Are you tired of all the connectedness around you? Want to get away from it all? Unfortunately, truly getting away from civilization can be tough, even with the will and time to head off to an otherwise inaccessible spot.

An interesting map of connectedness published in New Scientist back in April factors in road, rail, river, and shipping networks, as well as terrain and access, to calculate how long it would take to travel to the nearest city of 50,000 or more people by land or water.

Just how hard it is to find a relatively inaccessible spot?

• Less than 10 percent of all land* is more than 48 hours from the nearest city via ground-based travel (according to the map, created by the European Commission's Joint Research Center and the World Bank).
• Many areas considered remote are not as far off the beaten track as we might think. In the Amazon, river networks and expanding road systems mean only 20 percent of land is more than two days from a city. That's about the same as Quebec province.
• So, where is the most remote spot? It's at an altitude of 5,200 meters on the Tibetan plateau (34.7°N, 85.7°E, to be precise), and is a three-week trip to the cities of Lhasa or Korla — one day by car and 20 on foot.

*Looking at the map above you may notice an arguably remote continent missing — Antarctica. Perhaps because it's already pretty far from "civilization," the mapmakers left that ice-covered land out of their calculations. Barring that entire continent, look for the darkest spots on the map above to find the most inaccessible spots. I've always wanted to go to Greenland.

New Scientist, via uncooped.com

Are the national parks primarily for preserving untouched wilderness, or for preserving the historic human imprint on the land, too?

A November 1st New York Times article examines this question in light of 70-year-old Drakes Bay oyster farm, which has been told by the National Park Service that it cannot renew its permit to farm oysters in a tidal estuary in California's Point Reyes National Seashore. The permit lapses in 2012.

The NPS bought the land from the previous owners in 1962 as part of the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore and gave the owners the right to occupy and use it until 2012. In 1976 Congress designated the tidal bay as “potential wilderness.” The farm's current owner, Kevin Lunny, bought the farm’s lease in 2005 and is arguing and lobbying that the oyster operation is part of the historical working landscape of the area and that the NPS's scientific assertions are exaggerated.

The National Park Service says federal law requires it to return the area to wilderness by eliminating intrusive commercial activity and that oyster farming poses a risk to baby seals and flora in the estuary.

Read the full NYT article, "Debate Flares on Limits of Nature and Commerce in Parks"

Photographer Cindy Goedde's image above, of a young alpha male wolf in Yellowstone howling for his pack after feeding on elk, won the mountain flora/fauna category in the 2009 Banff Mountain Photography Competition. Other winning mountain photographs, including the grand prize winner, can be viewed onlne.

The Banff Centre also has competitions for mountain and adventure books (just announced) and films (festival happening now) and a mountain idol role model initiative. Workshops in adventure film and photography, as well as mountain writing are offered at the centre.

For more info: www.banffcentre.ca

It’s time for your annual hunting season reminder.

First, find your state’s hunting season dates, so you know the exact dates and locations for firearms, archery, and muzzleloader seasons for various game (for example, here are Maine’s dates).

Next, break out the fluorescent orange vests and hats every time you take to the trails, woods, or even camp roads.

Below are a few safety reminders for hiking, backpacking, mountain biking, trail running, or any activity that gets you out in or around the woods this time of year. (I post these every year, but they bear repeating.)

Be Very Visible: Ideally you should wear blaze (fluorescent) orange clothing that can be seen from all sides, like a hat and a vest or jacket. Bright reds and yellows are also good color options (though on overcast days they can appear black, so use carefully). Think bright, even garish. Now’s a great time to go retro with that old hot pink jacket from the ’80s. Make sure your backpack has some bright orange on it too, like a large orange bandanna. Avoid any brown, tan, and especially white. You don’t want to look like the flash of a deer’s tail. And don’t forget to outfit your dog with its own blaze orange vest and collar.

Make Yourself Heard: Usually I opt for quiet on a hike or trail run, but during hunting season I’m far more likely to keep up a steady conversation with a partner, or avoid certain locations altogether. If you’re alone you can whistle or sing to make yourself heard, or consider a bell on you or your dog. Now is not the time to practice your stealth hiking moves.

Be Aware: Hunters are active from early dawn to dusk and in between. While you’re more likely to find hunters closer to any roads or trailheads and in valleys, expect that you can meet them anywhere at any time. Also, while bushwhacking can be a lot of fun, during the weeks of hunting season I stick to marked and maintained trails.

Know the Rules: If possible hike on trails in areas where no hunting is allowed or on days of the week (like Sunday here in Maine) when there’s no hunting. While deer rifle season typically brings the most hunters out into the woods, a variety of hunting seasons can extend the activity year-round. Know the hunting season dates and rules for your state and local areas.

Above all use common sense and do your part to share the woods safely.

If you have suggestions for safe hiking or backpacking during hunting season, please share them below.

“That’s the great thing about cross-country snowboarding. It’s impossible for it to sell out.”

www.adamanddave.com

A 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto has died after being attacked by two coyotes in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow, who went by the stage name Taylor Mitchell, died overnight at the QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax. She had been on tour in the Maritimes.

Mitchell was hiking on the Skyline Trail when she was attacked Tuesday afternoon. She was taken to the hospital in Cheticamp, then airlifted to Halifax in critical condition.

Park officials said Mitchell was walking the trail alone. They said other hikers managed to scare off the coyotes and call 911.

Full story

via Backpacker

Did you know, outdoor time for kids has decreased by more than 50 percent in just a generation, while time spent inside, plugged into electronic media, has stretched to more than six hours per day?

Here are two resources in the growing campaign to get the kids outside:

1) The National Wildlife Federation’s Be Out There campaign encourages families to unplug kids and give them a daily Green Hour, a bit of time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world.

The NWF website also has kid-centered nature info and outdoor activities. Give yourself a daily Green Hour (or two) with the kids while you’re at it. www.greenhour.org and www.nwf.org

2) Outdoor writer and dad Eugene Buchanan has penned Outdoor Offspring. With sections on getting your brood outside to hike, camp, backpack, ski, climb, fish, swim, snorkel, jog, bike, paddle, and more, the book is aimed at saving kids from slouchdom and couchdom, and helping parents continue their outdoor lifestyles.

A portion of book sales will go to the Outdoor Foundation, which grants funds to successful youth outdoor programs. (Trailspace also supports the Outdoor Foundation.) Outdoor Offspring won’t be released until January 2010, but you can read a sample online (PDF) or pre-order now. The sample chapter on snowsports with kids was funny and right on.

outdooroffspring.com

Tired from a hike? Rescuers fear Yuppie 911
Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon - just in case.

In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls.

(from the Associated Press)

The PLB episodes detailed in the article above are cringe-worthy: a woman frightened by a thunderstorm; three, yes three, calls (and subsequent emergency responses) from those Grand Canyon hikers for 1) lack of water, 2) salty-tasting water, and 3) some unknown reason. (Couldn't someone take the PLB away after the first rescue attempt —which the hikers declined — right after handing them a big bill?)

The article says that some rescue officials are starting to keep stats on PLB usage. As a numbers freak, I'd be interested to know, beyond anecdotes, what the effect of PLB usage is on backcountry rescue services. How many and what percentage of PLB owners attempt activities or take risks they wouldn't without that piece of gear in their pack? What are the costs for unnecessary or irresponsible rescues versus situations where PLB's save time and rescue costs?

There are lots of issues here. As one rescuer quoted in the article says, "We are now entering the Twilight Zone of someone else's intentions."

Oh, and I'm left with one additional question: were those Grand Canyon hikers really carrying “bedrolls”?

Via Trailspace member overmywaders

Beware of mountain spirit Pamola — or your own peak’s “der berggeist” — while hiking Maine’s Katahdin.

Starting locally — because all good ghost stories are local — Mainer Stephen King has plenty of horror novels, but for an outdoor fix consider his psychological novella The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. In it a 9-year-old girl gets lost on a family hiking trip on the AT and fears she’s being hunted by “The God of the Lost.”

The presence of a mountain spirit or ghost (der berggeist in German) is longstanding and appears across cultures. In Maine we have Pamola, an Abanaki spirit (half moose, half eagle) who lives on and protects Mount Katahdin. According to the Penobscots, Pamola did not welcome mortals on the mountain and it was taboo to climb the peak. Pamola would cause bad weather—snow, ice, wind, and fog—to confuse those who dared climb its mountain.

Over in New Hampshire, Mount Washington has its own summit presence and ghosts, as well as haunted AMC huts and apparitional hikers, all covered in Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire by Marianne O’Connor. (Also read “Slamming Doors, Cries for Help” in the AMC’s Appalachia, Winter/Spring 2009. The mental image of faces in hut windows freaks me out.)

For a broader scope, Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America’s National Parks was written by former park ranger Andrea Lankford. It has tales of a crying ghost in Yosemite, a 4-year-old from 1891 haunting the AT near Bluff Mountain in Virginia, mischievous “jumby” spirits in the Virgin Islands, and “flying saucer hot spot” Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. (www.hauntedhiker.com)

You don’t have to believe in ghosts or “hard-to-explain” events to have a spooky hike:

Margie Cohen of the American Hiking Society told me the Pinhoti Trail in Alabama is particularly spooky to her. Part of the trail is on a severe ridge in a designated Wilderness Area. Due to the ridge’s hydraulics there have been some small plane crashes, but because it is a designated Wilderness Area (no mechanization), the Forest Service does not remove the crashed planes. “So, while you’re hiking, you can come along a plane wreck that has been there for many years,” said Cohen. “I think that is pretty spooky.”

So, what spooks you on the trail? Share your own spooky hiking or backpacking story here.

I’ve ordered my own copies of the haunted hiking books mentioned above, but will probably stick to reading them while off the trail.

1. New Gear:
We’ve added more than six thousand new backcountry products to the gear guide this fall alone, including ones in the following new categories:

• Knives and multi-tools 
• Portable power
• Bear safety
• First aid kits
• Dog gear

So, let those gear reviews rip and tell your fellow backcountry types how your outdoor gear truly performed. Did it meet or exceed its manufacturer’s promises, or crash and burn?

2. Even More New Gear:
We’re not done though. With 34,146 products in the backcountry gear guide and counting, we’ve got plans to add even more hiking and backpacking gear and new categories to the site. If you want to weigh in and suggest a gear category, please leave us a comment below.

3. RSS Feeds:
Did you know you can subscribe to this blog as an RSS feed? It’s easy and convenient. If you’re already a blog subscriber, did you know there’s also an Articles RSS feed? You can get all Trailspace news and articles — like Hiking and Camping Safely in Bear Country, Outdoor Fuel: New Bars, Chews, and Bites, and the latest profiles — delivered directly as we publish them.

4. Follow Us:
Lastly, this isn’t new, but a reminder that you can become a fan of Trailspace on Facebook. You can also follow us on Twitter for site updates and commentary.

If you have site feedback or suggestions, please leave us a comment below or in the Feedback forum. Thanks for reading and being part of Trailspace!

My grade-school-age son is very interested in stories of science, adventure, and survival. His favorite bedtime book is Allen & Mike’s Really Cool Backcountry Ski Book (we reviewed hypothermia the other night), followed by ones with people exploring mountain summits, volcanoes, outer space, and the depths of the ocean. The last means we have a number of books on the Titanic.

One day he asked me, “what if they did the Titanic trip again?”

“No,” I said. “They wouldn’t do that. The Titanic was a terrible tragedy. No one would want to go on another Titanic trip. It would be creepy and wrong and…” Oh wait. You can now book your berth for the Titanic Memorial Cruise, a “unique cruise that will commemorate the Titanic’s tragic voyage.” It sets sail April 8, 2012, from Southampton.

Shows what I know. (I also thought Dancing with the Stars had to be a spoof the first time I saw an ad.) I wonder how many commemorating Titanic travelers will bring along their own life rafts, jackets, survival gear…

What I find far more troubling is that some companies are able to buy space on blogs and pay for positive coverage. Trailspace readers should know that we have never been paid or in any way compensated for a blog or article on our site (though we’ve had some offers, to which I reply, our blog is not for sale).

Trailspace’s editorial team decides what outdoor subjects and gear we cover on the basis of newsworthiness, potential reader interest and needs, and the time we have to devote. Our editorial and advertising functions remain separate. (I’ve also had disgruntled people threaten not to advertise on the site if I didn’t let them break our forums’ community rules. Too bad, I say.)

Full disclosure: we occasionally get samples of products for gear testing, but it is our policy to always divulge when a product has been provided by the manufacturer for that purpose.

Our mission at Trailspace is to help consumers find the right outdoor gear for them through gear coverage, reviews, and information. I strongly believe that getting greedy for the sake of some extra money or gear would destroy our credibility and trustworthiness, completely undermining that mission. It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot.

So, what makes a source trustworthy (or not) to you? Do you think it’s evident when a source is shilling a product? Tell us below.

Back to the FTC's new guidelines, while the FTC’s intentions sound good, apparently the 81 pages of rules are drawing many, many protests, specifically for being overly broad, inconsistent, confusing, and far more severe to bloggers than traditional print journalists (hey, how about disclosing the entire travel industry?).

I’m going to start reading the guidelines now to see how they might apply.

For more info:

FTC Announcement: FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

FTC Guide (PDF)

Some coverage:

FTC Blogging Rules Draw Online Protests (CBS News)

FTC: Bloggers, testimonials need better disclosure (AOL Money and Finance)

Why the FTC's truth in blogging guidelines are truly terrible (Daily Finance)

I'm very excited to report that we’ve hired Tom Mangan as assistant editor of Trailspace. You may recognize Tom’s name from a series of cottage gear maker profiles he wrote for Trailspace earlier this year. Tom is also the author and publisher of the popular hiking blog Two-Heel Drive, a 20-plus-year journalism veteran, and an avid hiker and backpacker (that’s him above on North Carolina’s Stone Mountain).

As assistant editor he’s in charge of Trailspace’s online gear catalog database and will write and edit outdoor gear guides, comparisons, and reviews (hey, that sounds like a good gig!). Welcome on board, Tom!

Press release

How you spend your day is how you spend your life.

I read that on the sign outside my local bike shop. Then I skipped out, along with a small child, and went for a fall hike.

Get the popcorn ready. Ken Burns's much anticipated The National Parks: America's Best Idea premieres tonight — Sunday, September 27 — at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) on PBS. The 12-hour, six-episode series will run nightly through Friday, October 2.

Directed by Burns and written and co-produced by Dayton Duncan, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, was filmed over the course of more than six years at some of the most spectacular locales — from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska to Mount Rainier (above). It's not only a story of nature, but also of people, rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved.

If you can't watch episodes during PBS's nightly 8-10 p.m. time slot, don't worry. Full episodes of The National Parks: America's Best Idea will be available online beginning September 28, and will remain available online through October 9.

PBS site: The National Parks: America’s Best Idea