Trail Reflections 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking

50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking Trail Reflections 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking Jim Kern i 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking sample contents sample contents 1 Foreword 133 Founding Big City Mountaineers 3 Introduction 175 Hikers Grand Slam 5 A Miserable First Trip 175 U.S. Grand Slam Hikes Clingman's Dome to Fontana Dam with Rich 178 Presidental Range 179 Florida Trail 11 Climbing and Hiking in Borneo: 180 Beartooth Wilderness Mt. Kinabalu to Keningau 181 John Muir Trail 29 Founding the Florida Trail (FTA) 189 World Grand Slam Hikes 54 Searching for Sumatra 191 French Alps 61 Founding American Hiking Society 197 Torre del Paine, Chile Kern picked by Bill Kemsley for President 205 Milford Tract, New Zealand HikANation 215 Shimshal, Pakistan 229 Langtang Range, Nepal (alternate) 77 Hikes - From Here to There Around the World 79 Scapegoat Wilderness 83 The Grand Canyon - My First Look 237 The Big Three 93 Paria Canyon 239 Appalachian Trail - AT 99 The Alps 261 Continental Divide Trail -CDT 103 Cabane de Bertol, Switzerland 109 Night Hiking in Guana Estuarine Reserve 314 Appendix 119 Jack of all Jokes 125 Going Alone 315 Acknowledgements plus more to be added... ii iii 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking torre del paine chile A view of the park across Lake Pehoe. 196 197 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking torre del paine, chile Parker Thomson negotiates a swinging bridge over a mountain stream. 198 199 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking A guanaco lets us get close. The Towers of Paine, close up. Parker Thomson works his way up a granite rock pile toward Grey Glacier. 200 201 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking Refugio Grey looked inviting, but toward the end we were like horses headed for the barn. We kept moving. The featured trail circumnavigates the Torres del Grey Glacier is part of a glacier corridor that stretches for 150 km north and south. Paine, granite spires that rise 9000 feet from the landscape. 202 203 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking milford track new zealand Clouds swirl up the slopes, forming and dissolving. Kias, aggressive parrots, hover around the pass looking for anything they can steal, particularly food. 204 205 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking milford track, new zealand The Milford Track in Fiordland National Park starts in the town of Te Anau. After paying fees, Independent Trampers board a boat for the 55 km run north on Lake Te Anau to the beginning of the trail. 206 207 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking milford track, new zealand any hikers had told me hot showers, and served meals with that New Zealand’s lunches packed. Either way, you M Milford Track was “The must keep on schedule since beds are world’s most beautiful hiking trail.” It booked for just one night. Camping was a place, they said, where the sky elsewhere is not permitted. We signed reached down to your boots, and the on as independent trampers. setting was made by nature not man. Hiking on the Milford Track Of course, I had to see for myself, begins and ends at park headquarters and I brought along my oldest son, in Te Anau, a picturesque community Jim. The trail we would hike threaded of 1,500, rimmed on one side by through Fiordland National Park, a 5,000-foot mountains. After check-in three-million-acre wilderness on New at the appointed morning hour, a bus Zealand’s South Island. took us to Lake Te Anau where we We wanted the best weather boarded a powerboat for the ride to we could get for the hike. The 33- the lake’s north end and the trail-head. mile track opens in November at the After crossing a swinging bridge beginning of their summer and closes over the Clinton River, we walked in April. January through March is the graded and well-marked trail that prime time. We reserved space for wove through tree-sized ferns growing mid-February. out of thick cushions of green moss There are only two ways to hike that upholstered the ground. By late the Milford Track. You can go as an afternoon we had followed the river independent tramper and bring your own sleeping bag, food, and cooking Each of the huts housed about gear for over-nighting in basic huts. forty hikers and had bunks, running can go as a guided tramper with a answered questions and operated the guide, overnights in plush hotel- place, but hikers are on their own to Breathtaking landscapes lay waiting everywhere along the trail. like huts with sheets on the beds, entertain and feed themselves. Groups 208 209 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking included hikers from Australia, Japan At Mintaro Hut, we slept on the and then dropped steeply almost to the and England, as well as college kids from the U.S. and Israel. Jim and I let in cool air and late afternoon the views and pulling out snacks from boiled up freeze-dried dinners we’d sunlight. As I was unrolling my our packs to extend the stay. Waterfalls brought from the States and oatmeal sleeping bag, Jim whispered to turn leapt from high cliffs. Keas glided for breakfast. Just as we crawled into around. There, perched motionless through the mists and landed in the our sleeping bags, it started raining. in the window opening, was a huge grass looking for handouts. Fiordland National Park as well parrot. Unlike most parrots, his Following the trail, we hiked as much of the southwest coast of feathers were drab and his bill was through a fairy-tale forest where moss- South Island gets up to 300 inches of big and sharply hooked. A bunkmate draped beech trees looked like towers rain a year. The heavy rain and cold saw our surprise and said, “It’s a kea. of damp green velvet. At our trail are why the trail is closed during their They’re mischievous so don’t leave lunch we could see far-off Sutherland winter months. But rain can add a any food around. If you leave your Fall just below Lake Quill. Then we spectacular dimension to the park, as valuables out, they will steal them.” hiked down to Dumpling Hut for our we discovered. It must have rained There was lots of talk about keas last night. hard and long much of the night that night, like how they destroyed On our last day, we walked 10 miles because the hut manager said the river hiking boots and vandalized rooms gradually downhill to catch the boat to had risen so high that we couldn’t if they could sneak in a door. They leave until around ten. He would let were even known to strip cars bare, there, a waiting bus took us back to Te us know. So after breakfast, we sat from upholstery and wiring to hub Anau. One of the hikers summed up around staring at the dripping forest caps. Much worse, they were known our experience with a toast, “To the and overcast sky. to use their sharp beaks to peck out land of a thousand waterfalls.” half. Waterfalls are everywhere. Shortly after ten, the manager the eyes of sheep, and then eat the said we could start out for Mintaro sheep itself. Hut, our next overnight. In a few The next morning brought crisp minutes we could see the problem. air and a cloudless, blue sky. So far the Parts of the trail were under water. trail had been almost level, but soon we were climbing to 1,073-meter to avoid wet feet, but soon we were high Mackinnon Pass. Now we slogging through water up to our were looking down on gnarled tree knees. The Clinton River had turned limbs with oriental-looking twisted into a raging torrent. Yet all around branches festooned with mosses, us was a biological wonderland of rain air plants and lichens. Wisps of forests and crystal-clear waterfalls. clouds swirled above high-peaked Rivulets and streams tumbled down mountains. One hiker described it as sheer granite mountains. “superlative scenery gone crazy.” The pass, where we stopped for a break, dropped off vertically on the Breathtaking landscapes lay waiting everywhere along the trail. north side for several hundred feet 210 211 50 Years of Hiking and Backpacking On the third day we climbed from Mintaro Hut to Mackinnon Pass at 1073 m. 212 213.

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