still fuckin with climb cuz climb pays: the ILX hiking thread

xpost

Yeah. I put up a WDYLL pic of me at Wonker Pass in the southern part of the Wallowas, maybe last Sept. I've just been pining away for them lately and thought I'd share part of the reason why with ILX.

some friends have been down there a couple of times but we got snowed out the one time we tried; I really want to do it this summer some time

i have not actually been hiking since getting back to tennessee, but in anticipation of it i went and bought myself the nicest hiking boots i have ever owned in my life. they're still stiff as hell, i'm wearing them around town to break them in a little. so sweet though. i feel sort of guilty about spending so much money, so i need to take some real hikes to justify it.

wowza, nice kicks! i've been hiking in trail runners for so long i can't imagine wearing boots anymore.

don't feel guilty! good footwear makes SO much difference! i think my hikes since i got my current boots have been like 10x more enjoyable just because my feet are happier.

yeah, on one hand at the level i'm likely to use these things there's no real need for them. but also because of that, i figure they should last me a good long time. and feel good doing it.

my hiking boots got took while drying in front of the lodge I worked at :(

sneaker man ever since

wow: http://perpetualweekend.com/wordpress/?p=333

Great shot and place Aimless!

wow: http://perpetualweekend.com/wordpress/?p=333

― caek, Tuesday, April 6, 2010 9:27 AM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

wowowowowowowowowo

i know.

makes me want to make changes to my life.

seriously

how much does it pay

100 berries

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/stratodab/SouthernSpiral/P1050914.jpg

srsly gonna drop out of school

oh man this one looks like they are about to jump into another dimension!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v492/stratodab/SouthernSpiral/P1050822.jpg

just, damn. good to know some ppl do that shit.

I am pretending there has been a groundswell of interest to see a couple more pics of my hike last August. Another campsite. It was a very hot day.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4018/4497757160_c40041f127_b.jpg

Keep 'em coming Aimless

I was a couple miles off trail for this one. The lake is called Hidden Lake and the granite ridge is the backside of Eagle Cap:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2726/4497757518_41f4bdaa41_b.jpg

Holy amazing!!!

I always love to see pics of ppl's adventures!

One last pic. This was a brief lifting of the rainstorm that dogged me the last two days of the trip. The trail is leading up to pass over an 8000 ft. ridge. On the other side was 7 miles of trail leading back down to the trailhead and my car.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4497757942_f4c016ce69_b.jpg

Nice shots, the place looks amazing.

It's one of my favorite corners of the universe. To see it properly, you absolutely need to load up a pack, hoist it, and get more than one day from any road. That's where the best magic happens.

wow

bad fuzzy pic but i saw this guy today:

http://i39.tinypic.com/2z59e9z.jpg

himingood

him was!

I'm going back to this place sometime this year, will strike a pose this time...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3079/2706419643_6893fec3ea_b.jpg

I'm kind of glad you didn't try to upstage the clouds.

nice photoshop work! j/k

Hope you don't mean me?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/carljgodwin/sets/72157606398062088/

i was kidding. it is such an amazing picture that it almost does not seem real.

oh, sorry for minor tantrum.

aw. no worries. i should have been more clear. where is that picture exactly?

Austria, see the link.

hahaha nice photoshop work made me lol

do y'all work out in preparation of getting back into hiking?

i'm starting back into my routine of doing several hikes a week and it's like coming out of hibernation. i feel like i lost all my butt muscles, so maybe i'll just concentrate on that

ITT a butt

i dunno part of the appeal of hiking for me is that it's a sport/activity that i can wholly divorce from "fitness"---like i'm not gonna sweat getting into shape for it because that just happens the more you do it. but yeah, squats oughta sort you out right quick

i agree w/u gbx, though it is hard to wholly divorce it from fitness when you return to your usual caliber of trail and find yourself having heart attacks

omgosh dont have heart attacks, they're dangerous!

i guess i meant i like to mentally divorce it---hiking, though sporty, is something i like to keep as a relaxing "i'm just walking in the woods thinkin baout thangs" activity

oh me too. i guess i like to divorce my walking thru the woods thinking baout things hikes from my getting ripped/really hard hikes tbh

Hiking is separate from fitness for me, which is why I LOVE it. But... it's hard to enjoy the first few when I am fucking winded as shit. I promised myself this year that I would work out all throughout the winter so I could hike 14-ers this summer BUT OF COURSE I DIDNT

bet if you start now you will be hikin 14ers by august

yeah, I plan on hiking this weekend if the weather's nice!

i miss mountains.
i want to hike.

so yesterday the wife and i backpacked out to this very isolated rustic campsite in the middle of kettle moraine state forest, wisconsin. our first actual backpacking trip where we're not basically camping in a tent next to the car. anyway, around 4 in the morning (cause it started getting light out about an hour afterwards), we were woken up by this EXTREMELY loud, EXTREMELY close cougar scream. i had never actually heard one before, but when we got home today i looked it up and yep this is exactly what it sounded like, no doubt about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKw4OFAu1WM

needless to say, it scared the SHIT out of us. almost sounded alien at first and it took a few moments for the reality of what we just heard to sink in. it was LOUD, very loud. it sounded like it was probably a couple hundred feet from our tent at most. we woke up and just stared at each other, pretty much paralyzed with fear, not wanting to move or even whisper anything for five minutes or so. started imagining all these nightmare scenarios in my head where the cougar would come over and smell us in the tent and start ripping it up and gorging on our insides. i had a very weak, hand-crank flashlight and a hammer in the tent, and i was trying to decide whether i should should put on my shoes and go out there in the pitch black forest and flash the light around and blow the whistle, try and scare it away. but i also didn't want to catch it off-guard and scare it so bad that it would attack me. opted to stay in the tent, wide awake until dawn, holding my hammer and flinching over every rustling noise we heard, telling myself that it's not a bear and it won't seek us out.

of course, it didn't help that the day before we left, there was a report of the first cougar attack on a wisconsin cow in over 200 years. but that was 100 miles away.

anyway, mountain lions screaming near your tent in the middle of the night with nobody else around you for miles. good stuff.