Fatpacking: Weight-Loss Backpacking

by Willy Volk on

Fatpacking — an alternative to Boot Camps, Fat Camps, Fat Farms, and a less rigorous version of Outward Bound — is for people who love the outdoors, but who are a bit overweight or a little older and prefer not to feel rushed by super-fit athletes or obsessive hi-mileage hikers.

During the 1 and 2-week wilderness hiking vacations, Fatpackers’ guides (Is that Borat?!) help participants alter their body composition, and enjoy an unforgettable wilderness experience. Carrying all their food and supplies on their backs, Fatpackers can lose as much as 5 pounds of week, and they’ll likely gain a fair amount of muscle mass. In reality, there probably isn’t a person on the planet who wouldn’t benefit from and enjoy a guided tour on one of these upcoming trips:

Who knows? Maybe if you schedule the trip at the right time, you can participate in the Fatpackers reality show.

Hiking in Big Sur

by Willy Volk on

Hiking in Big Sur is a new site that details — you guessed it — hiking in Big Sur. Featuring detailed descriptions of the area’s glorious hikes, some great maps to help you get in and around the parks, and some absolutely stunning images that’ll inspire even the laziest couch potatoes to tie their shoes, the site is a bonanza for the California hiker.

Details for the Partington Cove Trail, for example, include length, difficulty, type of terrain, things to look for along the way, and links to aerial photos so you can understand precisely where you are. If you’re headed out that way, be certain to check out the area’s hazards first. And for those with limited time, prepare to celebrate: the site also includes some one-day must-see hikes.

Banff Mountain Film Festival – New York City

by Erik Olsen on

Although I’ve only been once…to the one in Santa Monica, CA…I think that the Banff Mountain Film festival is one of those must-do events for outdoors enthusiasts. The event tours the country and Canada, showing off the best independent climbing, skiing and adventure films made today. Of course, the best one to go to is the one in Banff itself, where you can hobnob with the filmmakers and adventurers…which I suppose you can still probably do at some of the more local showings. But you won’t be in Banff.

Anyway, I was very pleased to see that the festival is coming to New York City and I will do my best, dear gadling readers, to attend. The festival will take place in NYC on Tuesday, March 6 and Wednesday March 7, 2007 at the Peter Norton Symphony Space Peter Jay Sharp Theater at 2537 Broadway at 95th Street, New York.

The film schedule can be found here. Most interesting to me are the films Asiemut, a film about a 2005 cycling expedition 8000 kilometers across Asia by Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier and Patagonia – A Travel to the End of the World, a film with Børge Ousland about the first unsupported traverse of the Southern Patagonia Icecap. Gotta love anything about Patagonia.

If you’re curious whether there will be a showing near you, here is the Banff Calender

Grand Canyon Skywalk: Marvel or Eyesore

by Erik Olsen on

I recall that we’ve blogged a few times before about the Grand Canyon Skywalk, a cantilevered, see-through deck that will jut out 70 feet beyond the canyon’s edge on the Hualapai Indian Reservation just west of Grand Canyon Village. Part of me thinks this could be a pretty amazing attraction and a cool experience for visitors…how cool to gaze a thousand feet down into the maw of the canyon! Another part of me thinks this will be an awful, cartoonish eyesore that will wreck the magnificent natural beauty of one of the greatest places on earth.

It seems I am not the only one who feels this way.

The Los Angeles Times has got a piece on how controversial the new attraction is, with supporters and detractors going at it like, well, cowboys and Indians…albeit with a rather odd twist. You see, the project is the brainchild of the Hualapai Indian Tribe…and aren’t the Native American groups the ones who usually try and stop projects like this? Well, OK, there is the casino issue. Good point.

Of course, part of the problem is that the Skywalk is only a small part of what tribal officials say will be a massive development that includes hotels, restaurants and a golf course. And just like with casinos, they say the development will be a fine way to address the economic and social problems on the reservation, where the 2,000 residents struggle with a 50% unemployment rate and widespread alcoholism and poverty.

The cantilevered structure opens to the public next month. It is buttressed by 1 million pounds of steel and supports 90 tons of tempered glass. It will cost visitors some $25 to walk over it, and those who spill coffee or drop gum on the floor will be severely beaten. OK, or at least ticketed. OK, I don’t even know if that’s true, but it seems to me like these things could be a problem.

Researchers to Measure The Great Wall

by Willy Volk on

The Great Wall of China, built to protect the northern border of the Chinese Empire, is an amazing spectacle. In fact, the Great Wall — known to the Chinese as the “Long Wall of 10,000 Li” — is actually a series of walls and earthen works begun in the 5th Century BC and connected centuries later. Since it’s so old, it seems odd that no one really knows the precise dimensions of the iconic structure. Didn’t anybody bother to measure it when they were building it? Or when David Copperfield penetrated it? So weird.

In any event, researchers with both the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping are planning to undertake a detailed survey to establish just how long the ancient barricade is. In addition, they also plan to map the wall’s exact route and check its fortification. After all, a wall over 2000 years old probably needs some patching.

Though you can’t really tag along on the 4-year project, you can walk the Wall yourself with a tour company like China Hiking Adventures or the Adventure Center. Alternatively, you can arrange for the permits and try to tackle it yourself, like Eddie Davis and Beau Bacevicius did in 1997. It took them 109 days, and they clocked it at a paltry 1800 miles. Curiosity piqued? Brendan Fletcher and Emma Nicholas are walking the Wall right now — and blogging their adventure!