Acronym of the week: PUDS is thru-hiker shorthand for “pointless ups and downs”, referring to the less interesting sections of mountains thru-hikers encounter from time to time; several PUDS in a row are MUDS, which is shorthand for “mindless ups…
Backpacking
Links and comments about backpacking, camping and long distance hiking at Two-Heel Drive
A good PCT read
by tmangan • April 21, 2006 • 0 Comments
Most trail journalers are far better hikers than writers, which means a fair amount of tedium trolling for bits of Trail Journal entries that seem postworthy. One correspondent whose prose stands out from the rest is Funnybone, who’s already been…
Doggin’ it
by tmangan • April 14, 2006 • 0 Comments
Here’s a nice story on taking your dog backpacking, from the Salt Lake Tribune. I don’t really have any opinion on the topic of dogs on the trail; dogs can’t be any harder on the wilderness than people are. While…
Learning to be light
by tmangan • April 9, 2006 • 0 Comments
No new pictures this week — I spent the whole weekend back in the classroom One of the ways adulthood totally rules over childhood is that you can pick only the kind of class you’re interested in. If I had…
Trail Journals post of the day
by tmangan • April 7, 2006 • 1 Comment
From Bugs, 338.70 miles up the Appalachian Trail: It is early afternoon, and I am still at Miss Janet’s house. I have decided, at the urging of all, to embrace the whimsy of the trail a bit. In other words,…
More Appalachian Trail dispatches
by tmangan • April 3, 2006 • 0 Comments
Trooper, at 75.4 miles in: I reached the Ga./N.C. border about 3pm, and decided to stay at Bly Gap. What a feeling it is to know that you can accomplish something like this in this day and age. Just over…
Why God gave you ears
by tmangan • March 31, 2006 • 7 Comments
Hint: It wasn’t so you could take to your iPod into the woods. A reader asks Outside’s Gear Guy: I like to backpack with my iPod when I am alone in the wilderness. After setting camp it would be ideal…
AT thru-hikers getting their feet wet
by tmangan • March 30, 2006 • 0 Comments
It’s that time of the year to start hiking the Appalachian Trail, and Trailjournals.com is starting to amass a fair number of posts from intrepid trekkers. A few samplings: Frosty, at 62.9 miles in: I blew up my pillow and…
The weight, cont…
by tmangan • March 29, 2006 • 0 Comments
Got my new mail scale yesterday and started weighing everything that wasn’t nailed down. Those boots in the upper left hand corner weigh 57.75 ounces. The Montrail mud-runners I’ve been hiking in most of this winter are 33 ounces. My…