Port Jervis, which up close turns out to be kind of a lovely little town.
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Apr 27, 2014 22:10
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I think I'll wait on the Whites until I'm in better shape. I'm a fatass, and I haven't been good about going to the gym lately. In the meantime, I do have plans to hike the Pumpelly Trail up Monadnock this year, possibly in September. I wonder, though, if I could con people into Kickstarting me a trip out West. I haven't hiked anywhere west of Berks County, Pennsylvania since 2009.
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Apr 28, 2014 01:09
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Picnic Princess posted:Posting in a laundromat in Moab to say we survived our journey through the desert! It was spectacular. But holy gently caress trying to paddle against gale force headwinds through class 2 rapids was "fun". But we did a hike up above the Colorado River to the Needles area in Canyonlands NP, visited Arches, saw all sorts of amazing petroglyphs, tons more. Awesome! I got serious redrock envy right now. Any Catskills people have recommendations for an early June hike? I want views, and ideally something that isn't too difficult. I'm thinking either Ashokan High Point or Giant Ledges and Panther Mountain, but if you have any waterfalls or meadows or pretty lakes to throw at me, I'm open to anything.
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May 11, 2014 18:47
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Picture time! I wanted to find new places with different landforms to explore, so I settled on Neversink Gorge (Sullivan County, New York). It's unnerving hiking down from the trailhead. And trail designers here in the eastern US seem to follow the philosophy "Put the trail a couple hundred feet above the river, well above what anyone comes here to see." So lots of tick-infested laurel thickets, not much river action. It was a good hike though, 9 miles plus a lot of up and down. What flowers are these?  Me being a sweaty goon in front of Mullet Falls.  This was a lot greener and fernier in person. Also, "fernier" is a word according to Firefox.  High Falls on the Neversink. 
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May 25, 2014 00:10
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Capt. Sticl posted:So, I decided at last minute to take a trip to Zion. (One of the benefits of only living a couple hours away) Amazing photos, thank you for sharing! A friend and I hiked Giant Ledges and Panther Mountain in the Catskills today.  On the way up to the Ledges.  On the Ledges.  Slide Mountain (which I hiked last June) peeks over the foliage on the right.     The view from Panther's summit.  
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Jun 8, 2014 03:48
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Over a year ago I asked for hiking recommendations in eastern Pennsylvania. One of you suggested Ricketts Glen, said it would be terrific in summer, that the temperature inside the glens would feel 20° cooler than the ambient air. Whoever you are, you were a lying dog. The hike was something special, but it was hot and humid as gently caress, and if anything the waterfalls only made it more humid. Oh well, have some pictures from my trip on Tuesday.  Crimson bee balm.  Sheldon Reynolds Falls.  A spiderweb caught my eye.  Harrison Wright Falls.  Sometimes wild and wooly trails are nice. Other times the bomb-proof CCC projects are pretty darn nice to have around.  Ganoga Falls.  I never knew it was possible to get burnt out on waterfalls, but by the time I got into Glen Leigh, I'd started taking token snaps and moving on downstream. I don't even know which fall this is. Afterward I went on to do about three miles in Shawangunk Grasslands National Wildlife Refuge -- three miles of full sun exposure, in July, in New York. Not my best idea. But it was just enough of a taste to make me pine for the open plains. 
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Jul 26, 2014 05:05
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Feedbacker posted:Ah, teasel. Next time you see one, kill it. Dang it. Everything that seems neat at first turns out to be terrible.
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Jul 26, 2014 14:36
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Seltzer posted:Thanks for the tips. There's a few basic trails around Central NJ which I'll start checking out first, but I assume most of the good ones are in Northern NJ. The NY/NJ Trail Conference map set for north-central Jersey is out of date, published before Sandy washed out basically every trail bridge in the region. As soon as they have a new edition in print, I'm buying it. Their website has a list of suggested hikes which you can sort by region: http://nynjtc.org/view/hike?order=field_region_value&sort=asc& I've never tried following the directions without a map before, so I don't know if the list would be helpful on its own except as a starting point for more research.
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Aug 1, 2014 04:11
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Seltzer posted:Now that I've started doing this I'm jealous of everyone near all these mountains with great views. I have to drive 40 minutes to hike a completely forested hill. I have to drive two hours each way to get to any place that isn't grubby pine barrens bordered by subdivisions on every side. This summer each of my hikes has involved anything from three to five hours just to get to the trailhead; next weekend I'm looking at a seven hour drive (to Maine).
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Aug 30, 2014 23:03
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Speaking of my big trip to Maine, is there anyone familiar with the southern Maine coast willing to give a day hike recommendation? I'm planning to do Megunticook and Maiden Cliffs in the Camden Hills, which seems nice enough. But considering this is my first time hiking in Maine, is there another must-do hike you'd suggest instead? Bear in mind I'll be arriving around noon this Saturday, so parking/crowds may be a factor, and I don't want to drive further east than, say, Acadia. Under eight miles of hiking is preferred, given the late start, and no insane ascents, as I'm fat.
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Sep 1, 2014 22:21
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You're all inspiring me to get back to the gym. Somewhere, Shine just shed a single tear of joy and probably doesn't even know why.
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Sep 9, 2014 03:34
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We should have torn down the Bearfort before they had the chance to regroup their forces.
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Sep 23, 2014 23:50
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Are the crowds and traffic bad in southern NH during the weekdays? I'm thinking of hiking in Pisgah or something like that a week from Thursday.
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Sep 29, 2014 04:17
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Yes, but I made a fiasco out of it. I was 2/3 of the way to the summit when I realized my wallet was missing. So I had to drag my fat rear end all the way down the White Dot looking for it -- and that trail is way more fun going up than going down. Eventually I did find my wallet, which had been in the car the whole frigging time, but I was too exhausted to do anything but drive all the way home. I was incredibly sore for three days after that. I need to get back to the gym.
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Sep 29, 2014 11:58
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I'll come back next year for the Pumpelly. I can't let a summit elude me because of my own incompetence.
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Sep 29, 2014 14:13
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Next year I'll try to fill the thread with nice little mountains and streams from the Northeast. I envy you your glacial summits out west, but drat it, we do what we can with what we have!
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Oct 20, 2014 14:44
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I can say, with only minimal hyperbole, that I would support life imprisonment without parole in this case. Since that won't happen, is it possible for someone to get banned for life from all federal parks and forests?
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Oct 23, 2014 16:20
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2024 12:56 |
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Gay for bears.
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Oct 23, 2014 21:44
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