Hiking

Hey Everyone, I am planning a trip to Mt. Rainier this summer. I know some areas were closed a little while ago. To my knowledge, everything is back open, and I am looking for recommendations for campsites and trails to visit. If anybody has any info they can share!

Before anyone jumps on me about good boots being worth the investment I already have a quality pair of hiking boots (Danner Lights) but I'm going to be sending them out to be resoled soon, estimated turnaround time will be about 5-6 weeks, and I'm just looking for a temporary pair to hold me over for whatever hiking I do for the month or so I won't have my main boots. After which these temporary boots will probably go into the trunk of my car as part of my emergency kit to hopefully never be worn again.

Anyone got a favorite pair of cheap boots?

Small checklist I'd like to have:
Wide sizes
Waterproof
Lightweight (though I'm not expecting miracles on that front)
Preferably about a 6" height, I'm flexible on that, but generally I prefer a taller boot.

Howdy all. I have a 33% avg grade, highly overgrown slope (~450' length, ~160' elevation change) at the edge of my property that was originally used by a railroad company 130 years ago to slide trees down to where they were building railroad ties. It is now exclusively a deer path (the poo on my knees can attest to that) and I had to scramble at several points to get up.

If you were in my deer poo covered shoes (and assuming I had cleared all the brush and fallen trees), would you build trail stairs, e.g.

or a small set of switchbacks (space is tight as I have like 30' of width to play with), e.g.

orrrrr would you just clear it out well and deal with sprawling for a few steeper parts? (my least favorite option as I would like to hike this several times a week when it's done)

I'm concerned with long-term maintenance but am willing the put in the upfront work! TIA

https://www.recreation.gov/interagency-pass/types/resident

Hi everyone! I’m exploring  emergency call experiences and rescue communication in mountaineering. The survey is anonymous, takes about 3–5 minutes, and is open to anyone interested in mountain or outdoor activities.🩷

🙏 Survey link with google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScJ3MoMgNQZz07ODtqm25sPpV-e99HZzDx__4Oe7BF-70sUcw/viewform?usp=header

If you have any experiment If you have experience in mountain activities, it would be helpful. Especially if you have experience with emergency calls, please be sure to participate in the response.

Just absolutely insane what this guy was able to pull off.

The 37-year-old climbed 403,740 feet, covering 629 miles on foot and cycling 2,568 miles between the peaks. He spent 489 hours in motion in those 31 days, linking all the publicly accessible 14ers in the lower U.S. On each stage of his project, the once-in-a-generation mountaineering legend was joined by high-profile local athletes who pedaled, climbed and ran alongside him.

I'm in this hiking club and they were adamant about not hiking in jeans.

Now I know they're not the best pants but I said it should be fine to wear them on short hikes and it wouldn't kill you but there are better things to wear. They added in further they will kick individuals out for wearing jeans.

Now I personally have done many hikes, even longer hikes wearing jeans with no issues. I want to know your thoughts below on this topic. Am I in the wrong here?

tl;dw: among other issues, the network doesn't appear to store messages until they're confirmed to arrive, so it's very possible to miss incoming messages with no indication to either party

Moving to BC in October and would love to meet some hiking partners! Here’s a photo from CO because photos. Hit me up if you’re planning a hike and want some company

I'll be off to the Azores in a few weeks. I've been looking online, but I can't find any English maps with scales that are usable for hiking (≤1:50k). The best I've been able to find are these:

• 1:60k/70k in English

https://www.mapsworldwide.com/maps-charts-atlases-c1811/azores-tour-trail-super-durable-map-p41582

• 1:50k in German

https://mapscompany.com/products/cartes-de-randonnee-acores-n-2260-kompass

I was hiking in a wilderness area...a very remote trail without a lot of action, and at one point I heard voices...I swore I heard human voices.

It was up in the mountains, too, so there wasn't much to make noise like that.

Obviously, I know it's my brain hearing trees groaning in the wind and quickly shortcutting to, "must be a human voice!" But it was just eerie.

Numerous hikers have been caught in a rockfall north of Lake Louise with multiple people injured or killed, according to the RCMP.

At around 1:30 p.m., Lake Louise RCMP were notified that "multiple hikers" were caught in a rockfall on a trail in the Bow Lake/Bow Glacier Falls area.

RCMP Cpl. Gina Slaney said the latest information available is that the incident involves "serious injuries and/or multiple fatalities," but she didn't have exact details as there is no cell service in the area and getting information from the scene is difficult.

AllTrails has a new generative AI feature that can be asked to 'shorten my route' or 'make this more scenic.'

But the people in charge of searching for lost hikers say the feature is going to exacerbate an issue they’ve been warning about for years: hiking apps providing false information."

(Reader mode shows the full article)

I hike with my dog about 5 miles every day. I recently started to use poles, which have been great for clearing debris from the trail, and fighting off unwanted attention from unruly dogs on the trail.

I have a pair of lightweight aluminum twist to lock collapsible poles, but after 12 days of use the twist lock mechanism failed on one.

I am looking for something that is going to be more sturdy. I do not need ultra light weight, as the initial thought behind using them was for an upper body workout while hiking. AMA having a little more weight to them should I need to use them as a club would be welcome.

Mostly I care about them being sturdy, and having comfortable grips.

Platforms like Outdooractive, Komoot, Bergfex etc. charge for user content (and for viewing hiking trails in their map although they are free on OSM).

Is there any fediverse solution for Hiking, Biking etc.?

Only thing I found so far was https://docs.fittrackee.org/ but that's not exactly what I'm looking for and it is till under heavy development.

Is there a more free version of Alltrails? I find Alltrails to be too paywalled when I don't even think they deserve my money. What exactly do they even do? The community creates everything and it's not like they're contributing to the Maps community or anything.

Hey guys,

I need some advice. I'd like to hike for a month this summer. I'm just an average person.

Walking the Camino is easy, no risk, no planning, no experience needed. You just walk as much as you want each day.

In the alps I have to carefully plan each day because of my limited experience, hiking alone, weather, body limits and time restrictions.

Enjoying the alps is much more rewarding I guess but I don't think that I am physically able to hike one month in the alps. 1 or even 2 rest days per week and not too challenging routes.

Can someone recommend one over the other?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/53136416

I've done the vast majority of my hiking in north-central PA, and even after moving away I keep going back because of the incredible trail network. It's always possible to put together an worthwhile loop of any distance you want, from 2-200 miles (attached screenshot of my day hikes in the area as evidence).

I'd like to break my pattern and explore more areas, particularly Virginia. Any specific forest/area in VA (or the rest of the Mid Atlantic) with a comparably dense and extensive trail network?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52781561

Big tracks on a hike through Michaux (size 12 shoe for scale). Been running into way more bear tracks than usual this winter, but no bear sightings yet.

Hey all, I just created a new community for hiking and other outdoor activity in the Mid Atlantic region of the US (MidAtlanticHiking@lemm.ee). Maybe a bit ambitious given the size of the hiking community here at present. Cross-posting for visibility.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/52430135

In a quest for the steepest, toughest climb in the area, a friend convinced me to hike the Half Dome trail in Pine Creek gorge on a brutally cold December morning. I think we succeeded; Half Dome is a dead end climb of around 1300' in 0.5 miles.

We started from the end of Naval Run Rd, just south of the town of Slate Run. It was around 6°F when we started, enough to make my eyes water as soon as we got out of the car. The ~4" of snow was untracked almost all day. We headed south on the Pine Trail, which was decent if wet until Callahan Run. After this it because surprisingly sketchy, as it was often reduced to a narrow, sloping ribbon of icy trail, skirting a sheer rock wall to the right and a steep, long drop to the river on the left. I'd like to revisit this without snow, since it was a unique and beautiful section of trail. The climb up Half Dome started abruptly once we hit Pine Run, veering off sharply to the right as Pine Trail continued upstream. The climb is brutally steep and relentless. We're both reasonably fit, but climbing this 50% grade in 4" of untracked snow kick our asses. There were a few nice winter views along the way though, and a decent vista at the top. From here we took advantage of the winter and deer trails to bushwhack the ridge top over to Big Trail Rd and down Callahan Trail. Maybe we can blame the snow, but despite finding the sign and trailhead for Callahan Trail we essentially bushwhacked our way down the valley to the Black Forest Trail. We followed this back up to Hemlock Mountain for some nice vistas before dropping back down to Naval Run to end the day.