Wayne Gregory, founder of Gregory Mountain Products, sheds light on getting all your straps in order on this video from the company’s blog: Notably, he recommends fitting the shoulder straps first, then snugging up the hipbelt. I’m interviewing Gregory this…
Hiking
Calipidder’s concise guide to bear canisters
by tom • May 3, 2009 • 0 Comments
If you’re heading up to bear country this summer, you’ll want to read this. Rebecca, being a tester for Backpackgeartest.org, has tried ’em all: Bear Vault, Bearikade, Ursack, etc. I own a Bear Vault Solo, which, as Rebecca notes, has…
Transit-accessible trails in the Bay Area
by tom • May 1, 2009 • 1 Comment
Bay Nature does it again: a guide to car-free hiking throughout the Bay Area. Options are limited because there’s no reason to send a bus up Highway 9 or 35 in the Santa Cruz Mountains, for instance, and lots of…
Ventana Wilderness, Las Padres NF open tomorrow
by tom • April 30, 2009 • 2 Comments
Jim Preston, trail lead with the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, wrote in the other day to say the Los Padres National Forest and Ventana Wilderness will open May 1 (except for the Pine Ridge Trail, which still has major fire damage).…
Hiking maps: does anybody buy them anymore?
by tom • April 30, 2009 • 5 Comments
The rise of do-it-yourself mapping services like everytrail.com has me wondering about the livelihood of people like Tom Harrison, who divides his time between walking all the great trails of California and creating basically the best maps of those trails…
Cool place to check out: Vasco Caves
by tom • April 16, 2009 • 2 Comments
Vasco Caves Regional Preserve is so cool you can only get in via a guided tour. From the East Bay Regional Parks District Page: Spectacular rock outcrops break suddenly from the rolling eastern foothills of Mount Diablo, providing magnificent scenery…
Scenes from Joshua Tree National Park
by tom • April 13, 2009 • 2 Comments
A buddy of mine who covers the entertainment biz in Los Angeles has taken up a new hobby: hiking and picture taking at Joshua Tree National Park. Here’s a Flickr photo gallery: You can see why people get hooked on…
Peak-bagger links
by tom • April 9, 2009 • 6 Comments
Peak-bagging is a distinct subset of hiking attuned specifically to reaching high peaks in a day and heading home. The hardiest hikers take on Colorado fourteeners and higher, but just about any peak will do, if it can be reached…
Cool cartography site: Mappery.com
by tom • April 2, 2009 • 0 Comments
Mappery.com has at least one map for every country on the planet, each of the 50 U.S. states and all the Canadian provinces. It also has a host of maps from previous eras. Here’s a slice from a 1948 Yosemite…