Are you interested in taking a trip?  Whether you want to your trip to be alone, with your friends, with your family, or even just with your romantic partner, you will need to find a place to visit, as well as activities to participate in.  If you have yet to decide what you would like to do for your next trip, have you ever though about going camping and hiking?  When alone, camping and hiking are both fun filled activities, but when combined, they are, literally, the perfect combination.

Although it is nice to know that hiking and camping are the perfect combination, you may be wondering exactly why that is.  If you are, you will find that there are an unlimited number of reasons as to why hiking and camping are the perfect fit for each other and the perfect way to spend your next vacation.  For reasons as to why you should give camping and hiking a try, you will want to continue reading on.

As previously stated, camping and hiking are things that just seem to fit together.  This is apparent in a number of different ways. For instance, hiking trails are commonly found in areas or establishments that are referred to as hiking parks.  Hiking parks, especially large popular ones, often have their own onsite campgrounds.  You will also find that most public campground parks have at least one or two hiking trials on them.  The fact that hiking and camping experts automatically pair hiking and camping together is a sign that camping and hiking really are the perfect combination.

Another reason why camping and hiking may be perfect for your next trip or vacation is because they are both designed for individuals of all ages.  This is important, especially if you are looking for something to do with your family. Children of all ages, as well as adults, enjoy both camping and hiking. In fact, in the United States, you will find that hiking trials come in a number of different difficulty levels.  For instance, it is more than possible to find hiking trails that are designed for beginners.  These types of hiking trials would be ideal, in most cases, for young children or elderly individuals.

The cost of hiking and camping are another one of the many reasons why they make the perfect combination, as well as why they may be perfect for your next trip, vacation, or adventure.  Hiking and camping are both affordable activities for you to participate in.  In fact, if you decide to make a reservation at a public campground park, you will likely find that you are able to go hiking on an onsite trail free of charge. The same may even be said for if you visited a hiking park and decided to stay overnight.  While many activities may end up being free for you, you will see that it all depends on the establishment in question.

If you are interested in combining hiking and camping to make the perfect adventure for you, your family, your friends, or you and your romantic partner, you may want to think about making your arrangements in advance.  Hiking and camping are both popular activities in the United States. While you may not necessarily need to make reservations to go hiking, you may need to make them if you plan on camping overnight at a hiking park or in a public campground.  In fact, the earlier that you make your reservations, the more choices you may have, as many establishments allow you to handpick your own camping spots.

As you can see, there are a number of different reasons as to why hiking and camping make the perfect combination, as well as why they would be great for your next vacation, trip, or adventure. Hiking and camping is something that you may at least want to think about discussing with your traveling party.  Once it is mentioned, you may be surprised with just how many people would like to give this perfect combination a try.

Tomorrow morning I’ll set off for South Dakota for Primal Quest Badlands, which means that updates to this site will likely be sporadic at best over the next 10-12 days. But, that doesn’t mean that I’ll be resting on my laurels. I’ll be resuming my duties as the Media Director for “the World’s Most Challenging Human Endurance Competition”, which means plenty of updates to the PQ website, taking some photos and video, interfacing with media, and doing what ever I can to spread the word about the event.

The race is scheduled to get underway sometime Friday morning at an as of yet undisclosed location. Tomorrow, at 12 PM local time, the exact time and place will be announced to the public, but I can tell you that teams should expect an early morning start to their adventure. Over the next few days I’ll be meeting with volunteers and staff to get ramped up on a plan for covering the race as best as we can, and considering the 600 mile course, that won’t be easy, as well as touching base with some of the teams, doing some interviews and covering their gear and skills checks on Thursday.

There will be multiple ways to follow the action. On Friday, the leaderboard and live tracking will become active, thanks to the SPOT Messengers that each team will carry, and fans will be able to watch the teams move about the Badlands, tacking their moves and watching their navigational decisions. The PQ website will be updated as often as I can with stories about the teams, our sponsors, and notes from the field on what is happening as well. We’ll also be using the Primal Quest Twitter feed to deliver updates too, so be sure to follow along there if you’re a Twitter user.

It’s going to be a crazy, chaotic, and fun event, as always. Ten days of non-stop racing across 600 miles of backcountry, on foot, bike, and kayak, with a bit of spelunking, swimming, and climbing thrown in for good measure. What more could you ask for? Oh yeah! A liberal dose of navigational challenges too. And with Team Nike out of the race, it’s anyone’s ball game!

While one group of tough athletes will be beginning their race on Friday in the Badlands, an entirely different kind of race will be taking place on Saturday in Leadville, Colorado, home of the Leadville Trail 100, one of the toughest mountain bike races around.

The race is 50 miles, out and back, with a seven mile climb to the turn around point, which just so happens to fall at 12,600 feet. 90% of the trail is on dirt, and the race actually begins at 10,200 feet, so altitude obviously plays an issue. In contrast, the highest point in the 2009 Tour de France was a mere 8113 feet. All told, the riders face more than 14,000 feet of elevation gain across the entire length of the ride, which has a 12 hour cut-off.

You may recall that the Leadville got quite a bit of attention last year because Lance Armstrong decided to race in it. He ended up taking second place, getting dropped by six time champ Dave Wiens in the final miles. Shortly there after, Lance announced his return to competitive cycling, and we all know what has happened since then. He’s gone on to ride in a number of big events across the globe, and took third in the Tour de France just last month. I think it is safe to say, that Lance will be in much better condition for his showdown with Dave this year, and you know that it has been a thorn in his side since he lost to Wiens last year.

In preparation for this epic rematch, the Leadville crew has set up a live video feed that you can pay $5.95 to watch. The race gets underway at 5:45 AM Mountain Time on Saturday, so get up early and spend your morning in front of the computer, watching Lance and Dave go at each other once again. I’ll be focused on that other race that day, but I won’t be able to help myself from checking in from time to time. Should be fun!

Last week I posted about PlanetFear’s guide to the essential gear of adventure racing, and this week, the same website is back with another adventure racing themed article. This time, they take a look at the role of the support crew for an adventure racing team.

For those that don’t know, in some longer adventure races, teams are required to bring their own support crew, which is usually a bunch of their friends who have volunteered (or have been drafted!) to meet the team at designated transition areas with all of the equipment the team will need. For example, the team may roll into the Checkpoint/Transition Area and will be going from a trekking leg to a mountain biking segment. The support team will have their bikes ready, cycling shoes prepared, and gear boxes open to restock anything the racers might need. They may also have some food waiting as well, so that the team can recharge and restore some calories before heading back out onto the course.

The PlanetFear article does an excellent job of breaking down the skills that are required to be a good support crew, and have some great tips for anyone filling that role. They discuss approaches to staying organized, setting up the TA, and even some thoughts on prepping the food as well. All in all, it’s a really interesting article for adventure racing fans who have probably never thought about this aspect of the sport before.

This year’s Primal Quest Badlands is an unsupported event, meaning that the race organizers are in charge of the logistics of moving gear around, but last year, while in Montana, I had the opportunity to see the support crew role played out to perfection. The teams love and appreciate their crew, and it showed when they would wander into a CP/TA, beyond tired and ready for some relief. The support crew would take over, spoil them with attention and goodies, and raise their spirits before they hit the trail once again. It was fun to watch them interact, and it will be very different to not see that this year.

In these hot summer months, we have to find any way that we can to cool off. The fine folks over at Wend decided to break out that old Slip-n-Slide they had hiding in the office closet and have a little fun. You can see the results below. And for anyone keeping score at home, we’re now on our 52nd day of triple digit temperatures her in Austin, TX. I need to go look for my Slip-n-Slide too!

ExWeb has some good updates today from the Karakorum, where things are mostly winding down, as teams depart and begin preparations for the fall season in the Himalaya.

The biggest piece of news is that climbers are still getting organized on Latok I in an attempt to go up the mountain and look for Oscar Perez, who has been stranded above 6500m for six days now, and there hasn’t been any contact with him at all since the weekend. At this point, his home team has no idea what his condition is, and everyone is just hoping for the best. ExWeb says that five other Spanish climbers have left their home country and are headed for Pakistan to try to help out, but considering the remote nature of the mountain, time in transit, and so on, they won’t be in a real position to assist for some time yet.

Fabrizio Zangrilli is already on the scene however, and a fly over of the campsite resulted in no visual confirmation of Oscar’s condition. Fabrizio will attempt to climb up to Oscar’s position tomorrow, and assess the situation and possibly aid in bringing him down. Once again, lets all keep our fingers crossed for a happy ending here.

Meanwhile, in other news, the Arash Mountaineers team that has been working a new route on Broad Peak reportedly has abandoned the route after running out of supplies and time. They had established the route up to Camp 3, but now say that they’ll have to return to give it another go in the future. They do, however, plan to make a summit bid along the normal route before coming home.

And finally, fresh off of her 13th 8000m peak, Korean climber Eun-Sun Oh is expected to return home tomorrow, where she’ll take a much deserved break before returning to the Himalaya in September. At that time, she’ll set her sights on Annapurna, her final obstacle before becoming the first woman to complete all of the 8000m mountains. She is firmly in the driver seat now to claim that honor, as this story from National Geographic Adventure points out, but Annapurna won’t yield up its summit easily. In fact, many consider it to be the second toughest 8000m peak to climb, behind only K2. But the other contenders, Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, Edurne Pasabán, and Nives Meroi have all hit snags in their bids to be the first woman to join the elite list of men to have topped out on the 8-thousanders. Miss Oh has come out of no where to knock off four of those mountains his year, and seems poised to claim her fifth in a few months.

Update: Mountaineer and author Clyde Soles has posted more info on the Oscar Perez story. Seems that the Spanish climber is actually on Latok II not I and that he is suffering from a broken arm and leg, which is why he is stranded at high camp. A radio malfunction or dead batteries might account for the lack of contact as well, so there is reason to believe that he is hanging on and waiting for a rescue. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow.

The New York Times has an interesting article up how the removal of dams from rivers across the country is proving to be a major boon for kayakers looking for new runs with plenty of rapids. The removal of the concrete structures has also benefitted the flora and fauna in the surrounding areas as well.

The story says that during the 1950’s and 60’s a new dam was built roughly ever six minutes, as the U.S. looked to hydro-electricity to meet it’s growing demands for power. Now, a half-century later, there are more than 75,000 aging dams out there. Some of them are being repaired and used, while others are being torn down completely, and in the process, it is altering the water flow along those rivers, and providing some great new whitewater for paddlers.

Approximately 430 dams have been destroyed since 1999 and the end of the article lists some of the places where dam removal had created new kayaking opportunities. For example, the Embrey Dam along the Rappahannock River in Virginia was removed in 2004 and it created a half-mile long paddling corridor with constant rapids, while along the Tuckasegee River in North Carolina, the Dillsboro Dam has been slotted for removal, and when it goes soon, it’ll create Class II rapids, and plans are already in the works for whitewater park.

The side benefit of these dams being removed is that the ecology around the area is improving too. There are reports of more fish in the streams and the land surrounding the dam sites has begun to reclaim areas along the river, with trees and grasslands sprouting up once again.

I saw this video over at the Best Hike Blog, and it stars Les Stroud of Survivorman fame and the famous gecko from the Geico Commercials. The show may be gone, but Les is still trying to show us how to survive in the outdoors. Pretty funny stuff.

An urgent appeal went out to climbers over the weekend with ExWeb helping to lead the charge. It seems that Spanish climber Oscar Perez has become stranded above 6500m on Latok I, and as of this writing, there is no update on his status. His team was requesting that any high altitude climbers who could aid in a rescue contact them so that they could organize a team on the mountain. Oscar’s climbing partner, Alvaro Novellon, is already in BC suffering from frostbite.

Oscar and Alvaro were attempting to scale the unclimbed north face on Latok I in alpine style, and estimated that it would take them 7-8 days to complete. It is unclear at this point as to what exactly happened while they were climbing the 7145 meter peak, which is located in northern Pakistan. Latok I is the first of four summits in a cluster on the Panmah Muztagh region of the Karakorum.

When ExWeb posted their story a few days back, Oscar’s team hadn’t had contact with him in three days. Everyone is still holding out hope that he is alive and well, but perhaps his radio is not functioning properly or has dead batteries. Hopefully we’ll have an update on the situation soon, but the following contact information is offered in case anyone in the region can lend a hand:

team@explorersweb.com or

Essar Karim:
ADVENTURE TOURS PAKISTAN
P.O.Box # 465,
G-9 Post Office
Islamabad
Pakistan
Phone # +92-51- 2260820, 2252759
Fax # +92-51-2264251
Email: info@atp.com.pk, atp.global@gmail.comwww.atp.com.pk

Lets keep our fingers crossed on this one folks!

Last Sunday, a cargo ship traveling from Cairo to Dubai set out on a routine voyage that would take it through “Pirate Alley”. The ship is called the Maersk Idaho and along for the ride is Douglas Stevenson, head of the Seamen’s Church Institute’s (SCI) Center for Seafarers’ Rights, who has been twittering throughout the voyage, and keeping his eyes peeled for pirates of the coast of Somalia.

Stevenson is hoping to avoid the pirates of course, but he is trying to connect with sailors who routinely pass through those dangerous waters. in recent months, the Somali pirates have become increasingly bold in their attacks, and although there haven’t been any high profile incidences like the ones that took place back in April, in which U.S. Navy SEALS shot and killed pirates holding an American hostage.

You can follow Stevenson’s Twitter feed by clicking here. So far, there is nothing as exciting as “Taking fire from pirates”, but it is still interesting to follow the progression of the journey. The ship is scheduled to reach it’s destination on this Sunday, and as of this writing, the boat is moored in Djbouti. It’s highly likely the rest of the journey will go with out incident, but it should still be an interesting thing to watch unfold.

You can read more about the journey here.