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For the 2021 season I plan to hire up to three additional backpacking guides. If you would like to join our team, read on. Position description The work will be short-term and seasonal, and should be considered a supplement to steadier full-time work, an additional contract in a larger freelance portfolio, or a fun and…
Amanda and I have long known that our fur baby Oden would not outlive us, and in 2020 we began to acknowledge that he probably had only months left, no longer years. The ultimate timing or cause was unclear, but his trajectory was visibly downwards — his weight was dropping, his arthritis was worsening, his…
I’m not an elite endurance athlete, a long-distance thru-hiker, or a climber. I respect those things tremendously, but that’s just not me. That probably puts me with most others who visit this website: I love backpacking and keep in reasonably good shape, and I enjoy chasing spectacular scenery and the challenge that it provides. Let’s just…
The Wind River High Route is measured at 97 miles, with 65 miles of off-trail travel and over 30,000 vertical feet of climbing. Like other high routes, the general idea is to maintain the highest line of travel through a given area without involving technical climbing. For an overview of the route, make sure to…
My fire season started in August, when our views were badly obscured on a seven-day trip in the San Juan Mountains by smoke from the Pine Gulch Fire, which briefly became the largest wildfire in Colorado state history. In September, I cancelled five trips in Yosemite because of toxic air quality due to the Creek…
In this series we have covered a wide range of topics meant to help aid and educate women in preparation for backcountry travel. It was brainstormed a year ago and designed to add to this website a woman’s perspective on some fundamental outdoor topics. Our final post was to be about “Giving Back” and would…
For five of the past eight years, we’ve guided trips in Yosemite or Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks in September. Wildfires have occasionally affected us — like with trail closures and hazy air — but we’ve typically found ideal conditions: comfortable days and crisp nights, no bugs, and low backcountry traffic. September 2020 has presented us…
As a hard-charging thru-hiker — when I would hike sunrise-to-sunset, take very few breaks, and cover 30 to 40 miles day after day — food was simply fuel. I carried items that were calorie dense, required minimal or no field preparation, and could be eaten on the go. So I ate a lot of bars…
Has the fear of managing your bodily functions kept you from hitting the trail for a weekend of fun in the outdoors? Does the thought of dealing with your period in the backcountry prevent you from backpacking for several days in a row? Don’t fret! You are not alone in having hesitations about managing feminine…
Backpacking tents and tarps are generally not designed for the big & tall and for those who love to sprawl. Many designs are cramped and claustrophobic for these users, which may hinder a night of quality sleep and lead to a soaking-wet sleeping bag from condensation-covered walls. If this sounds like your nighttime experience, this…