It’s the 20th anniversary of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, which is celebrating by offering its second annual September through-hike: this year’s trek goes from Castro Valley north to Martinez over five days from Wednesday, Sept. 2, to Sunday. Sept…
Author Archive for tom
Great links from the hiking blogosphere
by tom • July 15, 2009 • 7 Comments
Folks have been posting up a storm lately (must be hiking season or something). Let’s take a look: Adam Paul is posting great pix and commentary from the Southern California high country desert — (hey, it’s not Joshua Tree’s fault…
Año Nuevo for the elephant seal molt
by tom • July 13, 2009 • 5 Comments
Every winter, the shoreline at Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve becomes jammed with amorous elephant seals. They’re all gone by spring but in the summer a few of the males return to shed their hide, which comes off in large…
Lookin’ for the good stuff here?
by tom • July 11, 2009 • 1 Comment
Just check out all the posts in which I used the adjective “harrowing” (Count ’em: 17 posts!) According to the Free Dictionary, it looks like I was misusing it most of the time. (My definition: “some scary s**t”) .
Any Mountain Hardwear owners out there?
by tom • July 11, 2009 • 11 Comments
In my quest to continue providing gear deal scans that will never yield one thin dime of income (I know what you’re thinking: cosmic justice!), I added one for Mountain Hardwear this morning. I figured since they’re based up in…
Should you buy a footprint with your new backpacking tent?
by tom • July 10, 2009 • 6 Comments
Tarp, bivy and tent footprint Back when I bought my first backpacking tent at REI, I bought into the hype that by god if you put all this money into your backpacking tent, you need to protect that investment by…
REI Hoodoo 3: a backpacking tent for tall people
by tom • July 9, 2009 • 2 Comments
Anybody over 6-foot-2 has a heck of a time squeezing into most backpacking tents. This “three-person” tent from REI could be an option, assuming you’re taking a friend along. While cruising for bargains at REI I noticed they’d sliced 20%…
Woo-hoo, We’re No. 2!
by tom • July 8, 2009 • 7 Comments
Tripbase.com is drumming up free publicity from link-hungry bloggers spreading the word about its series of awards for notable travel-related blogs. Two-Heel Drive ranks No. 2 in the walking-backpacking category, bested only by a guy attempting 36,000 miles, 4 continents,…
Search on for missing Yosemite backpacker
by tom • July 8, 2009 • 3 Comments
Yosemite Blog posted an announcement yesterday that Joshua Gunther, 34, was supposed to be out of the park Sunday after a weeklong backpacking trip from the Ostrander Lakes trail head. The announcement says only that he acquired a permit to…