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TrailGroove Blog

A Blog by the TrailGroove Team

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Entries in this blog

Trips

Hiking the West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island

As my son and I took the mandatory trail class by Parks Canada we were warned of many things that one might encounter. Along the shore there were the tides that can block beach routes and river crossings, fast changing surge channels that were responsible for the only death documented on the trail, and the remote possibility of a tsunami. Along the West Coast Trail, time and logistics turns more by a maritime clock, whether by tide or ferry. The trail itself owes its creation to the sea, in
JimG

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Trips

Hiking Wolverine Canyon in the Grand Staircase-Escalante

As I approach a place as remote as Grand Staircase-Escalante in the middle of a hot summer I know I'm not going to find something tangible that I require to continue existing. I will, however, encounter some things that I want. Beauty, solitude, adventure. Maybe I'll find inspiration. Challenge. Do I need any of those things? Perhaps not, but what a dull existence it would be without all of them. My use of the word remote is not an exaggeration. This is a remote place, in a remote section of a s
SparbaniePhoto

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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

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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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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Trips

Magnificent Solitude: Hiking in Big Bend National Park

Big Bend National Park – the key word here is Big – so big, in fact, that the park is home to thousands of species of plants, animals, and insects, and is so large that it contains an entire mountain range! The park is also quite a ways away from major cities, being in far southwestern Texas up against the Rio Grande River and just across from Mexico, allowing it to be a dark sky location. The Chisos Mountains dominate the center of the park, with the high point being Emory Peak at 7,
Steve Ancik

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Trips

The Great Divide Trail: Thru-Hiking the Canadian Rockies

The Great Divide Trail in the Canadian Rockies is the stuff dreams are made of. Remote grand mountainous wilderness, picturesque scenery, a level of solitude that’s rare to find these days, and that hint of anticipation and suspense that comes with hiking through grizzly country. There is definitely an intimidation factor that comes with hiking in the lesser traveled Canadian Rockies, but the secret is out, and the GDT is gradually becoming one of the most destined thru-hikes in the world.
Wired

Wired in Trips

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Trips

Hiking & Backpacking the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

For backpackers seeking an immersive wilderness experience in uncrowded and ruggedly beautiful country, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness is a perfect destination. Located along the Montana and Idaho border, this 1.3 million acre wilderness is one of the original wilderness areas designated in the 1964 Wilderness Act and is the third-largest wilderness area in the Lower 48. Hundreds of miles of trails provide access to lakes, peaks, lookouts, enchanting forests, and wild rivers and streams.
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Trips

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Trips

Day Hiking in Chiricahua National Monument

My neck starts to ping. Craning upwards, gawking at a voodoo skyline of contorting rhyolite pillars, I intake neon moss splattered columns, pinnacles and balanced rocks rising vertically thirty feet overhead. Parallel rows of washboard ripples climb the volcanic gray façades, offering weather-beaten toeholds like primordial ladders to heaven. Giant eroded stone walls conjure fantastic shapes. Canoodling lovers. The hull of a wrecked pirate ship. Baymax from Disney’s Big Hero 6. The landscape is
Daniel Anderson Jr

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Trips

Hiking the CDT in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness

We had a nagging feeling over 500 miles into what we called our “open ended section hike” of the CDT – a non-commitment to hike as much of the trail as we wanted to. Rachel and I both wanted to push our boundaries and hike more off-trail routes and if you were lucky vaguely described on Jonathan Ley’s unofficial Continental Divide Trail (CDT) maps. Almost all of our experience was on trail but we wanted more of an adventure off the beaten path so to speak. On our first attempt at the southern ed
HikerBox

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Trips

Hiking the Beaten Path: Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness

The drive into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is one of many layers. Like the layers of the range itself, you must first go through the first layer: in this case the grasslands and rolling hills of Interstate 90, then continue chipping your way up the foothills and hope you make the correct turn. Unraveling further, you pass through farmland where finally, you bounce down a dirt road dodging potholes and prairie dogs while beginning to see the landscape change from rolling hills to forested s
jansenjournals

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Trips

Backpacking in Yellowstone: The Cascade Corner

Waterfalls were perhaps the first natural landform that truly fascinated me. There was something about the phenomenon of water travelling so fast, so abruptly, and so seemingly endlessly that captured my attention in a profound way. I remember being amazed by them as a child during camping trips with my parents, with Cumberland Falls in Kentucky and Fall Creek Falls in Tennessee being the ones that made the biggest impression. As a young adult, I sought out waterfalls specifically during the bac
Mark Wetherington

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Trips

An Ancient Canyon: Hiking in Bandelier National Monument

Birdsong filled the canyon as we stepped into the cool of the morning. By arriving at dawn, my sister, Carol Harper, and I were beating both the crowds and the heat of the late July day, the former objective intensified by our recent escape from the summer hordes at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. A stop at Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico presented an appealing alternative on the way home to Oklahoma. Not exactly on the way, but close enough. Adolph F.
Susan Dragoo

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Trips

Shelter on a Summit: Backpacking to Fire Lookouts

As a destination for hikers, summits are understandable at an instinctual level. Grand vistas, an imitable top of the world feeling, and a sense of accomplishment that can last for an afternoon or a lifetime are so appealing that it is often hard to resist the allure of bagging a peak. Whether on maintained trails, cross-country bootpaths, or technical rock climbing routes, there are ways to reach the tops of thousands of peaks on our public lands. While the memories of topping out on a remote h
Mark Wetherington

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Trips

Sierra Serenity: Hiking the Theodore Solomons Trail

You’ve no doubt heard of the John Muir Trail, justly known as one of America’s premier hiking trails. Perhaps you have even hiked it (if not, put it at the top of your hiking bucket list). But the JMT is not the only long trail through the heart of the Sierra Nevada. Just 10 miles to its west, the Theodore Solomons Trail parallels the JMT. Starting at Horseshoe Meadows south of Mt. Whitney, it bears west over the Kern drainage, turns north to Mineral King, then keeps to the west sides of Sequoia
HappyHour

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Trips

Ascending and Descending: Hiking the Wonderland Trail

Mt Rainier straddles the Cascade crest with a dry continental climate to the east and the luxuriant moisture of the Pacific Ocean to the west. The mountain’s geographical positioning coupled with its 14,410 ft elevation and 35 square miles of permanent ice and snow cover creates its own weather. The Wonderland trail is a 93 mile (150 km) circular loop trail around the mountain that traverses all drainages resulting in 22,000 feet of net elevation gain. Many seek the Wonderland Trail o
JimG

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Trips

Backpacking the Selway River Trail: A Hike from Paradise

Most backpacking trips enter a figurative “Paradise” at some point or another. It could be an exquisite sunset, a perfect campsite, or time spent mesmerized by a waterfall. My trip along the Selway River Trail with my stalwart backpacking companion Justin had the amusing distinction of actually beginning at a Paradise. The Paradise boat launch and trailhead in the Bitterroot National Forest in a remote corner of Idaho, to be exact. From here we would follow the Selway River downstream
Mark Wetherington

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