A Hiking Blog for L.A. and Southern California
If you’re like me, once you get into a sleeping bag, you don’t ever want to get out of it. This can be a problem, like when you’re snuggled up in your tent, but you forgot your flask of winter warmer in your backpack outside. Now you don’t have to get out of your bag to be mobile.
The Chilean-designed Lippi Selk’bag are the outdoorsy equivalent of footie-pajamas, and allow full sleeping-bag level coverage with sleeves for your arms and legs.
The company has two models — a $149 bag
Two short hikes in some of the best Slot Canyons in Southern California. Lots of squeezing through walls, scrambling in and out of canyons, and generally feeling like you’re in an Indiana Jones movie. The Calcite Mine area is also home to a historic WWII-era mining area, with other man-made features to explore.
Continue reading ‘Anza-Borrego State Park: Calcite Mine and The Slot’
A short hike from the hot, dry desert flat into a narrow canyon and to a hidden waterfall oasis, full of mosses, vines, and trees. A surreal arid experience that is not to be missed if you’re in Anza-Borrego.
Continue reading ‘Anza-Borrego Desert State Park: Hellhole Canyon’
We’ve heard rumblings of this “glamping” trend, imported from Europe, for a few months now. Still, the L.A. Times’ recent feature article on “glamorous camping” or “glamping,” caught my eye again.
Why? Because it’s ridiculous.
The article spotlights a faux-ranch in Montana called Paws Up, which specializes in something they call “soft adventure.” How soft? Like your camp has a private maid, butler, and gourmet chef soft. Like you have a heated down comforter and your tent interior looks like a luxury hotel soft.
Photos Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times
The accompanying video is even more infuriating, as you’ll hear Paws Up representatives say traditional camping is “too much work” and “not much fun,” and describe their clientèle as people who “want to get back in touch with nature but certainly don’t want to have to go out hiking in the woods to do it.”
Yeah, you know what? Then they don’t really want to get in touch with nature. They want to look at it from a safe distance, and maybe have the ability to tell their yachting buddies about that one wild time when they roughed it.
Stay home, open a window, and watch “Planet Earth” on HD. We’ll all be better off.
Bryan over at WildrLog posted a little inspirational pamphlet he picked up about how hiking and backpacking will basically take care of whatever problems you’ve got — from being overweight to back pain to colds and flu and even insomnia:
Do you suffer from insomnia? Try getting up at dawn, pack your pack, strike camp, cook breakfast, then head out on the trail. Carry a 45 pound backpack up and down the mountains for 8-10 hours. Then set up camp again, walk a half mile to get water and spend 20 minutes filtering the water. Walk another half mile each time you need to go to the outhouse. Then try ambling around at night trying to find a place 100 yards from camp to hang the bear bag. When you finally lie down to rest, think about doing it all again the next day. You’ll get a good night’s sleep.
Check out the full list of benefits over here. While I have still had trouble falling asleep on the trail, I blame that on a cheap sleeping pad.
WildrLog looks like a great site to explore, while you’re there. Not only does Bryan have some Google Earth GPS support, but he’s also got great taste in tv and books. The Modern Hiker is a big fan of both David McCullough and Teddy Roosevelt biographies, for the record.
There’s some new military technology that has potential for a big impact on camping. And no, it’s not the TempurPedic mattress.
“Superflex Lighting” is basically a lighting kit that’s woven into fabric, and can be powered by standard AC sources. The military’s been using it to light tent interiors, and the lights can be folded and rolled up with the fabric without damaging it.
While it’s still probably a few years off, I’d love to have some of this stuff on the inside of my tent. I usually like to do a little reading or writing before I hit the sack. Battery lanterns can be awkward to pack and heavy to carry, and holding a flashlight in your mouth probably isn’t good for your teeth. I’m guessing this would be a lot more convenient, and probably wouldn’t add too much weight to tents, either.
Plus, with your tent all lit up, you can pretend you’re in an REI catalog.
Via GoBlog.
‘Ultralight’ is the big buzzword among hikers and campers, and for good reason. As soon as you get that backpack strapped to your body, you immediately start wishing you had lighter versions of everything you own.
So what do you do if you want to end your day at camp damaging a few brain cells with the wonderful liquid known as alcohol, but you don’t want to deal with the additional liquid weight?
The fine folks at Hiking Ideas have some interesting ideas involving Crystal Light, as well as a low-weight, high-gin recipe for a packable nip. And if, like me, you have a little trouble falling asleep in camp, this sounds like it would do the trick but good.
Click here for a Google Map of Los Angeles hiking trails.
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