A Traveller's Research

Category: Backpacking / Hiking / Tramping / Trekking / Camping (Page 1 of 5)

Building the Pamir Trail

Andrew Marshall, Explorersweb »

So far, the coalition has identified over half the route — roughly 850km. It’s hard to say how long the final trail will be.

Knowing that, in America, a problem with creating long-distance trails often springs from securing rights across privately-held land, I asked Baaker if he’d run into the issue.

“Actually, [the real problem] is the complexity of the terrain,” he said.

It seems a few spots in Tajikistan are so rugged that nobody has made trails there yet. That’s saying something for a country that’s been inhabited more or less constantly since the Bronze Age. Puzzling out how to get through certain passes, or around certain landslide-prone areas, is the primary problem Baaker and his team faces.

River crossings are another.

 

Eight multi-day hikes in Iceland 🇮🇸

  • Laugavegur Trek
  • Fimmvörðuháls Trail
  • Volcanic Trails Trek
  • Askja Trail
  • Kjölur Trek
  • Shadow of Vatnajökull Trek
  • Viknaslodir East Fjords Trek
  • Hornstrandir Trek

Claire Whitters, writing in 10 Adventures »

Beckoning the thrill-seekers and intrepid adventurers, Iceland offers some of the most beautiful trekking environments in the world. Unrivaled in its natural beauty, visitors can indulge in geysers, waterfalls, fjords, glaciers, lava fields, black sand deserts, rhyolite mountains, natural hot springs, and more.

This incredible destination floating in the North Atlantic Ocean boasts the perfect opportunity for outdoor pursuits, presenting three national parks, numerous nature reserves, and an uninhabited district. One of the greatest ways to explore the moonscape is by trekking—thus, we curated a list for you. Keep reading the discover the best long-haul hikes in Iceland and begin planning your next big adventure!

Read More »

How Kristine Tompkins and some 300 of her closest friends helped protect 15 Million acres in Chile and Argentina

Doug Tompkins; the Tompkinses on the coast of Chilean Patagonia

Outside »

The only way forward was to dive even further into her conservation work. With the help of a roughly 300-person staff at Tompkins Conservation, she exceeded her late husband’s dream of creating 12 national parks. The current count: 15, along with two marine parks and a total of 14.8 million protected acres in Chile and Argentina—an area roughly the size of West Virginia. Those numbers keep expanding, along with Kristine’s seemingly endless supply of energy to continue the work she started with her husband. “I carry Doug around in my pocket. If I get really stuck on something, I simply ask: ‘What would you do?’ I am just grateful that we have this marriage,” she said, still speaking of their union in the present tense. “It’s given me unbelievable strength.”

Pre-season backpacking kit and clothing maintenance tasks

Some things to do and make sure is working and up to date at the beginning of the backpacking season and periodically thereafter.

  • Pre-Soak Your Water Filter
    • If your water filter has dried out in storage over the winter, or it’s brand new, soak it in water overnight to saturate the fibers so that water can flow through it freely.
  • Update Navigation Apps and Maps
  • Inspect and replace water bottles, reservoirs, hoses, and bite valves
  • Inspect and replenish your fire-starting kit
  • Donate, give away, or sell backpacking gear you’re not using it

More tips at the Section Hiker »

Edward Hathway’s epic year of 72 hikes in New Zealand after the pandemic lockdown

Image from Hiking Scenery

Image from Hiking Scenery

Edward Hathway of Hiking Scenery writes »

In the year since the New Zealand Covid-19 lockdown ended in late April 2020 I completed 72 hikes (“tramps” in the NZ vernacular), and fifteen shorter walks. Of the 72 hikes 68 were new to me (I had done one before, and I repeated just three). I will explain how I came to do so many walks in a moment. But first, and in order to show off a bit, I will regale you with a few statistics:

» 68,500m (~225,000ft) of ascent and descent
» Almost 900km (~550mi) of walking
» On 64 of these hikes I climbed to a peak or other high point, ranging between 445m and 2333m high, and averaging 1000m of ascent and descent each time
» 58 of these high points were named peaks over 1000m of elevation, so I incidentally completed the 52 Peaks Challenge
» All of these tramps were on New Zealand’s South Island, and completed as day-walks; I did all but three of them with my wife Sophia (& she did an overnighter I didn’t do)

Read the whole story at Hiking Scenery »

Angela Maxwell, the woman who walked the world for six and one-half years

In May 2, 2014, Angela Maxwell started her walk around the world – alone – with the aim of seeking a deeper connection to the world. On December 16, 2020, six and one-half years and 20,000 miles later, she brought that connection back home.

Florian Sturm, BBC »

As she prepared, Maxwell found a whole world of women explorers to embolden her. She fell in love with the writing and slow travel style of Robyn Davidson, who traversed Australia with camels. She learned about long-distance walker Ffyona Campbell; and read up on Rosie Swale-Pope, who hitchhiked from Europe to Nepal, sailed around the world, crossed Chile on horseback and, at age 59, began jogging around the world.

Once she made the decision to go, Maxwell sold all her belongings and organised the necessary gear. She packed a cart with 50kg of camping equipment, dehydrated food, a military-grade water filter and four seasons of clothing. Maxwell left her hometown of Bend, Oregon, on 2 May 2014 and headed into an adventure so grand it was probably best she didn’t know exactly what was waiting for her along the track.

When I first connected with Maxwell over Skype in June 2018, she was already nearly four years into her journey, having walked more than 12,500 miles in 12 countries on three continents. Curious, I asked her what kind of person it takes to walk around the world. Her face gleaming, she quipped, “a stubborn one”. She then added, “It’s probably a combination of ambition, a little stubbornness and a pinch of passion – not for hiking as a sport, but for self-discovery and adventure.”

Watch Angela Maxwell’s inspirational 2018 Tedx talk at Tedx University of Edinburgh. She was still walking at the time of this talk.

Angela’s web site » She Walks The Earth

Behind the Scenes » “Her Way” — Overcoming Women Stereotypes In The Outdoors

Here is a bit of the story and behind the scenes of the making of Her Way. Her Way is released last month and can be viewed here .

From Solomon TV via YouTube »

Separated by a total of 47,483km plus 19 hours of time difference across 3 different continents during a global pandemic is how the production team of the #SalomonWMN short documentary “Her Way” despite all odds managed to bring this project to life.

Credits
Directed by Caroline Brouckaert and Kirsten Gerber
Executive producers Loïc Bailliard, Sofia Ahnebrink, and Greg Fell
Produced by Kirsten Gerber
Edited by Andrew King and Caroline Brouckaert.

Frances Mills » Why I’m running 5,000 miles around the coast of Britain solo

It has taken four winters so far, but wild beauty, nature and the kindness of strangers en route make this slow journey more than worthwhile.

Frances Mills, writing in The Guardian »

I hope to return to the trails soon: I have 2,000-odd miles still to go around Scotland, on the most isolated and challenging terrain. When the storms broke my tent by snapping its poles, as happened during Storm Fionn in January 2018, I was pretty annoyed. Not annoyed enough for it to get in the way of sleep, though. Sure that nothing too important had blown across the field, I stubbornly wrapped my crumpled tent around me and drifted off. It would take a week to get my tent repaired and in the meantime a few friends of friends reached out and offered me a tent to borrow, a couch to sleep on and a chance to stay in a community-owned bright blue converted bus that was parked in the chalk hills of the South Down national park. Before the day was out, I was sitting round a campfire chatting to new friends, something I would have missed had my tent been in one piece.

Video » “Her Way” — Overcoming Women Stereotypes In The Outdoors

From Solomon TV on YouTube »

“Her Way” illustrates how we all have the ability to be and achieve more if assumptions and stereotypes are ignored. the film tells the stories of three women who have chosen to ignore stereotypes as they chart unique life paths—a single mother and member of the first all-female firefighting team in South Africa; a Chinese-born structural engineer and trail runner in New Zealand; and a delivery nurse and mother of four with a love for America’s National Parks.

THE STARS OF “HER WAY” ARE:
Born in the small town of Beaufort West, South Africa, Vuyiseka Arendse began volunteering as a firefighter when she was 19. Now 26, the single mother and family breadwinner works for the NCC in Cape Town as a member of the Juliet Crew, the first-ever all-female firefighting team in the country, protecting local landmarks from wildfires in the Western Cape region.

Chinese-born Nancy Jiang moved with her family from Ma’an Shan to Auckland, New Zealand when she was five. She studied structural engineering and today is the only female engineer in her firm. Small in stature and needing to prove herself in the workplace, she found her release through a love of trail running in the mountains above Queenstown, despite having been told as a kid that “Chinese people do not run.”

A caregiver at heart, Melody Buck Forsyth is a mother of four and a delivery nurse. In 2015, she gave birth to her daughter, Ruby, who was born with Down Syndrome. Despite “sometimes getting looks on the trail” because she might not fit the hiker stereotype, the outdoors has served as an escape for Melody and her family, where they connect and decompress.

Credits
Directed by Caroline Brouckaert and Kirsten Gerber
Executive producers Loïc Bailliard, Sofia Ahnebrink, and Greg Fell
Produced by Kirsten Gerber
Edited by Andrew King and Caroline Brouckaert.

Three Capes Track Walk » Tasmania, Australia

The Three Capes Track features some of Tasmania’s best walks taking in breath taking sights of the highest sea cliffs in the Southern Hemisphere and the power of the Southern Ocean. It’s a multi-day walking adventure atop Australia’s highest sea cliffs in the Tasman National Park.

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