The NEW Post Your Campsite/gear/knife/hiking/anything Outdoorsy Pic Thread!

[HikingMano]

Wow, it looks like it was quite a lucky find :thumbup: The tooth does indeed dwarf many of the others in your collection. Looks like the BK14 really works well for ya!

 

[lambertiana]

The last of the old scanned pictures for now...

East Lake, Kings Canyon NP

Lake Reflection, Kings Canyon NP

 

[HikingMano]

Great pictures, John. Thanks for sharing these scans with us :thumbup:

 

[HikingMano]

Just a few pics from a saturday stroll this past weekend.

Motion activated camera. A bunch of these are placed around peninsula parks to aid observation and study of wildlife (mountain lions, deer, etc.).
Check the video below for the awesome result of such research efforts.

[video=youtube;jy-ngOhoNPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy-ngOhoNPU[/video]

California Bays and leaf litter.

Western Fence Lizard

Gobble gobble

 

[OwenM]

My new shuttle service for solo hiking and paddling. No more backtracking, or being limited to loops or creek/river runs with takeouts at outfitters. Where feasible, I'll just chain my bike off in the woods at one end, and ride it back to my truck, or do the bike ride first, and pick it up on the way out. I wish the colors weren't so loud. Maybe I'll throw my brown BCUSA tarp over it along with locking it up out of sight of roads or trailheads...

After not having ridden a bike in ~20yrs, I had megafun on day one. After pulling a bunch of stickers out of both arms and legs, I must say that overgrown ATV trails are not conducive to wearing shorts, though!

 

[madhappy]

Maroon bells colorado

 

[HikingMano]

Owen, looks like you need some chaps

Madhappy, again, great stuff! Beautiful area.


My chill outing for the weekend:

Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve

 

[lambertiana]

On the JMT just north of Lake Marjorie, Kings Canyon NP, looking north toward Upper Basin

From the same area, looking NE toward Taboose Pass

A small lake just north of Lake Marjorie

 

[fujita yuji]

Last week I've seen a frigate bird, a tropical ocean spice usually unseen around mainland Japan.
It came riding a tropical storm accidentally.

 

[OwenM]

Owen, looks like you need some chaps

Some common sense wouldn't hurt me, either. Was supposed to be staying on the road for a short first ride, and went nuts.

Did a very short overnighter last night after an equally very late start, but at least went somewhere I hadn't been before. Headed north on the AL Pinhoti from Cheaha State Park about 2.5-3 miles just past the Blue Mountain shelter(it's like a Hilton in the woods!), and went back to where a side trail leads to it to camp.

Lots of streams that could form waterfalls and cascades between these ridgelines that are dry or just trickles right now, and that I'd like to see again in the spring with some water flowing.

With all the tree cover, we don't have much in the way of scenic vistas, in spite of the terrain being "mountainous". 5x optical zoom...

We do, however, have an abundance of rocks!

The palatial Blue Mountain shelter:

Wish the Tarptent was a little more earth-colored, so I could feel all stealthy and stuff...

The Inertia X-Lite pad is comfy, but I got off of it, and twisted it around several times. Still slept for 12hrs total, so it's obviously not *that* bad.

Even made a little fire for a change, but only messed with it for about 20mins.

It beat staying home!

 

[Galeocerdoshark]

@HM: That slug is AWESOME! Great pic too, done with your iphone?

@Madhappy: love the scenery man. I love the way the snow is layered relatively horizontally on the mountaintops.

@Lambertiana: Cool to see the treeline stop so suddenly. Would love to view this phenomenon with my own eyes someday.

@Owen: AWW YISSS 'abundance of rocks' sounds like music in my ears . Great trip report too, thanks for sharing.

Great pics y'all!

 

[OwenM]

Thanks; it was short, but I had fun, and 12hrs sleep is a lot more than I get at home!
I was laughing to myself, since I posted in that barefoot thread that I'd like to try those little minimalist shoes if I didn't have foot issues, then later thought, "well, I'd have to move, too!". Think that would be a shortlived experiment with the rocky trails around here...

 

[HikingMano]

GS, thanks and no, that one was my P&S. Surprisingly though, my GFs iPhone4 does better in low light under canopy shooting than my P&S. I must just have to sacrifice the clarity and accept some grain with shooting at a higher ISO One of these days I'll work myself up to try and lick one...experience the neurotoxin numbing

Owen, 12 hours! I don't even remember the last time I slept 12 hours. Probably back in college after pulling 2-3 days without sleep...haha. And yeah, minimalist shoes for really rocky trails (annoyingly mid-sized rocks), not so great in my experience. I've used the Merrell Trail Gloves for a significant amount of time, a bit of that on rocky trails. No bueno. That and the lack of aggressive tread on most or all minimalist shoes. I compromise with minimal Inov-8 shoes for hiking- small heel to toe drop and very lightweight and quick-drying, with aggressive treads on selected models. Plus they have rock-plates and shanks to provide more underfoot protection from sharp stuff. My personal favorite is the Roclite 295, but I've looked at the X-talon 212 and the X-talon 190. I like the last and therefore fit on the 295s better. The new Trailrocs are looking pretty nice too, and they're supposedly geared towards the US mix of hardpack and soft stuff. I prefer the more aggressive tread on the Roclites though, for off-trail and muddy conditions. I have personally found the "sticky compound" Inov-8 uses to provide way more frictions when scrambling boulders and climbing stuff than vibram outsoles.

My Trail Gloves have been relegated to minor flat-packed highway trails, tabata sprints in the field next-door, and general shoe wear....


ETA: By the way, beautiful area, and well-done on capturing it with pics! :thumbup:

 

[Matthew Gregory]

For this year's vacation, my wife and I went to Colorado. Tried to cover the entire state, or as much as we could in seven days. Over one thousand three hundred miles on the rental truck, thirty-five or so miles of hiking at elevation, witnessed a wildfire at night, sleep deprivation, awesome food, got sunburned and frostnipped within twenty-four hours of one another...

Good times!

Anyhow, here's some of my favorite shots from the trip:

Hope you enjoy looking at them, and the shots bring you to a good place, like capturing them did for me!

 

[HikingMano]

Wow, Matthew, wow :thumbup:

 

[HikingMano]

Black Mountain climb, Rancho San Antonio and Monte Bello Open Space Preserve. Not much in the way of trail scenery, but I get to stretch my legs.

I love the way the morning sunlight filters through the trees.

Elevation, since it's missing or defaced from USGS Benchmark.

Western views from summit.

View of south bay on my way back down.

Sun got more overhead on return.

 

[Eero]

Hiking along the Dungeness River in the Olympic National Park in WA a couple of weeks ago:

 

[lambertiana]

Owen - Love those rock shots! The rocky ground with trees makes for a very interesting picture.

Matthew - Great Pics!

 

[lambertiana]

@Lambertiana: Cool to see the treeline stop so suddenly. Would love to view this phenomenon with my own eyes someday.

Come out here some time and I'll take you on a hike to see it in person. Here is a good example, in this part of Sequoia NP the treeline is 11,500' (3500 M) and you can see the clear line on the distant range

This picture was taken right at the treeline on that distant ridge

There aren't a lot of fossils in my immediate area, but about an hour's drive south is a good pleistocene bed with mammals, and another with shark's teeth. A good distance north is a place where I have found cretaceous baculites with the original shell material intact, another where I found a huge ammonite (about 18" or 50 cm diameter), and I know a great spot in the southern desert for cambrian trilobites. The coast range west of here has some miocene/pliocene marine beds that are full of shells.

 

[OwenM]

Owen, 12 hours! I don't even remember the last time I slept 12 hours

Only in the woods. People ask me how I sleep "alone out there in the woods". How do I sleep? Great!

Owen - Love those rock shots! The rocky ground with trees makes for a very interesting picture.

Matthew - Great Pics!

Thanks. They came out kind of fuzzy for some reason, but I doubt it matters between downsizing and a regular sized monitor, unless you zoom in.
One of the reasons I go gaga over a lot of your pics(and love going out West) is that, on top of being beautiful, they're the opposite of what I'm used to. We've got the green here in the Southeast, but y'all can see forever out there!
+1 Matthew. Fantastic pics.

Ok, so that's not really an "outdoors" pic, I just wish.
Took it out the window of my truck this morning with my cell phone, leaving the gas station near my house