After each hike we plan on posting our treks for each National Park here which can be opened and viewed with Google Earth. We are using a
Garmin GPSMAP 60 for trekking plus National Geographic maps and compass as a battery free backup. With the GPS we will be able to monitor progress all the way allowing us to track distance, altitude, speed and also check sunrise and sunset times which will come in handy for early hikes.
Each hike will be listed below:
Coming soon...
Haven't got around to doing this yet but when I have more time online and not camping I will give it a go. Should work OK although on some hikes the GPS doesn't work due to deep canyons or walking under 5,000ft cliffs. But will upload soon.
Labels: Planning
At last we booked our flights today, so the trip is all go. We used
kayak.com to find the cheapest flights and found the website to be very good at this and worked out extremely cheap at less then €700 each for all four flights covering a total of 17,222 km (10,764 miles).
Expect more updates very soon over the next four months as we orgainse car rental, train travel and much more.
Labels: Planning
We are currently still at the planning stages, although the trip time is quickly catching up with us.
Currently we are hammering out the dates so we can book the flights, currently the flight from Dublin -> Las Vegas and then Seattle -> Dublin cost about $850 each. not that cheap but considering the distance it's not bad working out at €680 each, but we plan on shopping around some more to see if we can get it cheaper.
The biggest problem we have come across is the car issue. Car is king in the USA and some of the national parks are only accessible via car with no public transport at all. So we are currently trying to find out how we can get to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park via bus or train, not as easy as one would hope. We plan on renting a car but some places it isn't practical as we would have to hike around the parks in a circle returning back to the car! Most of the time we want to hike across the parks to see as much as possible, the big ones Yosemite, Grand Teton and Yellowstone have public transport access so at least we won’t have to worry abut them.
Just ordered all the maps needed for the parks so will have an update soon, including some maps of the plan.
Labels: Planning
Myself and Lou went to Loch Lomond last week in Scotland to test out all our gear and do a bit of training for the USA. It was fantastic, all our gear lived up to there price and the scenery was beautiful, I have included a photo of the lake below. We did a seven mile hike and a four mile hike, just to stretch the legs, that will be the normal distance required each day in most national parks. Altitude is something we must train for soon so may be heading to Co. Kerry for a real challenge.
Labels: Planning
The plan:Myself and Louise plan on spending three months next summer (Early May - Lat July) hiking the national parks of the United States. We have already started purchasing items for the trip, only this week our fantastic tent (2006 MSR Mutha Hubba) arrived, and Louise got her sleeping bag (North Face Cat's Meow Sleeping Bag) about two weeks ago from
MooseJaw and a very neat little gas cooker from
JetBoil. More to get but we have nine month yet, so lots of time.
The trip will start from Las Vegas, mid way stop in San Francisco for a few days and finish in Seattle.
The parks included in the plan:
So we will keep you updated via our new website
www.hikingtheusa.com and our
blog. We will have to drive between each national park with a rental car (4x4 Jeep if possible) so our next step is to work out which rental company is the best value and who has a drop off point near each national park entrance. should be fun.
Labels: Planning
