• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

The Imperfect Backpacker

Backpacking Tips and Stories

  • Home
  • Featured
  • Gear
  • Food
  • Trippin’
  • Campsites
  • Videos
  • Skills
  • Top 10
  • About
    • Contact Us

Blog

Into the Badlands

May 22, 2019 by pbryant Leave a Comment

I’m getting ready to make a long, and from what I’m told, boring drive from Indiana to Badlands National Park for a few nights backpacking. When I mention the Badlands, I seem to get mixed responses. Those that weren’t fans liken it to a wasteland and wonder why I would even want to go backpacking there. Others loved it and said it “felt like I was on another planet.” Time away in the backcountry can only be good. Right? I’m pumped, regardless.

Assuming we stay on course, we’ll be doing a roughly 22 mile loop. There will be no trail so I’m brushing up on my orienteering skills. If you want to learn the basics of navigating with a topo map and a compass, I would recommend Be Expert With Map & Compass: The Complete Orienteering Handbook by Bjorn Kjellstrom. I’ve read it a few times. The skills it teaches have got me out of a pinch more than once, and kept me mostly on the right path in the wilderness, if not in life.

In addition, I’ll be able to track against our planned course on my phone (even without a phone signal) and on my new GPS watch. This is my first for using either of these while backpacking, and it feels kind of like cheating. I feel too connected, when the point is to disconnect. So we’ll see how it goes.

Look for a trip review coming soon, along with reviews for some new gear I’ll be trying out: Osprey Aether AG 70 pack, MSR 10 liter dromedary bag, and a Garmin Fenix 5X GPS watch.

Fall in Love With Our National Parks

December 13, 2018 by pbryant Leave a Comment

(Part of this article was originally published in The Hook magazine, July/August 2018.)

The benefits of immersing yourself in nature have been well documented. Scientific studies have shown that spending time in the woods can be regenerative and improve your focus. These benefits have been touted in both literature and film as well, from Thoreau’s Walden to Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. And so have the dangers of the wild: think 127 Hours, The Revenant, or any disaster movie ever made. However, with a little preparation you are much more likely to reap Mother Nature’s rewards than suffer her wrath. But here’s the kicker- in today’s world of technology and constant media, nature is not going to find you. To reap those benefits you must get yourself out there.

Hiking Into Hop Valley, Zion National Park

Our national park system is one of many ways to experience nature. But oh, what a wonderful way. Started over a century ago, the National Park Service protects and maintains over 400 parks. Not only does it preserve pristine environments from becoming riddled with hotels and parking lots, or oil wells and strip mines, the park system helps us to interact with the disappearing wilderness. By getting out of our houses and into the woods, meadows, mountains, or oceans, we learn to appreciate nature. And possibly, we fall in love. Only when we are captivated by our natural world do we want to protect it. Only when many become enthralled will we be moved as a nation to save our vanishing wilderness. For those that remain on their couch or in the office are not likely to give a hoot about saving an owl from extinction, or a pristine mountain valley from becoming a sprawling outlet mall.

Over the past ten years I’ve had the privilege of backpacking, which is carrying everything you need on your back and heading out to explore the wilderness for multiple days, in some of the most beautiful places in the United States, often alone. I have a map on my wall of the US National Parks and I’ve set a goal to visit them all. Each time I visit one, I place a pin on the map. “Pinning the map” has become somewhat of a ritual in our household. Visiting all the national parks is less of a rigid objective than an incentive to just get out there. Because it is very easy to get caught up in our everyday lives.  Work, kids, school, more work, more kids, etc.

On the surface, spending a Sunday afternoon hiking in the woods can seem like just another item on the overwhelming to-do list. But being in nature has the power to heal. Seeing a grand vista spread out before you after hiking to the top of a peak can bring spiritual revival. Solitude among the trees can melt away stress. And while finding the time is not easy, since setting my goal I’ve hiked in over two dozen national parks, while working a full-time job, attending school, and raising a family. Not a great number, but also not a small feat considering how far I live from most of these parks.

A climber prepares to navigate the Otter Cliffs, Acadia National Park

I’m not suggesting that everyone run out into a remote area to try to make it on their own. I am telling you to get out there…but do so wisely. There are guidelines to follow. If you are inexperienced, start small:

  • Visit your local park, or go for a walk in the woods at a state park where you have a phone signal (for safety, not for texting).
  • Go camping in a campground. Hauling your kids and a camper across the country to visit the national parks and stopping to see the world’s second largest ball of twine along the way is the great American vacation.

It is a trip that none of you will forget and will instill an awe of nature in your children that will last a lifetime. You don’t have to head into the remote backcountry when you get there. Most of our national parks have accessibility for the multitudes. For example, in Zion National Park buses run through Zion Valley and expose all to grand rock cliffs towering on both sides, with colors that change with the waning sun and growing shadows. You don’t need to be adventurous or in great shape to get on the bus. You just need to make the time. And you just might fall in love.

A storm rolls in over Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Yosemite National Park

Footer

Recent Posts

  • 2020: A Good Year…For Hiking That Is
  • Backwoods Jambalaya
  • Campsite Spotlight: Mallard Lake, Yellowstone National Park, MT
  • Top 10: Trail Chef Failures
  • Trail Angel Cake

Recent Comments

  • pbryant on Hiking in the Yorkshire Dales, UK
  • Viv on Hiking in the Yorkshire Dales, UK
  • pbryant on Top 10: Outdoor Movies to Watch While Under Quarantine
  • StacyR on Top 10: Outdoor Movies to Watch While Under Quarantine
  • fafafa123457 on Trip Review: Colorado Bend State Park, Bend, Texas

Archives

  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • August 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018

Categories

  • Blog
  • Campsites
  • Featured
  • Food
  • Gear
  • Skills
  • Top 10
  • Trippin'
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Copyright © 2022 · Atmosphere Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in