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TrailGroove Blog

A Blog by the TrailGroove Team

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Gear | Trips | Food | Technique | Reading

Entries in this blog

Technique

Trail Tip: Hiking in a Wintry Mix / Rain & Snow

The words “wintry mix” are horrible enough to hear if you’re just commuting to your job, but they’re even more terrible if they’re in the forecast for a backpacking trip. When a wintry mix is predicted, it often means that a backpacker will have to deal with multiple forms of precipitation – rain, sleet, snow, and perhaps even freezing rain – as the temperatures fluctuate from night to day or due to elevation during a trip. What might start off as a miserable cold rain can shift to sleet before
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

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Technique

Winter Hiking Clothing & Backpacking Gear Considerations

Whether you’ve decided to take your first winter trip, or you’re just trying to extend your summer camping in the shoulder months, staying warm during the winter months requires some additional thought when compared to 3-season conditions. Winter and shoulder season adventures are great because areas that are normally very busy in the summer will be empty, and you can experience a new season of adventure. The following is the way I keep warm on my winter adventures in the mountain west, as well
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Technique

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Trips

Going Long: Skiing Around Oregon's Crater Lake

One-by-one we traversed the narrow cut in the cliff, careful to lean to the right in case we slipped – the steep drop-off on our left plunged over a hundred feet to the valley floor. The sun had already set behind the western Cascades, painting the sky a burning red but leaving our trail in rapidly increasing darkness. That we were struggling to remain upright on our cross-country skis on even the slightest descent made each step even more nerve-racking. By the time we traversed the top of the c
mgraw

mgraw in Trips

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Technique

Backcountry Nordic Skiing: An Introductory Guide

It is a cold, blustery day in the Colorado backcountry. The mountains are covered in a blanket of snow. The tree branches are bending under the weight of the previous night’s snowfall. A canopy of branches is over the trail. My breath forms a cloud in the morning air. My cheeks are cold. I do not dread heading into the mountains in these conditions. I embrace them. I am about to explore the backcountry. Not plodding through the snow in boots. Or stomping down a path with snowshoes. I plan on gli
PaulMags

PaulMags in Technique

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Technique

How to Make a Quick & Easy Backcountry Snow Shelter

When hiking and backpacking in the winter, having the knowledge and preparation to easily build a snow shelter is an essential skill. Some people even prefer snow shelters over tents during the winter because they are quieter and warmer than even the best 4 season tents on the market, which can be very pricey too. Even for people that do not plan on spending any overnights in the backcountry during the winter, knowing how to quickly construct a solid snow shelter is a good skill to have in case
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Technique

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Technique

Winter Hiking & Backpacking: Keeping Water from Freezing

When temperatures never rise above freezing on a winter backpacking trip, or even for day hiking in very cold conditions your tried and true 3-season methods of carrying water may not offer the best approach. In this trail tip, we’ll take a quick look at different containers that will give you an advantage when it gets cold, as well as some other tips to keep your water in a liquid state. Storing water bottles upside down is one trick that is helpful when it comes to winter water stor
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Gear

Best Backpacking Tents by Application and Budget

As one of the most important decisions you can make when it comes to backpacking gear, your choice of a backpacking tent can have quite the impact in regards to your comfort in camp and protection from the elements. Additionally, choosing the best backpacking tent can also have an impact when it comes to weight carried on the trail (as one of, if not the heaviest items in your pack), and a tent decision can have quite the impact on your wallet, as well. With many factors to consider,
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Gear

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Food

Pad Thai Noodles with Jerky & Avocado Backpacking Recipe

This is a great meal in the shoulder-seasons as it warms you up and the citrus from the lime offers fresh flavors and really enhances what might otherwise be a fairly mundane dish. Clean up is easy, too, as you only need one pot for this dish. This has become one of my preferred dishes for dry camps since the water required is minimal compared to most pasta or rice meals or freeze-dried dinners. It also offers options for tailoring it to your tastes, since the type of jerky you use can change th
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Food

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Trips

Hiking the Fiery Gizzard Trail of the Cumberland Plateau

Just the name Fiery Gizzard sounds like an adventure doesn’t it? The Cumberland Plateau is known for spectacular waterfalls, spring wildflowers, and panoramic views overlooking wild gorges extending for miles in the distance. The Fiery Gizzard Trail has a little bit of everything for the hiker or backpacker looking for a true wilderness experience any time of year. The official name of Fiery Gizzard is the Grundy Forest State Natural Area which is part of the South Cumberland State Park complex
DustyD

DustyD in Trips

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Food

Spicy Thai Noodles with Peanut Sauce Backpacking Recipe

This high energy quick prep meal loaded with protein makes spicy Thai noodles with peanut sauce a good choice for dinner at the end of a long day of hiking. There’s very little advance prep for this recipe that uses a simple sauce of just three ingredients, but still has the feel of a home cooked meal. Spicy Thai noodles can be made at a fraction of the cost of similar commercially freeze dried meals and is a much tastier option. This meal can either be made backpacker style, or for s
Karen Garmire

Karen Garmire in Food

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Trips

New Heights: Hiking the Guadalupe Mountains of Texas

Conquering each state’s high point could take a lifetime and, unfortunately, I didn’t start peak bagging soon enough to expect to claim all fifty. But I’ve acquired a small handful – that of my home state of Oklahoma (Black Mesa, 4,973 feet of elevation) and neighboring states Arkansas (Mount Magazine, 2,753 feet) and New Mexico (Wheeler Peak, 13,167 feet). Being right next door, Texas was a logical next step. Texas being Texas, however, it’s a very long drive from central Oklahoma to
Susan Dragoo

Susan Dragoo in Trips

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Food

Creamy Beef and Mushroom Soup Backpacking Recipe

This is one of my favorite recipes. I love everything about this soup from the easy five minute home prep to the uniquely satisfying earthy aroma of mushrooms simmering in a rich broth at the end of a perfect day in the woods. Ingredients are easy to find in any supermarket. Dried mushrooms are sold in one ounce packages, typically in the produce section or readily available online. Beef broth powder (or beef soup mix), found in the bulk food section, combines with whole milk powder (Nido m
Karen Garmire

Karen Garmire in Food

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Trips

Backpacking the Grandview Loop in the Grand Canyon

With age comes wisdom, or so goes the old adage. But, as any observer of the world can plainly see, that’s not always true. With age certainly comes knowledge, but whether that knowledge is converted to the making of wise decisions is, so to speak, a crap shoot. Hiking in the Grand Canyon offers an excellent example. First of all, it’s challenging business. For us to successfully descend to the bottom and return to the rim in good health, we would have to gain adequate knowledge but we'd al
Susan Dragoo

Susan Dragoo in Trips

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Trips

Wild and Alone: Backpacking the Ventana Wilderness

The Ventana is a designated wilderness just inland from the resort area of Big Sur on the central coast of California. The Ventana Wilderness covers a total area of 375 square miles. For comparison, it is about the size of New York City or one of the smaller Hawaiian Islands. The wild, rugged terrain is in stark contrast with the surroundings, which include nearby major highways and several medium sized cities. And the Ventana becomes wilder every year. I’m sure the Native Americans w
George Graybill

George Graybill in Trips

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Food

Curried Chicken Ramen Noodles Backpacking Recipe

For cold weather backpacking, nothing hits the spot quite like a soup. The broth heats up a person from the inside and is welcoming. And if the dish is on the spicy side? Even a little more heat to warm those winter or even early spring nights. Here is a meal that is quick to make, fills the belly and has a bit of heat to keep a person warm during cool weather backpacking trips. This recipe takes ramen noodles to the next level, and especially hits the spot on cold weather backpacking
PaulMags

PaulMags in Food

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Food

Ramen Curry Chicken Stew Backpacking Recipe

Ramen noodles. The fifty-cent a pack wonder found in the grocery store aisle in every college town, seemingly in every office vending machine for those corporate workers who work late into the late hours while in a beige box, and found in gargantuan packages the local megamart. Ramen noodles are cheap, filling, and quick to cook. And ramen noodles are many backpackers’ “got to” meal for something that fills the stomach, if not overly tasty, when out far into the backcountry. But here’
PaulMags

PaulMags in Food

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Trips

Hiking Marble Canyon in Death Valley National Park

I once saw a postcard in an Eastern California gas station showcasing a photo of an impressive blue slot canyon. The earth in the photo looked barren, bleak, and chalky. The rock looked smooth as if carved by water long ago. Clearly no water remained in this place so dry and desolate, and the landscape looked distinctly like it belonged to the unique ranges within Death Valley National Park. The mysterious blue rock was known as Marble Canyon, and I decided the weekend after I had bought a new c
michaelswanbeck

michaelswanbeck in Trips

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Trips

Backpacking & Hiking Grand Canyon's East Tonto Trail

A cheerful pumpkin sun peeks over the Coconino Plateau at dawn. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and the air is frosty as dad and I join a gaggle of backpackers, clad in billowy down jackets evincing a cornucopia of startling colors, lining up outside Grand Canyon Village’s backcountry information center. It turns out the park’s Phantom Ranch and Indian Garden campgrounds are as jam-packed as pilgrims on the Mayflower which renders my hoped-for rim to rim route unfeasible. A bearded ranger suggests we
Daniel Anderson Jr

Daniel Anderson Jr in Trips

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Gear

Sea to Summit eVent Evac Compression Dry Bag Review

Tents, sleeping bags, and backpacks are the primary pieces of gear that tend to preoccupy backpackers. This focus is certainly appropriate, as these pieces of equipment can certainly make or break a trip if they don’t perform as needed or fit properly. I spent an inordinate amount of time researching these items when I first got into backpacking and thought of many of the “accessories”, such as stuff sacks, were simply gimmicky add-ons that I could postpone purchasing or forego altogether. This
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Gear

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Trips

Backpacking Royal Basin in Olympic National Park

I stood, breathless and exhausted, on the top of the divide, looking down at the pristine and untrailed cirque that lay ahead. My route bared before me, for a moment continuing on across the three passes that lay ahead seemed achievable. Then my eyes lifted to the glaciated massif of 7,600-foot Mount Mystery on the opposite wall of the basin, and my shaking legs sent an unmistakable message: I would make it no further. Olympic National Park offers hikers rugged terrain and stunning vi
mgraw

mgraw in Trips

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Trips

Backpacking the Noble Canyon Trail, Southern California

Distance mode. Proximity mode. Red light night vision mode. At 90 lumens, my new Black Diamond Spot headlamp is the newest addition to my backpacking kit in ages. For the second or third time on today’s maiden voyage hike, I unsheathe the Spot from my Gregory Z65’s brain pouch, cradle it in my fingers, and imagine how its endless wonderful qualities will make every trip better. The blood red bezel’s sharp lines attach to a diagonally-shaded retro headband conjuring the aura of Optimus Prime.
Daniel Anderson Jr

Daniel Anderson Jr in Trips

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Trips

Desert Bliss: Hiking Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

I sit alone along a flat gravel ridgeline somewhere in the Sonoran Desert’s Ajo Mountains. There are no winter clouds, no moon, and a spellbinding cacophony of tinsel stars is visible above the din of chirping, cheeping crickets. Suddenly, the distinctive roar of fighter jet engines joins the caroling chorus, aircraft whose red blinking LEDs trace somersault motions in the sky like a berserk Rudolph piloting Santa’s sleigh. A string of yellow puffs, bright as Christmas lights, trail the planes b
Daniel Anderson Jr

Daniel Anderson Jr in Trips

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Trips

Guadalupe Mountains National Park Hiking & Backpacking

Along the edge of an ancient sea, a reef formed. The water was an inland sea, connected to the rest of the earth’s oceans by a narrow channel. The reef grew and grew until it stretched around the horseshoe-shaped shoreline of the sea for a length of over 400 miles, towering high above the ocean floor, similar to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. This 250-million year old reef is known as The Capitan Reef. It was a tropical ocean, teeming with life – sponges, algae, and other lim
Steve Ancik

Steve Ancik in Trips

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Food

Mountain House Chicken Fajita Bowl Review

Towards the end of any backpacking trip and after a few days of freeze-dried and shelf-stable meals with quite limited fresh food if any at all thrown in, the post-trip meal is something we all start to look forward to. For me, a burger, pizza, and Mexican food typically make up my top 3 choices. While I still haven’t found that suitable freeze-dried substitute when it comes to the pizza or burgers, Mountain House has a couple choices in the other category that allow you to get your fix not at a
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Food

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Trips

Hiking Chilnualna Falls & Beyond: Yosemite National Park

Tromping to the beat of my trekking poles’ clickety-clack against trailside stones, I notice perched on a low boulder ten feet away a yellow-bellied marmot, slothful and only superficially interested in the approach of my dad and I. Nozzle pointed heavenward, sniffing our advance, the marmot scuttles under his rock as we pass, unhurried, only to reemerge as soon as we hike several paces beyond. Looks like a giant hamster coated in grizzled cinnamon with a gold spackle gut. I snap a picture.
Daniel Anderson Jr

Daniel Anderson Jr in Trips

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