Jan 14
As promised in my resolutions, I’ve opened thehikeguy.com! The purpose of the site is to promote the hiking lifestyle through example (both my own and others), to provide tips on how to hike from the very basic level all the way up, and to help others learn the importance of respectfully exploring our natural areas.
Won’t you peek in for a visit?
This is a progress report for December 17th, 2009:
It has been a crazy month! Not only am I coming down on the final few hikes, but I covered a lot of distance since the last progress report (on November 17th). It has been 226 days since I began this project on May 5th. Since my last update, I traveled to South America for an enjoyable exploratory journey through Chile and Bolivia. While down south, I had a medical emergency (I’m OK now) which caused me to go a weekend without a hike, the first time this has happened since starting this project. I was bummed, but my health is, of course, more important than a hike.
While in South America, I completed seven amazing hikes. I ran from a homeless camp in Santiago, Chile for hike #84, I slogged through 4-6 inches of mud for hike #87, I climbed a snow-covered active volcano for hike #88, and explored the ruins of an ancient Andean civilization for hike #90. For my 34th birthday, I spent the day hiking along the shores of Lake Titicaca (Hike #89). I camped in one of my favorite spots on this planet: Isle del Sol (Island of the Sun). I had been there five years ago and was very happy to make the return trip. The two-day hike was 15.5 miles, just shy of my longest trek for this project.
More info after the graph…
So the moment is near! I’ve got 14 days left in the year to hike the remaining 7 hikes. I’ve scheduled out the hikes and I’m pretty confident I’ll be able to do them all. I’ve worked out a “plan b” and “plan c” just in case one or more of the final hikes falls through for some reason and I need to reschedule before December 31st.
My final hike will be on the afternoon of Wednesday, December 30th. I’ve chosen the location of the 100th hike. In fact, I chose the location back in May: Echo Mountain in Altadena, CA. I did this trail for my first hike, then again on hike #25, I missed the opportunity for hike #50 (due to the Station Fire), but completed it as planned for hike #75. It seems appropriate that I end this project where it all began.
Before I complete the milestone 100th hike, I’ll be passing another milestone: my 400th mile. I completed hike #93 this morning, bringing my total mileage to 393.3, averaging 4.2 miles a hike. Here’s a breakdown of my mileage. (Click on a bar to find out more info):
As far as my blogging, I’ve fallen waaay behind, and I apologize for that. It’s time consuming to edit the photos, post the GPS data, edit the videos, and write up the details of the hike. The good news is that I’ll have more free time to do all of this in the new year, after I’ve completed the hiking aspect of this project. I’m excited to show you all of the wonderful things I’ve seen over the past 6 months! For those of you who are following my Tweets, I’ve started to post photos from the remaining hikes – a sneak preview of what’s to come on this blog.
So don’t go anywhere in 2010 – there’s still a lot to be seen in the new year!
Here’s some numbers to ponder:
If you hike with me, you become a prestigious respected member of the “100 Hikes Club.” Although this past month had a lot of solo hikes, I did have a few new members join the club.
Three-way tie for third:
Nov 17
I just received this hiking Santa Christmas ornament as an early birthday present from my parents. I love it!
This is a progress report for November 17th, 2009:
It’s been 192 days since I began this project on May 5th. Since then, I have hiked every weekend, in three states, and more than 300 miles of trails. They hardest part of this project is finding the determination to get to the trailhead – especially on weekday mornings. Since my last report (on October 26th), I have gone on 13 hikes – half of those hikes were done in a single weekend.
In order to reach my goal of 100 hikes by December 31st, I’ve got to do 17 more hikes. I’m confident I’ll be able to do it – especially after last weekend. I went to the Mojave National Preserve and was somehow able to have the energy to complete six hikes in 48 hours. I’m currently two hikes ahead of schedule!
On Thursday, I’ll be leaving on a 22-day backpacking trip to South America where I hope to do a lot of hiking. However, I don’t think I’ll be adding any more hikes under my belt than if I stayed at home. Confused? Let me explain: The last time I was in South America, I hiked over 80 miles in three weeks, but those 80 miles were accomplished on just three hikes. I’ve already started to plan some of my hikes for this trip, and they’ll most likely be multi-day backpacking journeys, just as my previous trip. Despite the long distances of the hikes and the strong desire to change the game to my advantage, I am resolute in keeping to my rules. One hike, no matter how long, equals one hike. It wouldn’t be right to accomplish this goal and say that my “100 hikes” were actually less than 100.
Although an “official” 100hikes.com hike needs to be at least two miles in length, my average still stays over twice that number. I’ve hiked 338.5 miles in 83 hikes, averaging 4.1 miles a hike. If I keep this average, I might break 400 miles by the end of the year. (Maybe that will be a goal-within-a-goal I should aim for?) Here’s a breakdown of my mileage. (Click on a bar to find out more info):
Here’s some numbers to ponder:
If you hike with me, you become a prestigious respected member of the “100 Hikes Club.” Although this past month had a lot of solo hikes, I did have a few new members join the club as well as a few old ones up their hiking numbers.
Three-way tie for third:
Nov 11
Not long ago, Canadian adventurer and blogger Clayton Kessler requested to interview me for his site, TracksAndTrails.ca. I humbly obliged. Here’s a snippet:
Can you share any unique encounters with wild animals?
In 2001, I was camping by myself in California’s San Gorgonio Wilderness and was attacked by a bear. At two o’clock in the morning, I woke up to hear something sniffing around outside my one-man tent. A moment later, my tent was shaking violently from side to side… while I was in it! I yelled and the attacker scampered away back into the woods, each heavy footstep bring down my heart rate. When I couldn’t hear any more footsteps, I turned in my tent to notice that the bear had made two perfect crescent-shaped bite marks in my tent’s rain fly just above my neck. Needless to say, I had a hard time going back to sleep. I hold no grudges towards bears and have encountered many since without incident.
You can read the full interview over at TracksAndTrails.ca.
Nov 9
Hiking Isle del Sol, Bolivia on Lake Titicaca
In just ten days, I will be departing for South America to spend three weeks exploring the wonders of Chilé and Bolivia! I’m excited to see northern Chile for the first time and looking forward to re-visiting Bolivia, especially the Lake Titicaca area (above).
I know it has been a while since I’ve blogged on this site, mostly because I’ve been busy hiking. but when I begin my trip, I hope to find time to submit blog entries over at my main site, kolbykirk.com. If I don’t have a moment to take a break from the trip to blog, I’ll definitely post a few write up’s after my return in December, both about my trip in general (over at kolbykirk.com) and, more specifically, about my hikes (here at 100hikes.com). If I don’t have time to blog, I’ll most likely just submit tweets. You can follow me on my other Twitter account (user: kahunna), where I imagine I’ll be sending more frequent updates than my 100hikes Twitter. (Yeah, yeah, I know – I have a big web footprint.)
I’ll write up a progress report before I go, which will give you a little more info about this upcoming backpacking adventure. Will I be hiking more or less on this trip? You might be surprised to hear the answer.
Oct 21
Welcome to The Mail Bag! This new ongoing series is dedicated to answering your questions about 100hikes.com, my hiking, or hiking/backpacking in general. The question was submitted by Ann, who asked:
I love the pictures you take on the hike. Would you mind sharing what type of camera you use? Do you do a lot of editing later?
Thanks for the question, Ann! Here’s my video answer, recorded while hiking #66 in the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness in central California last weekend:
Here is more information on the things I discussed in the video:
You might recall that I once used another camera for this site. For all videos and most photos taken on hikes #1-44, I used a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS. But I replaced it with the 990 when it died.
Canon PowerShot 1100 IS
Oct 21
I’m a big fan of maps. I’d be aiming for a specialized degree in cartography right now if given the patience and the scholarship (neither of which I have). When I was a teen, along with collecting stamps, baseball cards, and comic books, I had a proud collection of National Geographic Magazines and their maps. With a magnifying glass and a heap of imagination, I would explore every detail of a map. When Google Maps launched their “terrain” overlay in November 2007, I found myself scrolling around the maps, looking for cool places to explore just as I once did years ago. Recently, I’ve been tinkering around with the technical side of Google Maps and have created a few maps I can call my own. I’ve mapped out all of the hikes I’ve done so far for 100hikes.com and placed them on the Google Maps interface. The functionality still needs some work, but I hope you find the map useful in planning your own adventure. More information below the screen capture.
I have created the following maps:
At this point, the interactivity of the map is minimal. Hover over the small icons to see the hike number and location. Until I make it more interactive, refer to the Hike List for links to the individual hikes.
Sep 22
I’ve decided (again) to change the look of my site. Hope you like it!
Sep 10
Tomorrow I leave for a 9-day exploration of Southern Utah, a trip four years in the making. I’ll be bringing along my laptop so expect tweets as I check out what the state has to offer. Feel free to post any suggestions on where to hike in the comments section below. Hopefully I’ll get in quite a few hikes (including the big number Five-Oh) before returning on September 20th.