CHUCK'S
ANNOTATED
LINKS TO
BACKPACKING
WEBSITES
Cultivate your mind,
so that when you're alone,
you'll be in good company.
--Ernest Palincsar (my
7th grade teacher)--
The
links on this page are checked periodically.
If you find links which are inoperable, e-mail me and I'll remedy the
situation.
If the page you travel to does not have a reciprocal link to return you
here, remember that you can use your browser's "BACK"
button to return you to this page to use other links, or you can
"bookmark"
this page to easily return. I have annotated each entry so you have
some
idea of its content and placed them in categories to aid your search.
Latest
revision: October 22, 2008
Sites are categorized into
Indexes of backcountry sites
(tons of links)
- Outdoor Resources Online (ORO) contains over 650 links on backpacking, climbing,
fishing, mountain biking, river sports, skiing, and surfing. Also has
added product reviews.
- HikeNet
is a website with great graphics, stories and photos of numerous
hikers' trips (including the AT, Grand Canyon, and King's Canyon) and
links to other websites featuring hiking, climbing, and backpacking
adventures.
- The About.com's Camping section has weekly features, stories, links, as
well as sections on mountain biking, skiing, sailing, scuba diving, and
dozens of other sports.
- Peak To Peak has info on thousands of hikes in the U. S. and
also international hikes, as well as info on gear, tours, lodges, state
and national parks and forests, hiking clubs, wilderness sites, and
much more.
- Outdoor Places is a huge site with feature articles, 1000+
links, a gear guide, destination info, photos, and much more.
- The Backpacker.com has articles, links, destinations, a trails
database, gear, a beginner's corner, photos, and a question/answer
section.
- LinkSelect.com is an alphabetized, categorized, and annotated
sportsman's directory with hundreds of links to hunting and
fishing/marine sites as well as hundreds of links to sites for
backpacking, climbing. hiking, destinations, survival, camping,
environment, and many more.
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Commercial sites:
- Backpacker Magazine has a
website called BaseCamp
which includes sections on Destinations, Gear Talk, Hiking Partner
Connection, a fully searchable "Weekend Wilderness" site finder, and
much more. .
- GORP -- The Great Outdoors Recreation Pages has a fantastic website featuring outdoor
activities of every imaginable sort -- a must for all interested in the
outdoors -- including a listing of all Wilderness
Areas in the country GORP
also has extensive lists of nearly every national park,
national forest, and wilderness area in America.
- Need guidebooks and
maps? Amazon calls itself the
"Earth's largest bookstore" and allows you to search its database of
over 1,000,000 titles by author, title, subject, and keyword. Every
book returned by the search is then hyperlinked to info about the book.
Adventurous
Traveler Bookstore has a huge selection of guidebooks and
maps for hikers. Pete
and Ed Books offer books, maps, videos, and magazines
covering hiking, biking, canoeing, climbing, fishing, and more -- and
will match Amazon.com's prices but with lower shipping costs. Latta Outdoors
offers a wide selection of books and maps covering all outdoor sports.
- Backcountry Experience has stores in Durango, Colorado, and Santa Fe,
New Mexico, featuring quality merchandise and highly knowledgeable
sales staff, and also sells their products through their website or by
phone order.
- The clothing manufacturer L. L. Bean
has a website which allows one to browse nearly 900 national and state
forests.
- Curious how Gore-Tex works?
Visit the Gore
Company Home Page for info about their fabrics -- the
science, care, maintenance, etc.
- CamelBak's
site offers info on their unique products and also articles on "The
facts of Hydration" and "Why hydration gives you more energy." Plus
more!
- eParka.com
calls itself "the interactive outdoor guide" and has links on
backpacking and biking, environment issues, astronomy, and outdoor
photos/art, as well as news discussion groups, and forums. They also
provide free online topo maps and elevation profiles for numerous areas.
- Pack Lite Foods offers breakfast/lunch, beverages/snacks, and
dinner meals -- all as one-pot meals ready in under 10 minutes,
reasonably priced, and available in 1 or 2 serving packages.
- Over 2000 product reviews of
equipment of all types are available on BackpackReviews.com.
- Portland, Oregon's U. S. Outdoor Store
offers gear for nearly every outdoor pursuit and from most major
manufacturers in its online site.
- Pack Lite Pro offers a software program to help outdoor sports
lovers plan successful trips and also has a collection of delicious
recipes available as well as links to other outdoors sites.
- Ultralight backpacking software offers software for lightweight camping
enthusiasts who use ultralight backpacking techniques.
- Ultralight Outfitters offers skillbuilding information, specialized
gear, packing lists, food suggestions and tips on backpacking with
kids, and their wiki pages allow folks to add their own stories and
share experiences.
- Coleman has been known as a
supplier of quality outdoor sports and camping gear for years, but now
has branched into backpacking gear, too, including tents, sleeping
bags, lanterns, coolers, stoves, etc. Their gear can be found at Summit Camping Gear
and Camping Gear
Pro.
- MapOufitter.com offers discounted maps from National Geographic,
Trails Illustrated, the U. S. Forest Service, and more, and also sells
the DeLorme Atlas series.
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Trails and specific wilderness
areas:
- Steve Fry's Hiking in Colorado
contains summaries of Colorado 13'ers he has
climbed, with photos. Steve also has a "Hike Difficulty Calculator"
available which takes into account elevation gain and round trip
distance.
- Arkansas has great backpacking. Check out my pages for the
Ozark Hiking Trail and
the Buffalo National River Trail,
as well as Tim Ernst's Ozark Highlands
Trail Association website.
- If you are interested in
through-hiking the Appalachian Trail, visit Wingfoot's Trailplace.
- Chet Fromm's Backpacker
Guide has information on our National Scenic Trails
(he's completed 4 of the 8 himself!) and also numerous
links to schools, distributors, clubs, mail lists, e-magazines, and
more.
- One of those long distance
trails which in part traverses the Midwest is the North Country Trail.
Sections of this trail are included in my photos covering the Superior Hiking Trail, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore,
and the Chequamegon National Forest.
Also, Joan Young of
Michigan has completed 940+ miles of the NCT and includes
photos, info, and links on it on her site (as well as material on model
railroading, gardening, her favorite books, and wetlands.)
- The Ice Age Park and Trail
Foundation website details info on this trail, which when completed,
will trace the farthest advance of the last glacier for more than 1000
miles through the State of Wisconsin.
- The Bruce Trail, which runs for over 400 miles between Queenston
Heights (near Niagara Falls) north to Tobermory Harbour in southern
Ontario, Canada, has a website.
- Mike Molloy's site, called Mike's Hikes,
has an alphabetical list of over 300 hikes available in Rocky
Mountain National Park, complete with photos and trip
reports, tips, and links.
- Danny's Missouri Backpacking
& Hiking Trails Review has info on over a dozen Missouri
hiking trails, both for day and overnight trips, as well
as links to other sites.
- Colorado Rocky Mountain Trip Reports contains over 1000 links to trip reports on Colorado
peaks, primarily 14ers, but also peaks from 11,000 to 13,000
feet in altitude.
- The Mohican Outdoor Center is the southernmost Appalachian Mountain Club
facility and their site has trail info, hikers' stories, local weather,
ninks, and much more.
- Interested in New Zealand?
Garry's Backpack
New Zealand site has info on backpacking, skiing,
snowboarding, and includes travel info - hostels, tours,
transportation, visitor centers, links, and more.
- Select Hikes specializes in trails in Ohio, Kentucky, and
Indiana, and also offers to publish your articles (preferably with
photos) about trails, hiking, mountain biking, climbing,
mountaineering, etc.
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Safety/health concerns
- The FDA's Center for Food
Safety and Applied Nutrition has webpages on Giardiosis
and the newest villain, Cryptosporidiosis,
both of which are protozoa which can make you wish you had treated your
backcountry water properly.
- Altitude sickness is covered
by the Princeton
University Outdoor Action website, as well as equipment, 1st
aid, safety, and environment.
- Foot.com
has info on foot health, conditions, and treatments, news articles,
foot health care products, live chats with foot care professionals, a
question/answer section, and links.
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Mainly photos of nature:
- Do you like wildflowers as
much as I do? You can see a dozen-plus here at my site, but you should
visit Gary Lipe's Wildflowers
site which contains photos, catalogs, references, identifications by
state, and links to other wildflower resources on the web. The Rocky Mountain
Wildflower Page has photos of many wildflowers, closeups of
many of the flowers, and links to other sites.
- Do you like wildlife?
Here are several dozen
photos I've taken on 70+ backpacking trips.
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Hikers' sites:
- The Backpacker by Matt Johnson provides links to other websites,
a photo gallery, product reviews, backpacking and camping tips from the
author and visitors, a destinations section, a chat section, and a
beginner's corner feature.
- The Dirty Sole Society advocates "set your feet free and your mind will
follow." The Barefoot
Hikers espouse hiking without shoes.
- The Middle-Aged Hiker is an on-line book of 32 humorous and
well-written chapters recounting trips into the Grand Canyon by Dennis
Bathory-Kitsz and David Gunn.
- Recording artist Jim Stoltz,
known as Walkin' Jim,
has 11 albums to his credit, and is an inveterate backpacker, logging
well over 20,000 wilderness miles so far. His site includes his
activist preservation/conservation philosophy, quotes, tales of some of
his trips, tips from the trail, suggested readings, original poetry,
his "name the Wild Place" photo contest, and much more.
- Rob McCarthy's Outlandish
Outdoor Activities has pages on backpacking, hiking, scuba
diving, karate, survival, 1st aid, trivia, and links to other sites.
- Outside in Colorado and Beyond specializes in hiking and climbing in Colorado.
- Phil Stegal"s Skunkz.com has links
for backpacking, climbing, Scouting, and ATVing.
- Dances with Marmots chronicles New Zealand Firefighter George
Spearing's five month, 4300km solo journey along the Pacific Crest
Trail from Mexico to Canada and includes many photos and much humor.
- Winter Campers is a site by guys from New York who are "brave
enough or crazy enough" to camp/backpack in the snow. The site has
photos, trip logs, reasons to winter camp (#1 reason: no bugs),
essential gear, tips, and more.
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Mainly Gear:
- Steve Green's Only The Lightest Camping
Equipment ("Helping hikers lighten up...") features
lightweight backpacks, sleeping gear, tents, bivies, clothing,
accessories, and links to lightweight/ultralightweight sites.
- Graham Thompson and Clive
Tully from the U.K. sponsor the outdoor clothing & gear site Trail Walk
featuring gear reviews with photos, pros and cons, and glossary of
terms.
- Equipped to Survive (a non-profit organization) provides "independent
reviews and information on outdoor gear and survival equipment and
techniques."
- www.4outdoorfun.com handles all types of equipment for camping and
backpacking, links, buying guides, camping chhecklist, and discounted
gear specials.
- Located in the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains, Mountain
Works has information and all the back country equipment and
clothing you will need for mountaineering, rock climbing, backpacking,
camping, adventure travel, back country skiing, snowshoeing, trail
running and nordic walking whether you are exploring the Rocky
Mountains or wilderness around the world.
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Government sites: