We're All Screwed

Whoever writes Steap and Cheap's Daily Dose is a genius. Today's email:

A guy I met said that he was looking through some photos he'd shot during a long solo hiking trip when he got back home, and he found a photo of himself sleeping peacefully in his tent from the middle of his trip. Either he has a camera remote or wolves have developed opposable thumbs and we're all screwed. The story creeped me out at first, but now it just seems funny that someone would go through a guy's pack while he's asleep, take a picture of him with his own camera, and then put the camera back. This kind of behavior is something I will definitely engage in if ever given a chance.

Tearjerker..MP3: Willie Nelson - Can I Sleep In Your Arms?

Super 8 Boy Scouts

"Boy Scout Troop 506 went to summer camp for a week on Catalina Island. This week was one of the highlights of 1977. We earned merit badges, swam, and jumped off a rock into the ocean. We took the Catalina Island ferry from San Pedro. Then hiked from Isthmus Cove north to the camp." Here"July 1976 Boy Scout Troop 506 (La Jolla California) week-long backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada. Hike originated in Mineral King, to Sawtooth Pass over the Great Western Divide, into the basin of Big Five Lakes, Little Five Lakes, and back west to Columbine Lake, returning to our starting point. The adult leaders are Paul Vellum and Mr. John Gilliland. I was age 12 when I shot this 11-1/2 minute Super 8 film." Here"I don't really remember this particular trip. But since I filmed it I must have been there. Each year during a holiday weekend in February, it has been and continues to be the tradition for Boy Scout Troop 506 (La Jolla, California) to canoe a 15 to 30 mile reach of the lower Colorado River. Some years the trip is Black Canyon-Lake Mohave. Other years it's Park Moabi-Topoc Gorge-Lake Havasu, and in the 1970s, it was usually Walter's Camp-Picacho-Fisher's Landing, a favorite of the late Sid Lubin, Scoutmaster of Troop 506 in the 1970s." HereMP3: Willie Nelson - Devil In A Sleeping BagMP3: Tom Petty - Anything That's Rock N Roll

Wiley Shelter

If you take the Metro North towards Wassaic on the weekend, it'll drop you off at a little bench in the woods so you can go camping. But you know that.If you leave the bench and go west on the Appalachian Trail, you'll hit the Telephone Pioneers shelter in about 4 miles. If you go east, you'll hit the Wiley Shelter in about 6. There are lean-tos past both of these, but these are the closest places to lay your head after you get off that big gray speeding bullet.If you decide to hike towards the Wiley Shelter, you'll go through twenty minutes of a cattle farm until you reach the thin forest. If you happen to be wearing your Mets hat, be sure not to pull any Mitch and Norman type escapades. And keep your eye out for wild turkeys. From there, follow the white blaze for about 5.5 miles until you come across Wiley. Tons of places to set up a tent, a well with freezing cold water, and the faint sound of the Metro North's horn make it a hell of an overnight. Especially during this time of year when you can remember what it feels like to actually need a fire.MP3: Creedence Clearwater Revival - Long As I Can See The Light

You guys want to take a try at finding a grizzly?

Jim, Bryan and I woke up early after our first night camping in the Tetons so we could get an early start to get to our second campsite, which was about 15 miles away, a lot for us at the time. Our out-of-shapeness had hit new lows.We got there early in the afternoon and had the two backcountry tent sites all to ourselves. It's a damn good feeling to get to your campsite and realize that you have it to yourself, but it's stressful as hell waiting around to find out if it'll stay that way. It didn't. A couple in their late 20s hiked in around 5pm, put up their tents, and immediately started looking over the ridge that had occupied our attention from the minute we had finished putting our food in the bear box. After a few minutes, the couple started walking towards us, binoculars in hands."You guys want to take a try at finding a grizzly? We're not very good at this and, fuck, do we want to see one.""Sure." I grabbed the binoculars and to my surprise, found a family of grizzly bears after 30 seconds of looking. No clue how. I'm bad at nearly everything I do and finding a bear off in a distance field is not one of my specialties. Or so I thought.We all laid down in the grass until the sun went down and watched a grizzly bear and her cubs prance around a field for an hour. When they were finally out of site, a moose came along, like we had just changed the channel on the show we were watching. We shoved alcohol down our throats and our new friends went to bed early, leaving us for dead. A black bear came into our campsite that night. I don't care what you say about black bears bla bla, if you're in the middle of the Tetons and there's a bear at your campsite, that is shit inducing scary. Call me whatever you want, I was scared. Frozen. I was hugging my roommate. We don't talk about that embrace anymore.We woke up the next morning, and much to our dismay, our new friends had left, and we never got to have that next day "HOLY SHIT, REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!" fest. Didn't even get to say goodbye and, more importantly, didn't get to tell them about the bear at our campsite.Two weeks later, on a flight to Omaha, at DIA, I saw my two friends on the plane. They were 14A and 14B. I was 14C.I had the time of my life.MP3: The Gaturs - Cold Bear

That 70s Guy

As you probably already noticed, we post a lot of pictures from the 70s and 80s on this website thing we got going. It wasn't until this morning, while coming across a wonderful picture of this dude camping, that I remembered a mildly funny podcast from Outside's Eric Hansen where he decides to turn back the clock and dress the part of a 70s outdoor enthusiast. It's worth taking a listen.From the podcast:"The stars and stripes are flying proudly thanks to my super bitchin' American flag backpack. 'Looooking good,' I say to myself. And it's true. I am the avatar of the bicentennial outdoors, embodiment of all that is joyous and unbridled."Telly Tom's amazing photosMP3: Cactus - Parchman FarmRock.

Appalachian Trail

If you live in New York City, one of the best things you can do on a weekend is hike some of the Appalachian Trail. Get on the Harlem line of the Metro North and take the train to the Appalachian Trail stop. When you get off, start walking west  through a long swampy boardwalk of nine foot high cattails, wildflowers, and dragonflies. You'll wind through some woods and then find yourself in an open field that cuts across the side of a local farm. It's a breathtaking 1862 looking stretch that you should take real slow as there's a road you're about to cross in just under a mile. After you cross that road, continue on for about a quarter mile and drop your stuff off at Telephone Pioneer Shelter, one of the many AP lean-tos. Drink some water and go another three miles in the woods past long stone walls on the white blaze to Nuclear Lake. Take a right at the lake's loop and lay down in the huge green open field and jump in and swim for the rest of the afternoon. The lake gets its name from a nuclear testing site that used to be there in the late 70s. The plant had a little explosion that leaked into the lake but it was cleaned up and is now safe to enjoy. And enjoy it you will. When you're done swimming, hike three miles back and stop at Cat's Rock to watch the sun go down over the farm that you hiked across just a few hours previous.If you're traveling around June and July, most likely you'll have some Appalachian Trail thru-hikers to share your campfire with and provide the evening's storytelling. Pack some extra food for them. They love quesadillas and Twizzlers.I wish I could use a few more adjectives and paint a better picture of how monumentally beautiful this stretch of Appalachian trail is, but right now I think I'll leave it to the very poorly developed pictures that are linked above.MP3: Fleetwood Mac - Save Me A PlaceMP3: Grateful Dead - Ramble On Rose

Peter Parnall

Peter Parnall has illustrated a lot of children's book over the years, most notably for the stories of Byrd Baylor. His style is real easy to spot. Bright colors, lots of empty space, and usually some type of cactus, bird, or desert cliff. Although his work might be a little "Southwest Trading Post" at times, his illustrations have always stuck with us since reading Everybody Needs A Rock when we were younger. Parnall also illustrated the first edition of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire.Look: More books.MP3: Vetiver - ArbouretumMP3: Emitt Rhodes - She's Such A Beauty

Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness

The OPFIHDW is on Fire Island, a skinny little number that lies south of the mighty Long Island. The whole island is about 31 miles long and 1/4 mile wide at the widest point. Long and skinny. Real skinny. The Otis Pike area is 7 miles of National Park Service wilderness located on the eastern side of the island. It's the only NPS wilderness in the whole state of New York.And Holy heck. This place is the place. Miles of undeveloped beach, waves bigger than me and you, forty foot high dunes, and a camp-anywhere-but-on-the-beach policy. Behind the beach are the aforementioned dunes (where you have to camp) that sure as heck don't look like you're a hop, skip, and a jump away from New York City.It's covered in wildflowers, deer trails, SAND, bones, and endless amounts of perfect places to pitch your tent. Although you can't see it from home base, you can hear the ocean roaring and a two second walk up a sand ridge will give you a perfect view of all the action. Leave your flint at home cause you can't be making fires here. Only stoves for cooking huevos rancheros.Best part: You don't need a car. Hop on the LIRR to Patchogue and take a ride on the Watch Hill ferry. (The ferry terminal is 2 minutes from the train, right behind the bowling alley). Get off at Watch Hill, get a permit, and be on your way. Walk 3.5 miles down the beach, walk behind the dunes, pitch your tent, and go back to the beach until the sun goes down. Do whatever it is you like to do at night, then wake up, hike to the other end of the dunes, another 3.5 miles. No backtracking on this trip. Have the ranger at the Wilderness Visitor Center at Smith Point call you a cab, take it to the Mastic Shirley LIRR stop ($10 ride), and come on back home. Watch out for old men sunbathing in the nude.From Mary Hopkin's Earth Song, Ocean Song:MP3: Mary Hopkin - The Wind

Slide Mountain Wilderness, NY

The Slide Mountain Wilderness is nestled in the Southwest part of the Catskills, right around Woodstock and Phoenicia, NY. It boasts the tallest mountain in the Skills, Slide Mountain, which is around 4200 feet high. That's only 25,000 feet smaller than Everest. We're getting there. Drive on out to the Slide Mountain trailhead in Big Indian, NY and walk a few miles up a somewhat steep trail to the top of Ms. Slide herself. Not much to be seen from the actual summit but along the way there's some great views of Catskill Park. No houses, no streets, just rolling hills for miles. It's the kind of scenery that makes you want to ditch electricity all together.Keep going past the summit for about a mile and a half into the notch between Slide Mountain and Cornell Mountain. There are some surprisingly difficult scrambles here that may require you to take your pack off. Make sure you fill up on water at the creek before the descent. There's not much else flowing anytime soon. A few great designated backcountry campsites are hanging out in the notch. I recommend going to the second one on your way to Cornell if you can. It's large and open and lies on the edge of a nice open rock face. If it's taken or you want to put your pack down at the first one, that ain't no thang. It's still a great place to be. The trip is about 5.5 miles in to the campsites.Make a big ol' fire (as long as you're below 3500 feet, which you should be) and sing Shania Twain songs at the top of your lungs. Enjoy the backcountry of one of the Northeast's best parks. It's a merry ol' time.

Wild Palms and Gold Mines: Everglades National Park, FL

Give yourself a new Seminole name, get a plane ticket to Miami, rent a car, then drive down to Everglades National Park in Flamingo. Techno music coming from the mono stereo works best for the midnight drive. When you get there, get an hour or two of sleep and then rent a canoe at the marina. There's a skinny gentleman with a mustache that will get you on your way. Go outside, ask for Louis (like the king, not the Anderson) and get in the water. Get paddling and don't get stuck at low tide. It'll give you a real-life panic attack.You're in the Gulf of Mexico now, so watch for prehistoric looking birds floating by your head, sharks swimming beside your boat, and miles of pristine beach covered by mangroves. Keep going for 10 miles in the hot sun to the continental USA's southern most point, East Cape Sable. This isn't the gloomy Everglades swamps that keep you up at night. This is going to be your favorite place on earth. Full of no-see-ums, shells the size of your face, and lonesome fires on the beach. Unfortunately you might have missed the window. Right about now the bugs are rallying the troops to get ready for a couple of months of deathly humidity. You don't want to be there, trust us. Wait until December and we'll go with you. We promise.