A Record Hike _ and a Visit to Hatcher Pass in Alaska

I usually don't race up the mountain when I hike. Sure, I can be competitive _ try to play me in a board game _ but I like to savor the walking experience. I admire the views, take photographs and try not to get so tired that I'm not enjoying myself anymore. Of course, it all depends on the group I'm leading. If they want fast, then it's fast. 

That said, I truly admire the speed hikers who set records. Today on the hiking blog we present a story about Josh Garrett, a 30-year-old cross-country coach at Santa Monica College. Josh hiked the Pacific Coast Trail _ from Mexico to Canada, 2,660 miles _ in just 59 days, 8 hours and 14 minutes, battling heat exhaustion along the way.

Read Josh's compelling story here, as told by Tom Stienstra of the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/outdoors/article/Josh-Garrett-finishes-PCT-in-record-time-4741079.php#page-1

Also today we have a first-person account of the Hatcher Pass hike in Alaska, written by Shawn Lyons. 
http://www.adn.com/2013/08/20/3033494/minding-the-weather.html

After you dream of Alaska, I'll remind you that next year we're going back to Switzerland, and also to Vermont, Nevada and Virginia. Learn more here: http://myhikingvacations.com/  

See you on the trails.

Joseph

Young Girls Save Mom on a Hike; Good Hiking News for Cincinnati

There's hiking news somewhere in the world every day, some of it quite fascinating, so we're going to start using the blog to tell some of those stories.

Today, for example, there's a happy-endings tale from Oregon about two young daughters who saved their mother's life during a hike. The mom is asthmatic but decided not to bring her inhaler, figuring she wouldn't need it. When she had an attack, the girls ran some 2 miles to find a ranger.

Lesson learned, naturally. Never go on a hike without the essentials you need. If you think it's not going to rain and you leave your poncho behind, then those thunderclouds are sure to form in a hurry. If you have a medical condition, plan accordingly. Of course, it's fabulous that these two girls were so accustomed to the outdoors that they were able to save the day without panicking or getting lost themselves. This had a chance to turn into tragedy on many levels. Thankfully, it didn't.

Here's the link with the full story:
http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/young-daughters-save-mother-s-life-during-hike-in-oregon-182508187.html

Also, for those of you in the Cincinnati area, there's good news about the city's hiking and biking trails. You can read that here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2013/08/19/health-foundation-to-announce-new.html

Want to go hiking yourself? Visit our website (http://myhikingvacations.com/) and sign up!

See you on the trails.

Joseph

A "Candlelight Dinner" Atop Hawksbill Mountain

A superb day for a hike in the Blue Ridge

The invitation sounded cool right from the start. A hike that included a "candlelight dinner" at the summit _ complete with tablecloth. Who could turn that down?

So, on Saturday, we joined Mike Darzi and his wonderfully named hiking group _ Wandering Soles _ for a sojourn to the top of Hawksbill Mountain, near the Skyline Drive in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Near the summit

Part of the hike was on the Appalachian Trial, and we must have stopped at a half-dozen overlooks, taking endless photos. At one such stop we broke out the "appetizers," with each hiker contributing something from his/her native area. (Being from rural North Carolina, I brought black-eyed peas and hominy corn. Not as exciting nor as delicious as the Polish crepes.)

It was windy at the summit, so it was hard to keep the candle lit. And it was too cloudy to see a sunset. But we put down the tablecloth and enjoyed a great feast and plenty of good company.  We hiked down in the dark, using our headlamps to find the way, and we stopped at the Skyland resort for a well-deserved hot chocolate. (It was quite cool for August.)

Since I'm always telling you to visit my website (http://myhikingvacations.com), I should do a good turn in return and tell you to click onto Wandering Soles (http://www.meetup.com/WanderingSoles). Mike is very good at cooking up adventure, pardon the pun.  


You can see more photos on our Facebook page: 
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MyHikingVacations/147404999999

See you on the trails. 
Joseph

Lots of great views of the Shenandoah Valley.

Switzerland in July

Location is everything, so they say, but so is timing. Find a place that's cool in the summer, avoid the rainy seasons and beat the crowds.

Hiking trips are the same. Take Switzerland, for example. Obviously, it's a ski destination in the winter, but when is the best time of year to explore those wonderful Alpine mountain trails?

My answer: early-to-mid July. Spring is too early. too wet and too slippery. It takes half of the calendar year for the annual snows to melt on many of the nicer trails. By July, the temperatures have warmed and the trails are more manageable.

That's not to say it won't rain _ or snow _ during a July hike. I've seen both, but a spate of bad weather here or there is a small price to pay for the gorgeous views.

The trails start to get busier in late July because of the school holiday schedule in Europe. The good hiking season usually runs all the way through September, weather permitting, of course.

These photos are from our hiking trip to Switzerland last year, July 2012. We discovered new trails and some awesome new sites.

We'd love to share those with you. Just think, one year from now you could be hiking the Swiss Alps with us. We recently announced our hiking schedule for 2014, and it includes an 11-day trip to Switzerland from July 8-18. Visit this link (http://myhikingvacations.com/schedule/switzerland/) for the details and see what you think.

See you on the trails,
Joseph

Milk & Hiking: A Visit to a Vermont Organic Dairy Farm, plus a Taste of the AT in New Hampshire

First of all, this fair warning: If you visit a regular dairy farm and an organic dairy farm back-to-back, you might never want to drink regular milk again.

To be perfectly frank, the cows looked sickly and pathetic crowded in their barn at the regular dairy farm I visited in Vermont, while they were happy and roaming free on the grass _ with no pesticides or hormones in their bodies _ at the farm a few miles away run by my friends, the Millers, near Brattleboro.

Maybe I just happen to visit the regular farm at a bad time, but still ...

Anyway, I got a chance to visit the Millers again last week. It was a bit of a whirlwind trip as my son and I took the train to Vermont and New Hampshire, where we spent the night on the farm and spent a few days on the Appalachian Trail.

We only spent three days on the trail, staying near the Dartmouth area. Didn't venture near the White Mountains this time, but there are still great hikes and wonderful views to be had. We reached the top of Moose Mountain, where the summit is cleared in part because of a rescue helicopter landing following a plane crash many years ago, and also enjoyed the splendid view at Holt's Ledge. We spent the night at the Trapper John Shelter, named after the M*A*S*H character who graduated from Dartmouth.

There are more photos on our MyHikingVacations Facebook page.

And, of course, if these get your hiking juices flowing, visit our website MyHikingVacations and sign up for one of our 2014 hiking trips. Vermont in on the list, along with Switzerland, Vegas and the Shenandoah.

See you on the trails,
Joseph

A New Look _ and New Adventures for 2014 _ from My Hiking Vacations

Times change fast in the online world. A website that looked so fresh and exciting in 2008 can appear so dated just five years later.

Here at My Hiking Vacations, we like to think we can keep up. We've put the same energy we use for hiking into a redesign of our website, and today we are happy to announce its relaunch.

So take a gander at MyHikingVacations.com. You'll see more than just new colors and photos _ you'll also see our just-released list of hiking/walking trips for 2014.

Check out Vegas/Nevada in May.

And Vermont in June.

And Switzerland in July.

And the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in October.

Vegas? Vermont? Virginia? Yeah, we're stuck on Vs next year. Maybe the Switzerland trip should include a stop at Vers-chez-le-Blanc.

We'll also have more to blog about in the coming weeks. We just returned from a hiking trip in New Hampshire, and recently I hiked in Austria for the first time. (OK, it was only for a few hours, but it was snowy and beautiful.)

See you on the trails.

Joseph

The Appalachian Trail in Vermont

Sure, many hikers dream of tackling the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, but some of us just do a little at a time.

I completed the state of Vermont this summer _ 150 miles in 10 days from the Massachusetts border to Hanover, New Hampshire.

I've been remiss about posting on the trip in this blog, but better late than never. And, since pictures are worth thousands of words, the best way to do it is to lead you to my Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150257055603632.342337.592008631&type=1

Enjoy the photos. It was truly a great experience.

Happy Trails,
Joseph