Backpacker Magazine says the Cactus to Clouds Trail is the 5th most difficult day hike in America.
Renowned long distance hiker Andrew Skurka lists Cactus to Clouds as one of his top ten favorite hikes.
Here are a couple of my trip reports that included the Cactus to Clouds Trail:
The public may soon lose access to this trail in a land deal between the BLM and the Agua Caliente Band of Indians.
Continue reading Please Help Save the Cactus to Clouds Trail (and other trails)
Black Friday is about the most ridiculous, time consuming, inconvenient, crowded, and worthless idea I have ever come across. Last year I expounded on insanity in this Black Friday post.
This year we were at Lake Mead and I wrote about my pre-Thanksgiving bike tour here.
Of course, I was required by the boss to be back from the tour for Thanksgiving dinner.
The day after, or Black Friday as it is called, saw me shopping for water;
During the past two months I spent many nights in a tent. This time of year the nights are 12+ hours long, and I only need 8 hours of sleep. The first night of my Lake Mead bike tour I was thinking back to a long hike I had done 14 years earlier and decided to go ahead and document it during my biking and backpacking evenings this past November and December.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
This is the opening sentence in A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
The year 2000 was about the same for me.
Continue reading Backpacking 500 miles in the Mojave Desert (part 1)
We spent 9 days camping at Lake Mead during our Thanksgiving break. During that time I did a 3-day bike tour, a shakedown cruise. I wanted to get familiar with the bike, the touring gear, and the process of integrating day-to-day living from the saddle.
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
Sometimes my blog goes silent for long periods of time. That means I am out living. Perhaps I am backpacking, camping, boating, biking, or something else. My outdoor pursuits usually mean I am somewhere that is not connected – no cell phone coverage, no Wi-Fi; nada.
So for most of the past 6 weeks it has been a “time to keep silence.”
Now that I am back at home, I will post some of what I have been up to, over the next few days. Hope everyone had a great holiday season.