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TrailGroove Blog

A Blog by the TrailGroove Team

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  • Aaron Zagrodnick 238
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Gear | Trips | Food | Technique | Reading

Entries in this blog

Technique

Anatomy of a Mountain: Backpacking and Hiking Jargon

Mountains rarely conform to the version a child might draw of a simple inverted cone. Instead, they often sprawl in many directions and are rumpled with lumps and divots, like an unmade bed. The very highest of the lumps is the summit, which may be part of the humped or domed mass of mountain, or it may rest at the tip of a sharp point, in which case it's also a peak. A single mountain may have multiple peaks, but only one summit. From summits to spurs and buttresses, a mountain is ma
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

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Technique

Hiking Blister Prevention, Treatment, and Care

Blisters are a very common hiking injury. Blisters can cause a trip to become very uncomfortable, and in worse case scenarios they can slow you down significantly causing unintended consequences. I find a small first aid kit with a few specific items and some practice will eliminate most foot issues, and will quickly alleviate small problems before the blisters and related problems get big. Preventing blisters from happening is the first step when it comes to backpacking and hiking bl
tmountainnut

tmountainnut in Technique

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Technique

Becoming a Trail Naturalist: Hiking & Observing Nature

When I first started hiking, I knew the names of only a few wild denizens of the forest: ponderosa pine, gray jay, Colorado columbine. Over the years, as I learned to identify more trees, birds, and wildflowers, I also began to see more. As I hiked down a trail, greeting familiar plants like old friends, I realized they grew among a leafy ground cover whose name I did not know. I became more attuned to small movements that drew my attention to an insect, bird, or mammal. I noticed the
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

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Technique

How to Photograph the Slot Canyons of the Southwest

Imagine hiking through a dark and narrow slot canyon. So narrow that you’re moving sideways as your chest and shoulder blades are touching the canyon walls as you go. Just around the corner you can see a glow that looks like molten lava pouring down the wall. That’s what the slot canyons of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona can offer. Slot canyons provide some unique hiking challenges and extraordinary beauty as other worldly landscapes unfold right before your eyes. The wild colors, textures a
DustyD

DustyD in Technique

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Technique

How to Pack Food for a Backpacking Trip

Food for any backpacking trip is all about balance: a balance of meals that are lightweight yet still offer a sufficient amount of calories and nutrition, food that will likely not be of the fresh variety but will still bring flavor to the table, and finding that delicate balance between bringing enough food without bringing too much. Once you get the balances right however, planning out food for a multiday backpacking trip can be a simple process while still keeping us well fed and in good spir
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking Jargon: PPPPD Definition & Food Calculation

Pounds per person per day (PPPPD) is an acronym used when determining how much food to pack on multi-day backpacking trips. By utilizing a digital scale and packing calorie-dense foods, after a little practice one can simply multiply their personal PPPPD by the number of days a trip will last, while also of course ensuring that requirements for each meal of the day are met. Usually after assembling food for a trip and weighing the lot, the PPPPD number helps save weight in your pack by making su
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking & Hiking Jargon: Topographic Map Scale

On every decent map, a map scale should be provided near the legend. Map scale can be used to determine the level of detail a map will possess and is expressed as a fraction formula, such as 1:100,000. What this means is that every 1 unit (inch, foot, etc.) is representative of 100,000 of the same unit on the ground. For example, 1 inch in this case is representative of 100,000 inches in real life. Map scale can get a bit confusing. A small scale map will have a larger fraction and a large scale
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

How to Keep Your Backpacking Sleeping Pad in Place

No matter the lengths we may go to in order to find a great campsite, when it comes to the flat and level part of the selection process I can think of only a few occasions when a chosen spot for the night was truly perfect in this regard. Most of the time in the backcountry, instead of finding a spot that is perfectly flat and level, you’ll likely end up finding one that’s flat and level enough. When you combine these types of sites with a slippery tent floor and especially when combined with sl
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Postholing (Snow)

One of the least enjoyable methods of snow travel, postholing is the usually unplanned effect of your foot falling through the outer surface of the snow and sinking to the knee or farther. The result is a deep hole in the snow as if it had been dug by a posthole digger prior to placing a post in the ground. Travel in this manner is quite difficult, requiring large amounts of energy while testing a hiker’s patience. Postholing in deep snow makes for difficult and strenuous travel.
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking & Hiking with Dogs: A Getting Started Guide

Backpacking can be a challenging endeavor in itself – at times in our effort to get back to basics and simplify life by hitting the trail we find ourselves poring over gear checklists, rushing to make the trailhead at a decent hour, or planning trips that just push the mileage a bit too far. With all this in mind, adding another component to the equation might not be the best idea. But once you find your rhythm, adding man’s best friend can be a great addition to any trip – and there aren’t many
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking Jargon: Lapse Rate, Temperature, & Altitude

Lapse rate can be used to describe several atmospheric variables, but for hikers lapse rate is generally observed as the tendency for temperature to predictably fall with altitude. In general, backpackers and hikers can expect a temperature decrease / lapse rate of several degrees Fahrenheit for every 1000 feet of elevation gain. Lapse rate occurs in concert with and due to the lower air pressure found at altitude. When planning a mountain trip, lapse rate is important to consider so that you ca
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking Luxury Items: 8 Lightweight & Favorite Items

Every backpacker should have a slightly miserable trek just once in their life. Nothing extreme – just one with a bit of good-old fashioned discomfort. Maybe a rock under a sleeping bag, or a slightly damp boot during a section of a hike – it’s during those moments of less than easy explorations that the true value of the little amenities becomes evident, and much more appreciated. The small bits taken for granted on daily basis are sincerely cherished on the trail. That being said, there is no
Claire Murdough

Claire Murdough in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Terrain Association

Terrain association is a backcountry navigation process by which one can navigate and determine their position using a map, by evaluating terrain features seen on the map, and matching up what you’re seeing in the field to the map. The method when used alone can be described as “approximately precise”. By orienting yourself and the map to a specific direction – north for example – that jagged peak directly to the west, the river in the valley below, combined with the small hill on your right for
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Mountain Pass Terminology: Backpacking & Hiking Jargon

Humans have long sought routes through mountains for travel, trade, and warfare. Archaeologists recently unearthed evidence that suggests that in 218 B.C., Hannibal and his army crossed the Alps at a pass now called Col de Traversette. While we're less likely to travel with 30,000 soldiers, 37 elephants, and 15,000 horses and mules these days, we still seek low spots when moving through mountains. Mountain Pass in the Rockies Passes and Saddles In simplest terms, a pass is t
AndreaL

AndreaL in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking & Hiking Trail Tip: Navigation by Elevation

While wilderness navigation is comprised of many techniques that could range from terrain association to triangulation to utilizing a GPS enabled device, normally navigation will involve multiple techniques that when used together, help us keep track of our current location throughout the day and keep us on track as we move towards our backcountry destination of choice. One technique that can be utilized and that’s especially helpful in mountainous terrain is adding altitude into the equation. B
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Trail Tip: Biking Access Roads & Self-Shuttle by Bicycle

Roads that lead to trailheads, particularly in the West, can vary greatly in their suitability for passenger vehicles. Some roads are passable by sedans with minimal clearance, while others are more suited for 4WD and high-clearance. Many fall somewhere in between – a carefully driven car can make it, but a small SUV would make the experience less nerve-wracking. Information about road conditions can usually be found online, in guidebooks or by calling a nearby ranger station and can
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Mud Season

Spring comes slowly to the high country of the Rockies and other mountain ranges in the western United States. As the days get longer and temperatures rise, summer backpacking season seems tantalizingly close. But between the snow melting and the summer wildflowers blooming is a period of time colloquially referred to as "mud season". Depending on elevation and latitude, mud season might last from mid-March to late May, give or take a few weeks. With snow melting and spring rains mixed in, many
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Ice Out and Ice In

For hikers in mountainous and / or northern areas, and especially for hikers that also bring along a fishing rod on their trips, there are two milestones that fairly reliably mark the start and end of the summer and fall seasons. Ice out is when lakes are free of winter ice and ice in is when they freeze over again. Ice in and ice out dates vary regionally, and in mountainous areas there are also significant variations even within the same range. Elevation and aspect are the biggest c
Mark Wetherington

Mark Wetherington in Technique

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Technique

Tips for Photographing Mushrooms: The Flowers of Fall

Mushrooms are the flowers of fall, and photographing them may look easy but it’s not. Here are a few helpful tips to use when photographing them. First, you’ll want to correctly identify the mushrooms you shoot, so pick up a good mushroom book to help with identification. My favorite book on fungi is Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora. I also recommend his mushroom field-pocket guide. When I photograph mushrooms, I often begin with a document photograph. This helps me identify the m
David Cobb

David Cobb in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking & Hiking Jargon: Contour Interval (Mapping)

On a topographic map, the contour interval is the physical elevation difference between each contour line, usually expressed in feet or meters. The smaller the contour interval, the more accurately landscape features and any elevation changes will be represented. Understanding contour lines and the interval when performing map and compass navigation are key skills to have, and especially useful for offtrail travel, though be aware that micro features are not always well reflected – a slope that
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Compass Declination

Declination refers to magnetic declination – the difference between true north and magnetic north. This poses a conundrum when navigating and utilizing maps, as maps are oriented to true north, but your compass needle points to magnetic north. This difference between true north and magnetic north will be listed on any decent map and can be looked up online. Magnetic declination will vary by location, and many compasses allow you to adjust for the exact declination of an area to make n
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Weather Inversion

In mountainous areas most live in the valleys and often hike in the mountains – normally a colder environment as you gain elevation. However in winter, often a surface temperature inversion will form in these areas as cold air, in contrast to the norm of temperature decreasing several degrees for every 1000 feet gained, remains trapped in the valleys, and often along with the any air pollution that may exist. Inversions are likely to happen during periods with long winter nights, calm
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Snow Water Equivalent (SWE): Hiking & Backpacking Jargon

Snow Water Equivalent is a measurement used to determine the total amount of water mass contained within the snowpack of a specific geographical area, usually expressed in inches of water (if the entire snowpack were to melt, this would in turn = X inches of water). SWE is a particularly useful way to measure potential spring and early summer runoff as well as a good way to predict year to year when trails will start to become free of snow. Since snow and snowpack contains a substanti
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Down Fill Power (FP)

Fill Power is a grading system for goose / duck down. Often abbreviated as FP. Higher fill power will add more loft and warmth to an outdoor garment or sleeping bag at the same given amount of weight. Measured using a cubic inch per oz system. 500 fill power down will fill 500 cubic inches of space per ounce used. 900 will fill 900 cubic inches of space per ounce. A high fill power down cluster. What Fill Power is Best? It all depends on the application. For use off the trai
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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Technique

Backpacking and Hiking Jargon: Navigation Handrail

When navigating in the backcountry and especially when navigating offtrail, a handrail refers to a feature you can follow towards your intended destination while maintaining accurate knowledge of your location, at least along one axis. Examples of handrails include rivers and streams (the most classic example), a fence or power line, a specific altitude in mountainous terrain, the shoreline of a large body of water, a linear canyon, or even other man-made features such as roads. Combi
Aaron Zagrodnick

Aaron Zagrodnick in Technique

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