Category: Hiking and Backpacking
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Bear Canyon Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains
The Bear Canyon Trail (Old Mt. Baldly Trail) is one way to the top of Mt. Baldy (Mount San Antonio) in the San Gabriel Mountains. My childhood friend John Ingvar Odegaard (the heftier of the two guys depicted below) and I got nowhere near the peak, but we did saunter up to Bear Flat in…
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Another Strange Tale of the Superstitions
The Superstition Mountains exert a strange fascination. They attract misfits, oddballs, outcasts, outlaws, questers of various stripes, a philosopher or two, and a steady stream of 'Dutchman hunters,' those who believe in and search for the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine. This nonexistent object has lured many a man to his death. More men than Alexius von Meinong's golden…
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Weaver’s Needle From Picket Post Mountain
I didn't make it to the top of Picket Post Mountain this morning as planned. (Near Superior, AZ 25 miles east of where I live.) You could say I wimped out about half way up: it was windy and cold and overcast, with nerve-wracking drop-offs. Steep I like, precipitous I don't. I was alone, couldn't raise…
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On Exercise in Nature
There is the beauty, the silence, the peace, the nonsocial reality of nature, but there is also the shift away from the mind back to the sweating, toiling body on earth. Exercise in an artificial environment is not the same, nor is 'windshield tourism.' You should take your Nature straight, in a direct encounter, boots…
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Risks of Desert Hiking
In a society made litigious by an excess of lawyers, the need for various CYA maneuvers is correspondingly great. One such is the disclaimer. I particularly enjoy the disclaimers found in well-written hiking books. Rare is the hiking book that doesn't have one these days. The following is from local author,Ted Tenny, Goldfield Mountain Hikes,…
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How To Roast Oneself in Five Different Ways
The infernal hike of 28 August 2005 began at 5:20 AM at first light, that phase of dawn at which one can just make out the trail and its hazards. Sunrise was about forty minutes off. If one hopes to survive a desert hike in August, especially in environs as rugged and unforgiving as the…
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The Risks of Desert Hiking
In a society made litigious by an excess of lawyers, the need for various CYA maneuvers is correspondingly great. One such is the disclaimer. I particularly enjoy the disclaimers found in well-written hiking books. Rare is the hiking book that doesn't have one these days. The following is from Ted Tenny, Goldfield Mountain Hikes, p.…
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Be Positive!
The Cloudview Trailhead is the one nearest to my house. It is a bit hard to get to as one must negotiate a number of turns. One fellow didn't like people driving onto his property in search of it so he posted a sign: Not the Trailhead! Some time ago I notice he had replaced…
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Overheard in the High Sierra
"There are old mountaineers and there are bold mountaineeers. But there are no old bold mountaineers."
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Pack it In/Pack it Out
A while back I made a steep ascent to a lonely saddle above Carney Springs in the Superstition Wilderness. On the way up I passed a couple of hikers who were headed down. Topping out at the saddle, I saw that they had left their mark: orange peels lay upon a rock for all to…
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Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus
What do Till Eulenspiegel and Heraclitus have in common? I thought about them near the end of a recent hike. I am an uphill specialist. I love the upgrade, the pull, gravity's testing of legs and lungs, the depth of breath, the honest sweat. The downclimb is less to my liking. Fearing a fall, I am too…