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All good advice here. The only thing I would add is that when you are planning for off trail you should reduce your estimated speed by at least half. That's not only because it's harder to hike off trail, it also requires more stopping, looking, and thinking. And I can't count the times I've...

I appreciate all the support from the people here. The fourth book is now released! Granite Gorge gets our hero down into the Mokelumne Canyon, where he has all sorts of adventures, and lives to tell the tale--barely. For what it's worth, my wife says this is the best one yet! Here's the Amazon...

More dry conditions in the Sierra, for the third year in a row. Here's link to our blog post that has the NOAA drought map: https://www.backpackthesierra.com/post/it-s-not-looking-good

Many of you know that I do some volunteer trail work in the Sierra. Since I am retired, I find it's a great way to spend more time in the mountains, do some good for the areas I love, and meet some pretty interesting people as well. And we hit trails that are not heavily used, learn new skills...

The Alpine Trails Association sent us this information about a major new restoration project in the Tahoe Area affected by the 2021 Tamarack Fire. We are posting it here, because it should be of interest to anyone involved in trail work and volunteering in the local wildernesses. It involves...

I'll be presenting three different wine topics at the American Wine Society's National Conference, starting tomorrow: Wines of the Sierra Foothills Wines of the Future Napa Valley College's Wonderful Wine Program But even better, I will be connecting with so many friends and colleagues in...

Just an update from this event last week. About 35 people showed up, bought a dozen books, and three of them signed up for the college's wine club. And everyone wants to do more of these--so we're working on dates for the future. Pretty darn cool.

DO NOT BUY a backpack. Once you do, the joy of shopping around and comparing will disappear....until you decide you need a second backpacker for shorter trips....or maybe for longer trips. :^)_

35 nights, after a night between trail work gigs in Desolation and Mokelumne Wildernesses:

The first day was in Desolation Wilderness, where I hiked to Suzie and Gilmore Lakes, tidying up small amounts of trash, and cleaning up one major campsite construction. BEFORE AFTER It was a perfect fall day: the sun was out, the sky was blue, and the colors were bright. I met...

Cool trip! So did you hike this route, car camp it, or what? You say that you gave up on backpacking....

This one is not on our maps, but we learned about it from an excellent post on High Sierra Topix by BigTubs. And since we had a couple of days free, and we could get a campsite in Hodgdon Meadow, we decided to give it a try. On Thursday we left home for Napa, and the timing was right for...

34 nights, after a quick trip to Yosemite to visit Obata Lake. One night in Hodgdon Meadows, and then up to Tuolumne to hike cross country into a lake i only learned about in the last two weeks. Quite wonderful. The views on the hike in were amazing:

This should be fun. My wine marketing students at Napa Valley College have created an event to launch the new releases of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and I'll be hosting a wine tasting and story-telling session on the wines and my murder mysteries. All proceeds go directly to support the...

This is wild, rugged country. That route over Deadwood Peak, down into the Mokelumne Canyon, and then up Jackson Canyon is a sufferfest even today---and we've been working on some of those trails for a while now. Amazing adventure. Walker did it with horses...

33 Nights, After three more days volunteering in the Mokelumne Wilderness. It's beautiful time of the year!

I spent the last three days doing trail and solitude monitoring in the Mokelumne Wilderness. It is amazing how little you have to hike to get really and truly alone in this area. The first day I hiked into Summit City Canyon from the Evergreen Trailhead at Upper Blue Lake. The place was...

Thank you so much for posting this report. I've often fantasized/planned trips to Baja, but never pulled the trigger. Given that I'm in the wine business, there are contacts down there that would make things easier for me....but your report gives me so much information, and a sense of what it...

While I appreciate all the enthusiasm here for knocking down cairns, I should point out that my original post was based on a USFS trail crew project. We were AUTHORIZED to take those puppies down!

I got a lot of feedback from a recent blog post on my website about trailwork to Lake Margaret. Lots of people wondering why we are taking down cairns. It's pretty simple: they're unnecessary. And part of Leave No Trace is to ...you know...Leave No Trace. I knocked down more than 130 cairns in...