Inner Journey

I’ve always had mixed feeling about carrying communication technology when I’m hiking because the a big part of day hiking and backpacking for me has always been to take a break from my day-to-day life. While I’ve always taken a lot of photos and notes …

One of the keys to efficient hiking in more arduous winter conditions is energy preservation and I’ve found that you can tell if a group is working well together when everyone places their boots in the footsteps of the hiker in front …

Guthook said, “I want to see how long I can lead a life without a fixed schedule” when we were hiking in the mountains the other day. We’d blown off work for the day, an easy thing to do since we both …

Have you ever wondered why some people are so obsessed with hiking? People like me. I’ve had my own theories about its appeal to me over the years. For a long time, hiking was one of the few ways I had to …

I quit my corporate job, a year ago this week, to go my own way. After 20+ years of work in the software and internet industries, I was bored with what I was doing and I couldn’t see that my work was …

When I was growing up, I used to listen to the sound of the cicadas in our back yard. It’s the sound that I associate with the hot days and evenings of summer. Yesterday morning, as I was hiking the last few …

When you get really good at something, it’s easy to fall into the trap of automated behavior. This is where you respond to a situation without thinking about what you’re doing or why. A lot of people think automated behavior like this …

True confession here. When I was a teenager, I was deathly afraid of snakes. It was so bad that I couldn’t look at pictures of them or watch them on TV. I can even remember one road trip where my family drove …

Hiking is meditation, for me at least. It’s one of the main reasons I run off into the mountains and woods whenever I can. I first learned about meditation about 10 years ago when I took some classes and workshops on sitting …

Solo Backpacking I do a lot of solo backpacking. I got started when I hiked the Long Trail in Vermont in 2008. No one I knew wanted to come along, but I still wanted to go, so I did it by myself. …

I really like hiking. There are lots of reasons why, but I think the most important is mental. My life is a bit stressful at the moment. I have a lot of responsibilities at work and home, and it's hard to find …

  My friend Martin left a comment on my last trip report, saying the he was beginning to see the appeal of hiking the Appalachian Trail. To put this in context, Martin lives in the UK and hikes a lot in Scotland. …