WineCountry.com Magazine : Feature Article - Hiking and Picnicking in Wine Country
The Ultimate Hiking and Picnic Spots Above Wine Country
(tags: wine hiking country autumn outings)

Amazon.ca Books: Hiking / Cooking, Food & Wine
Amazon’s list of camping and backcountry cookbooks.
(tags: cooking food wine hiking trail backpacking backcountry camping recipe cookbook)

Really cool websites I’ve stumbled upon
The winehiker hangs five — five whole minutes.
(tags: cool fun websites winehiker winehiking american trails bay area travel guide wiki eight irresistible principles knots breathing earth time zone)

It’s our fault
Have we really become afraid of going outdoors?
(tags: active advocate animals backcountry backpacking hiking blog earth ecology education environment exercise experience […]

 
I’ve been reading some of the posts on Cutter’s blog. In one of them, Whose fault?, Cutter, with reference to a Nature Conservancy study, examines why there’s been a nine-year decline in visitation to our National Parks. He raises such questions as “Are we distracted too much by toys and technology?” and “Is it a case of […]

As if I actually have time for surfing websites, much less stumbling upon them…

American Trails: your national resources for trails and greenways
The Bay Area Travel Guide from WikiTravel
The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun 
I Will Knot!
Breathing Earth

And, because “timing is everything,” a graphical interactive time zone checker: http://www.timezonecheck.com/
~winehiker

At last Thursday evening’s Merlot event, we tasted six bottles – five from Napa Valley, all from California. While I can’t speak for the other folks present, it was apparent to me that all six could have breathed an hour before tasting them, as all seemed quite tart 10-15 minutes out of the bottle. […]

I mentioned yesterday that I learned a lot of valuable wilderness advice from the teachings of Don Carre. Subsequent to high school I came to admire, and was profoundly influenced by, the writings of Edward Abbey. More than any other, with the possible exception of my own parents, it is the influence of these two […]

I’m up a little early this morning. Something wasn’t quite right. At 3:00 a.m. I got up, brewed a cup of coffee, and washed some dishes. Then I checked my email, and now I’m a little choked up.
There are moments — in here and out there — real, honest, emotion-inducing moments wherein the eyes well […]

Being a former precocious preadolescent, I once used to voraciously read Mad magazine. It’s what you did as a boy back in the 1970s before your testicles descended, and hey — I was no different. For 12-year-olds hanging out in our treehouses conveniently away from intruding parents, satire was the urban refuge of the budding […]

I went out for my usual Tuesday after-work bike ride with a few riders from work. It was a sultry warm afternoon, in the mid-80’s. Not too uncomfortable for a moderately-paced group such as ours.
We hadn’t gone far yet — just a couple hundred yards or so up the nearby paved bike path that I […]

I’ve camped with folks who really love the JetBoil system. Others have endorsed JetBoil’s products online. It’s true that the JetBoil stove can certainly can put a hot steaming mug of caffeinated goodness in one’s hand very quickly on a cold morning.
However, the JetBoil system uses a proprietary propane/iso-butane fuel mix; on their website, they […]