It’s not often that RailRiders trumps Hollywood. Several years ago, RailRiders customer John Hussey walked 600 miles along the historic–and extremely popular– El Camino De Santiago path. The journey by foot for most trekkers starts in the French Pyrenees and ends in Santiago de Compostela, but many pilgrims continue on from there to Fisterra, the “end of the world” as it was known in antiquity, on the Atlantic ocean. The Camino, which is also known as “The Way”, passes by Eunate, Spain, near a 1,000-year-old chapel built to protect Christian pilgrims.

For many travelers (and they come from all over the world), the pilgrimage is also about personal self-discovery. Hussey completed the walk in 45 days, and was always wearing his RailRiders!  (See his slide show here.) In fact, Hussey is leaving for France next week to do the walk again! And get this– he will be wearing the same RailRiders shorts (and a new tan Eco-Mesh shirt).

Now, there’s a new film about the walk called “The Way,” which is directed by Emilio Estevez and stars his father Martin Sheen, who connects with his dead son’s memory and learns some startling truths about what it means to live life. Here’s the film trailer:

Ross Wittgren
, of Chicago, sent in this useful tip when it comes time to clean your RailRiders pants and shirts. My wife discovered this several months ago and it really is a great product.  Safe for the planet as well as clothes.  And, no dryer sheets are needed.  No static electricity in the dryer. Start to finish the process takes 5 minutes

Laundry Soap

2 cups of 20 Mule Team Borax (must be the original)

2 cups of Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (no substitutes)

1 bar  of Ivory soap cut in small pieces

Mix all of these ingredients in a food processor until they become a fine powder.

Use 1/4 cup per load of laundry.  

This is probably an old product used by our grandparents before the consumer products companies enhanced our lives with endless chemicals.
Your great clothes deserve great soap…..

Wilma Lake's GPS coordinates are 38.0708, -119.6427 and the altitude is 7946 feet, but the loud drone of buzzing mosquitoes will be your welcoming party long before you have arrived.

Look at this photo. Beautiful alpine lake. Gorgeous mountain backdrop. Nature’s very own picture-perfect postcard. But think again. Looks can be awfully deceiving. The small lake in this photo is Wilma, near the Pacific Crest Trail and inside Yosemite National Park. It’s also home to zillions of mosquitoes who breed in nearby marshes and swampy areas. Spring and summer months are wretched for hikers and campers. In a recent article for the San Francisco Chronicle, outdoors writer Tom Stienstra offered this assessment:

From 2 miles out on the Pacific Crest Trail, heading north, the mosquitoes start to buzz in your eyes and ears. With each step, more arrive around your head. When you reach the lake and the hordes from the bog on the far side pick up your scent, you might feel like the French looking across the Rhine and seeing the Wehrmacht attacking. Absolute nightmare. It’s a pretty lake and many Pacific Coast Trail hikers see it on a map and overnight here. Never again. The lake’s marsh and a few slime holes to the south turn the area into the Yosemite Mosquito Sanctuary. On an 80-degree day, we saw guys wearing full rain gear as armor to try to defend against the attacks. They failed. So did we. If you break camp after dawn, the mosquitoes will wake up first to ambush you.

If you want some valuable shut-eye in Yosemite, avoid Camp 4 in the Valley.

As for the next worst place to hang your hat and hiking poles in Yosemite, according to Stienstra, it is Camp 4, which is located right in the Valley.  Many great climbers call this small campground near the base of El Capitan their not-so temporary home away from home. And so do a lot of wannabe’s.

The original theory was to create a campground for the world-class rock climbers near the foot of El Capitan. But you can stake out a campsite and find a dozen strangers putting their bags down all around you. The sites are close together, and on many nights, it can feel like a continuous, amorphous blob of sleeping bags that span more than an acre. A lot of young campers will drink, talk and stay up late, killing the chance to sleep. This year the park will try to post a ranger at the camp to keep some semblance of order. The guy has no chance.

Rather than alleviating danger, technology has turned into a regular nightmare for search and rescue teams in U.S. National Parks. The chief culprit is an increasingly wired  public’s reliance on technology such as cellphones, GPS gizmos, and sat phones,  rather than good old common sense when it comes to heading into the wilderness. “Because of having that electronic device, people have an expectation that they can do something stupid and be rescued,” Jackie Skaggs, spokeswoman for Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, recently told the New York Times. “Every once in a while we get a call from someone who has gone to the top of a peak, the weather has turned and they are confused about how to get down and they want someone to personally escort them. The answer is that you are up there for the night.”

According to the New York Times article, “The National Park Service does not keep track of what percentage of its search and rescue missions, which have been climbing for the last five years and topped 3,500 in 2009, are technology related. But in an effort to home in on “contributing factors” to park accidents, the service recently felt compelled to add “inattention to surroundings” to more old-fashioned causes like “darkness” and “animals.”

Granted, technology does save lives when people are in a tough jam.  But having a cellphone shouldn’t be viewed as a guaranteed security blanket, and thereby fostering the mindset that one can take unnecessary risks because help is always a phone call away. Well, not really. Many national parks, such as Rocky Mountain National Park, prohibit cellphone towers so coverage might be nil.

If you are planning that long-awaited trip to the California coast or backcountry, all the guidebooks might not give you the real inside story on places to avoid or hidden gems to explore. For that reason alone, hikers, cyclists, and campers should extend a sweat-stained bandanna in thanks to San Francisco Chronicle outdoor writer Tom Stienstra, who has recently put together an useful list of California vacation do’s and dont’s. For example,  he writes that “the worst mosquitoes in California are at a wretched sump called Wilma Lake in Yosemite National Park. On a map, the Lake (sic) looks like an inviting campsite on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Nope, this marshy quagmire is a nightmare, especially in summers after wet springs, like this one.”  Or the “most frustrating” drive? “On Highway 1, from Jenner (Sonoma County) to Point Arena (Mendocino County), if you find yourself behind a big RV, you can hit top speeds of 10, 15 mph on the curves, for what seems hours.”

His choice for best day hike with view? “My favorite anywhere in the West is the 3-mile, 2,000-foot climb to 10,365-foot Mitchell Peak out of Sequoia National Monument. From the summit, you can take in nearly 100 miles of the Sierra Crest to the east.”

Worst summer cold? “A 50-degree dawn with mist, fog and wind at Sonoma Coast State Beach can feel colder than the Arctic (and I’ve camped in the Arctic).”

Best destination with SUV and kayak is “in the Bowman Lakes Recreation Area in Tahoe National Forest, exploring remote areas and then plunking their boat in one of the many lakes. Best is Faucherie.”

Worst camping spot? “Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley is at the foot of El Capitan, where you’ll be a few feet from strangers on each side of you.”

Worst bike trail? “ In theory, the Tahoe Bike Trail should be one of the greatest rides in North America. But it can be one of the most frustrating because much of the trail surface is bumpy and there’s a high number of road crossings, where you wait for an opening in the line of cars, a real problem in summer with crowded roads.”

To read more , go here.