Valerie in Nature

Better known as "Starr King", he's got a mountain named for him and there's a statue in Golden Gate Park and there used to be one in Washington DC except someone declared they had no idea who he was. Rather than fix that ignorance, they demoted him. Also, my own "nursery school" was named for him: Starr King Parent-Child Workshop. Well, I didn't know who he was either, so I decided to fix that ignorance, at least a little. He was a Universalist, then a Unitarian minister with a slight stature and a booming voice that was quite desired on the lecture circuit, it seems. He had much to say about morality and spirituality and tolerance and staying off the drink. He also traveled from time to time and would write about that, mostly as series of newspaper articles. He moved from the east coast to San Francisco shortly before the Civil War and as an abolitionist, had much to say about that too. He is credited with "preserving California for the Union"...

I currently have Xero Shoes in two styles. The first is the TerraFlex and the second is the Mesa Trail. The TerraFlex has exposed webbing that I managed to chew through while hiking cross country in New Mexico. That first pair was replaced for free based on a picture of them with torn ribbons, so that was nice. Still, they need to be in nicer environments. There's actually a bit of wear on the rest of the shoe from the harsh ground in the boot heal. The Mesa Trail is a thinner sole. Conventional wisdom is that a stiffer sole allows going further with less energy. I find I'm about done in these after 10 miles and there's just a little too much ground feel for my taste. They both suffer from being low cut, which allows more crud to get in the top and the odd rock gets kicked up to whack me in the ankle. They've come out with some more hiking oriented shoes now as well as reworking the shoes I have into version 2. So, here is a comparison of the relevant parameters. ...

Found me a new trick for editing the map, which is really nice for confirming that other people also see the paths I see. The Strava Global Heat Map . They seem to be getting quite a few to participate and, while the heat may not be strong, it often extends into backcountry routes. You can get it as a background for editing Open Street Map via Strava-iD . The background here is not as detailed as can be found on the heat map if you are logged in and may be an older data set. I'm not sure. I am sure that it is useful. For instance, I found that my path and the marked path for climbing Medicine Bow on the popular eastern side did not match up. They were very much of the same shape, which is always a warning bell that some GPS might have transposed itself sideways. Both paths seemed to be following a line that could be a trail, but frankly the pictures aren't that great for that spot. Which is correct? Mine was the only GPS trace uploaded to Open Street Map, so that layer wasn...

What was a looking for? I don't remember now. But I found this most excellent shaped tarp that speaks to me. I give you the Penta Tarp . (You'll have to click that to actually see it.) There's also a couple YouTube videos, one from the prototype and the other from starting to sell these things . I know maybe I should sit down with a tarp and some instructions and get started on learning some configurations well enough to pop them up as needed in the wild. A flat tarp can become anything you want it to be given the situation. However, the simplicity of a shaped tarp is wonderful, and this pentagon shaped solo tarp is simple from start to finish. It comes out of a single 72 inch wide piece of fabric trimmed into the shape with one small seam plus reinforcements. Watch how quickly and easily it goes up in either one of those videos! Then, if you really want one, support him in his evening job of becoming a gear designer and manufacturer by buying one. What I would want it fo...

California Desert Trails was the third and final travel book written by J. Smeaton Chase. After taking on the coast and the mountains, there was still the desert. It seems to also have ostensibly been a guide. He included two chapters and an appendix devoted to the area plants. A second appendix reproduces helpful travel suggestions from USGS. (It may be noted that although this was included, it was after many chapters in which he clearly did not manage to follow quite a few of the suggestions.) A chapter on "desert lore" and geography complete the set of introductory material before finally setting off on the travel. (But there are some smaller travel stories in among these early chapters.) The route he takes on for this book is the circumnavigation of the Colorado Desert. This is the desert area between the Sonoran Desert and the Mojave Desert, not an area of the state of Colorado. He does this in the heat of summer and, I must say, his horse Kaweah is an absolute superh...

There are a couple of projects to look forward to around the Eel River that could be part of an epic piece of unpowered travel. First, the state of California has a Rails-to-Trails project they are calling the Great Redwood Trail. Second, the Wildlands Conservancy has a project to conserve the wild portions of the largely private river canyon in a project they are calling the Eel River Emerald Necklace. Map showing the Great Redwood Trail and Eel River Emerald Necklace projects in southern Humboldt, Trinity, and Mendocino Counties. The Great Redwood Trail is to follow the Northwestern Pacific Railroad "connecting San Francisco and Humboldt Bays". It is the dark red line running up the map. It includes some hundredish miles along the main Eel River, the most interesting part being between where US-101 leaves the main stem in Humboldt Redwoods State Park to where the two routes rejoin. This section of the tracks was the most expensive railroad line to maintain in its day....