Jump to content


TrailGroove Blog

A Blog by the TrailGroove Team

  • entries
    500
  • comments
    633
  • views
    310,885

Contributors to this blog

  • Aaron Zagrodnick 226
  • Mark Wetherington 76
  • Susan Dragoo 23
  • PaulMags 22
  • Steve Ancik 16
  • tmountainnut 11
  • Eric 10
  • David Cobb 10
  • HappyHour 8
  • DustyD 7
  • HikerBox 6
  • jansenjournals 6
  • michaelswanbeck 5
  • George Graybill 5
  • Daniel Anderson Jr 5
  • SparbaniePhoto 5
  • AndreaL 5
  • Wired 4
  • Karen Garmire 4
  • mgraw 4
  • Steven Genise 3
  • JimR 3
  • JimG 3
  • Cinny Green 3
  • eliburakian 3
  • Adrienne Marshall 2
  • sarahtied 2
  • Jen 2
  • Doug Emory 2
  • Kevin DeVries 2
  • MattS 2
  • BSuess 1
  • Peter 1
  • Tephanie H. 1
  • DKim and PatriciaV 1
  • Jessica Smith 1
  • Tucker Ballister 1
  • seano 1
  • Madeline Salocks 1
  • J. Parascandola 1
  • Greg Jansky 1
  • Allison Johnson 1
  • Isak Kvam 1
  • Barbara 1
  • Adel 1
  • SarahLynne 1
  • Rob Newton 1
  • Grace Bowie 1

Gear | Trips | Food | Technique | Reading

Entries in this blog

Trips

Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: A Day in the Life

The first light of morning begins to stream over the mountains, through the tree’s canopy, and into your tent. These mornings were welcome, as seeing the sun’s morning glory while still bundled up warmly inside your tent was actually a rarity on the JMT. More often than not, however, you’re confronted with the unenviable task of rising to the dark, cold blanket that lies heavily on your campsite before the sun’s rays have the chance to lift it off. Chilly mornings thicken the blood and slow
Tucker Ballister

Tucker Ballister in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking The Subway in Zion: Trip Report & Bottom-Up Guide

Imagine standing in a circular tube of smooth stone around 30 feet high with emerald green pools of water at your feet and golden, glowing light shining through the entrance of this natural wonder. This would be the destination of the Subway hike in Zion National Park. Especially during the fall color season of early November, the Subway hike should be on your short list. You’ll need to be prepared for a rugged, backcountry day hike that requires some route finding but the rewards are quite high
DustyD

DustyD in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking the Trails of the Pioneer Mountains: Take Two

When a trip has great scenery, plenty of lakes with nice-sized trout, and hardly any crowds it seems to be worth repeating – even if that means leaving some other destinations on my “places to hike list” for another year. Fall weather had arrived – and with snow already falling in the high country (but fortunately not sticking in most places, at least not yet), I found myself getting rather anxious about which trips to wrap up the backpacking season with. Internal discussions about prioritizing
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Trips

0
Technique

Anatomy of a Mountain: Backpacking and Hiking Jargon

Mountains rarely conform to the version a child might draw of a simple inverted cone. Instead, they often sprawl in many directions and are rumpled with lumps and divots, like an unmade bed. The very highest of the lumps is the summit, which may be part of the humped or domed mass of mountain, or it may rest at the tip of a sharp point, in which case it's also a peak. A single mountain may have multiple peaks, but only one summit. From summits to spurs and buttresses, a mountain is ma
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

0
Technique

Becoming a Trail Naturalist: Hiking & Observing Nature

When I first started hiking, I knew the names of only a few wild denizens of the forest: ponderosa pine, gray jay, Colorado columbine. Over the years, as I learned to identify more trees, birds, and wildflowers, I also began to see more. As I hiked down a trail, greeting familiar plants like old friends, I realized they grew among a leafy ground cover whose name I did not know. I became more attuned to small movements that drew my attention to an insect, bird, or mammal. I noticed the
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

0
Trips

A Hiking Guide to Historic Fire Lookouts in the Cascades

Washington's Cascades have an unfriendly reputation. Unlike the Rockies and Sierra, whose alpine basins and gentle saddles allow for easy travel, the Cascades are a maze of serrated ridges and deep, heavily-forested valleys containing swift-flowing rivers. While miners built high roads in Colorado in the 1800s that now service trailheads, most Cascades trailheads are in valley bottoms barely above sea level, deep in the dense coastal forest. The crux of a climb is often escaping 4,000 feet of ve
seano

seano in Trips

0
Trips

Backpacking the Highline Trail: A Utah High Country Hike

5am – July 4th 2013 – “What am I doing?” pops into my head before getting a few hours of sleep. The previous night entailed 8 hours of driving to shuttle my car to the end of Forest Road 43 in the middle of nowhere. After leaving it in darkness on the far eastern slope of the Uinta Mountain Range, we switched cars and drove another five hours to reach our destination. My GPS showed that I was over 55 miles away from where we had left the car, but I knew the trek to get there would be closer to 8
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Trips

0
Gear

Hiking and Backpacking Jargon: Headlamp Lumens (Light)

Lumens are a unit of measurement used to determine the total amount of visible light emitted from a source. In the backpacking and hiking world, you can use the lumen value to compare the amount of lighting you’ll get from various nighttime illumination sources such as a headlamp. Lumen Considerations / How Many Lumens Higher lumen values typically come at the cost of shorter runtimes and decreased battery life. Brighter lights are also generally heavier and more expensive. For general
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Gear

0
Trips

Hiking the Amazing Oregon Coast Trail: A Report & Guide

Years ago, Governor Tom McCall of Oregon had a strange idea: he wanted to make all the beaches of Oregon open to the public, as he felt that the beaches belong to the people of Oregon. Now 382 miles of state trail exists from California to Washington along the beaches of Oregon, over headlands, through state parks and Federal land, and as rights-of-way over private land – some of the most beautiful country the state has to offer. Most of the trail is along the beach or along maintaine
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Trips

0
Trips

Backpacking the Enchantments: Alpine Lakes Wilderness

With names like Gnome Tarn, Dragontail Peaks, and Aasgard Pass, you’d think I’d stumbled into a land of Norse Sagas. But instead I walked through a land of water and granite surrounded by the fall color of subalpine larch. The Enchantments are a small section of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in northern Washington’s Cascade Range. This is a land of high valleys and beautiful aqua-marine lakes, all lying under the ever-present view of Prusik Peak. While an Enchantments hike can offer rew
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

Introduction to Hiking the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness

The Anaconda Pintler Wilderness is an overlooked gem in the state of Montana. It doesn’t have the notoriety of a Glacier National Park, or the iconic awe of “The Bob” (as in the Bob Marshall Wilderness), but it has the solitude and grandeur of some of the best wilderness the west has to offer. Lying in the vicinity of Butte, Montana, but closer to the copper-smelting town of Anaconda, this wilderness is part of the spine of the Rocky Mountains and also encompasses a 45-mile stretch of the Contin
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking in Solitude: The Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming

The snow began to fly even before I put on my hiking shoes, but wasn’t this still August? It was, but any mountain range worth its salt was going to have snowfall in August, and this seemed to be the norm for me backpacking in Wyoming. Besides, I’d rather have snow than rain any day, and these colder temps meant only one thing: the death to millions of mosquitoes! Rugged terrain and a scenic waterfall in the Bighorn Mountains. A Backpacking Loop in the Cloud Peak Wilderness
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking the Goat Rocks Wilderness of Washington State

The Goat Rocks wilderness is located in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest of Washington, between the Mount Adams wilderness and Mount Rainier National Park. The remnant of an old volcano which stood at over 12,000 feet is now an area of alpine scenery with many peaks over 8,000 feet. The wilderness contains 105,000 acres and I’ve hiked through this area a few times before, but recently I made a trip into the backcountry to camp and walk a bit of a wilderness trail loop. The protecti
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

A Hike of Water & Sand: Backpacking Coyote Gulch, Utah

Water and sand, water and sand, water and sand – it’s been a few years since I visited the canyon country of Utah and I forgot about the mix of water and sand here that can permeate one’s hiking shoes. I should have worn sandals. I read about walking the wet canyon bottom, but I stuck with my hiking shoes anyway. This time I arrived to explore Coyote Gulch, a photogenic but crowded canyon which cuts across Grand Staircase National Monument and the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area of south-ce
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Technique

Trail Tip: Hiking in a Wintry Mix / Rain & Snow

The words “wintry mix” are horrible enough to hear if you’re just commuting to your job, but they’re even more terrible if they’re in the forecast for a backpacking trip. When a wintry mix is predicted, it often means that a backpacker will have to deal with multiple forms of precipitation – rain, sleet, snow, and perhaps even freezing rain – as the temperatures fluctuate from night to day or due to elevation during a trip. What might start off as a miserable cold rain can shift to sleet before
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

0
Trips

Sawtooths & Spires: Backpacking the Sawtooth Mountains

The people of Idaho know what a gem they have in the Sawtooth Range, but few people elsewhere in the world have a clue it exists. Recently my travels took me to Stanley, Idaho which lays claim to being the gateway to the Sawtooths, and from here it’s an easy drive to numerous trailheads in the Sawtooth Range. I have photographed this mountain range many times around its periphery, but this time I wanted to backpack through the heart of these mountains. With the help of a shuttle, who would shutt
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

To the Chinese Wall: Bob Marshall Wilderness Backpacking

There’s a geologically interesting Chinese Wall that’s not in China. It is part of the million-plus acre Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana and consists of a 15-mile, 1000-foot cliff of limestone that runs north to south along the Continental Divide. The last time I hiked along the base of the wall was in mid-June during my hike of the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. That time I post-holed through 4-12 feet of snow, so I wanted to return in nicer climes and for the opportunity of bette
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking through Rubies: Backpacking the Ruby Mountains

Recently I set out to explore the Seven Devils Wilderness in Idaho and walk a 27-mile loop through those mountains, but a large fire in Hell’s Canyon diverted that plan at the last minute. The Ruby Mountain Wilderness of Nevada had long been on my “to do” list, and this seemed like a good time to change plans and head south. The Rubies were misnamed in the 1800s during the gold rush, when a group of army explorers thought they’d found a range filled with rubies; instead they discovered only
David Cobb

David Cobb in Trips

0
Trips

Hiking and Backpacking During Wildflower Season

Nature has a rhythm. The snows covers the landscape in winter. There is beauty to be found, but the beauty is a cold, ethereal one. A landscape with a palette of a few colors. Green trees, white snow, brown grass, gray rocks, and blue skies. But then the snow starts to melt. The mountain streams grow from a bare trickle to a steady flow and then become a raging torrent. The birds are making their morning calls more frequently. Old man of the mountain wildflowers gracing the high count
PaulMags

PaulMags in Trips

0
Trips

Thru-Hiking the Hayduke Trail of Utah & Arizona

Something is evoked in people when they envision hiking in the Southwestern United States. The unique and remote terrain triggers that wanderlust for exploration in remote and untouched places that few travel. There is that excitement and fear of the terrain and elements mixed with the calm and clarity of the scenery. In the late 90s, two men who had a great affinity for the Southwest, Mike Coronella and Joe Mitchell, wanted to do something that would encourage more to venture to those hard to r
Wired

Wired in Trips

0
Technique

Winter Hiking Clothing & Backpacking Gear Considerations

Whether you’ve decided to take your first winter trip, or you’re just trying to extend your summer camping in the shoulder months, staying warm during the winter months requires some additional thought when compared to 3-season conditions. Winter and shoulder season adventures are great because areas that are normally very busy in the summer will be empty, and you can experience a new season of adventure. The following is the way I keep warm on my winter adventures in the mountain west, as well
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Technique

0
Trips

Going Long: Skiing Around Oregon's Crater Lake

One-by-one we traversed the narrow cut in the cliff, careful to lean to the right in case we slipped – the steep drop-off on our left plunged over a hundred feet to the valley floor. The sun had already set behind the western Cascades, painting the sky a burning red but leaving our trail in rapidly increasing darkness. That we were struggling to remain upright on our cross-country skis on even the slightest descent made each step even more nerve-racking. By the time we traversed the top of the c
mgraw

mgraw in Trips

0
Trips

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Shoulder Season

In backpacking circles, shoulder season refers to the time of season between the full peak (summer) and off season (winter) hiking periods. Shoulder season timing varies by region. In the fall, warm care-free summer days are gone and likely replaced by crisp, but often pleasant shorter days with nighttime temperatures calling for that warmer sleeping bag you may have stashed away for the summer. Sudden cold snaps aren’t uncommon, and in many parts of the country, you can encounter significant sn
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Trips

0
Trips

Short and Sublime: Day Hiking the John Muir Wilderness

If you’re traveling on California Highway 395 along the striking escarpment on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada south of Yosemite and looking for a high-elevation hike deep in the heart of the mountains, but you only have a day or less, various roads off the main highway take you up to trailheads between 8,000 and 10,000 feet quite easily and quickly where you’re immediately immersed in stunning alpine scenery. For example, out of the town of Bishop, you can take Highway 168 stra
Madeline Salocks

Madeline Salocks in Trips

0
Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Compass Declination

Declination refers to magnetic declination – the difference between true north and magnetic north. This poses a conundrum when navigating and utilizing maps, as maps are oriented to true north, but your compass needle points to magnetic north. This difference between true north and magnetic north will be listed on any decent map and can be looked up online. Magnetic declination will vary by location, and many compasses allow you to adjust for the exact declination of an area to make n
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

0



×
×
  • Create New...