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. The challenges will remain, even for a generally dirt multiuse trail along the old right-of-way. This route includes a number of bridges and tunnel that will need to be evaluated, repaired, modified, replaced. There's actually quite a lot of short tunnels that were utilized for the line, but also one a mile long.
The Eel River Emerald Necklace, besides preserving lands that will allow wildlife to connect between the various ecosystems, will provide for "free passive recreation". Those spaces that are already aquired are shown (roughly) as green blobs. The short portion through Trinity County is well represented, plus there is one last preserve at the mouth of the river. These are particularly aimed at providing rafters and kayakers with pull out points for camping while coming down the river.
And between the two projects, there is quite a grand adventure. Take off south, hiking uphill along the river. At the top, drop in in raft or kayak and ride the water back down, right to the mouth. Some things just can't be seen from above, and some just can't really be seen from the water, but together, it can be quite a complete experience of the river!
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...
I've come across a very annoying design choice in FBReader. Since people have been complaining about it for over a decade, I'm sure it is a choice and not a bug. When FBReader encounters the <hr /> element in an EPUB, it ignores it entirely. Since this is a very common, and I would argue very correct, way to show a break a bit more than a new paragraph and a bit less than a new chapter, this seems like a bad design choice. However, apparently they're not even the only ones. You could try to fix it by using some <p> </p> instead. This is another common way that ebook creators have used to show section breaks. It mimics the printer solution where everything is formatting and nothing is meaning. However, meaning is now possible and even considered desirable. Also, some ebook readers like to ignore this one as empty space, too. The fact that is explicitly not meant to be treated as empty space is beside the point, apparently. I found one q...
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. ...
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