Winter camping, hiking, backpacking and mountaineering are not without peril. If you have never done them, it's best to receive some training from your local outdoor club or a professional guiding service before you try it yourself. I just started last year myself after a three day Intro to Mountaineering Class with a guide in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was an eye opening experience.

If you are located in New England and are interested in becoming a 4 season hiker, there are a few winter training programs that I'd recommend you look into. The Adirondack Mountain Club hosts an annual Winter Mountaineering School near Lake Placid, New York that typically covers the following areas of instruction:

• Trip planning and leadership
• Snowshoe, crampon, and ice axe technique
• Use of map, compass, altimeter, and GPS
• On and off trail navigation
• Winter backpacking skills
• Constructing snow caves, igloos, and other snow shelters
• Steep snow and ice climbing
• Safe above-treeline travel under winter conditions
• Wilderness first aid and safety
• Avalanche Awareness
• Hydration, nutrition, and winter backcountry kitchen skills

If you live in the Boston Area, the Boston Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club has a Winter Hiking and Backpacking Program which I will be attending this year along with Tom Murphy, a regular section hiker reader. Starting next Tuesday (11/10/09), it includes 4 lectures and 10 hiking, backpacking and cabin trips in New England and the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. I already know quite a few of the instructors and trip leaders including Mark Warren who has been a guest poster on section hiker. If you want to attend this program, you need to get it in gear and get registered.

If you can recommend other winter hiking and backpacking instruction programs that people should know about, please leave a comment below.

If you want to learn more about winter camping, hiking, backpacking and mountaineering, here are a few online resources and books that I have found very helpful:

• Princeton University Outdoor Action Guide to Winter Camping
• Jim Muller's WinterCampers.com
• Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills
• NOLS Winter Camping
• Allen & Mike's Really Cool Backcountry Ski Book: Traveling & Camping Skills for a Winter Environment
  
• How to Build an Igloo: And Other Snow Shelters

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(All photos courtesy of Martin Rye)

Some big news last week. I was selected to participate in the 2010 TGO Challenge. This is an annual coast-to-coast hike across Scotland held every May. As you can imagine, I am very excited about this since only a handful of Americans participate each year. This year's event will be held from May 14-28 and approximately 300 hikers will attempt the traverse.

The object of TGO Challenge is to foster good fellowship among walkers within the framework of a challenging expedition. It is not a competition, but a demanding, self-supported trek across Scotland from the west coast to the east coast. Participants plan their own cross-country routes and must walk them without external support.

Route plans vary widely and include high, medium, and low routes that reflect the number of mountain ascents attempted during a walker's hike. Scotland has 283 munros of height 3,000 ft or higher, which despite their modest size, can be treacherous to climb year round due to bad weather and rugged terrain. My own route, about 150 miles long, will be a low one (recommended for first time challengers), but weather-permitting, will provide me with the opportunity to bag a half-dozen or more of these peaks.

Challengers can camp during the entire traverse or stay in B&B's and Inns if they like. I'm planning on camping mostly, but will probably stay in a few B&B's along the way to dry out and resupply. Another type of shelter, unique to the UK is also available, called a bothie. These are old buildings, donated by landowners, that are used by hikers for shelter and maintained by an organization called the Mountain Bothies Association.

The idea for the Challenge first came from the Scottish writer and mountaineer, Hamish Brown, best known for his book Hamish's Mountain Walk. Having hiked across Scotland himself, Brown felt that this was a journey that could be accomplished by others within the framework of a organized, non-competitive event. Brown presented the idea to Roger Smith, then editor of The Great Outdoors Magazine (TGO), an excellent UK walking magazine, and the first Challenge was held in 1980. Since then, a remarkable 6,493 have finished the crossing.

Many Challenge participants use the walk to raise funds for charity. A hiking friend of mine was diagnosed with Leukemia this year and her illness has touched me deeply. Before that, I knew little about Leukemia and other forms of blood cancer, which account for 9.5% of all cancer deaths in the United States.

Therefore, I am finalizing the paperwork now to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and I hope you will support my efforts. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society is committed to finding cures for leukemia and related diseases and improving the lives of those affected by these diseases. In addition to funding research and education outreach, they provide financial assistance and sponsor support groups for patients and families.

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When the weather starts getting a little colder and darkness falls before 6PM, I add a few luxury items to my pack on overnight backpacking trips, like a mini-lantern and a paperback book to pass the time at night.

On my last backpacking trip, I tested a Black Diamond Orbit Lantern and really liked it. It weighs just 4.8 oz, including 4 AAA battiers, and retails for $29.95. I own other LED camping lanterns like the Brunton Lamplight, but the Orbit is a little better for reading at night because it has a built in dimmer switch and a frosted glass globe to diffuse light.

Rings at the top of the Orbit let you suspend it from the roof of your tent and it has a telescoping body that collapses when not in use. The manufacturer reports that battery life is 10-24 hours depending on dimmer usage. A rechargeable battery kit is also available including international power outlet adapters.

For larger groups, Black Diamond manufactures a larger lantern called the Apollo ($49.95, 11 oz.) which lights a 10 meter circle, and the Titan ($79.95, 24 oz without batteries) intended for basecamps, which lights a 14 meter circle.

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The main reason I bring a camping towel on a backpacking trips is to wipe down the outside of a wet tent or shelter before packing it away for the day.  It's a neat little trick to cut down on extra water weight and leaves you with a drier shelter when you set it up the following evening.

I rarely use one on myself and just dry myself off with my clothes using my body heat to dry them out. Body heat is really good for that.

I also don't bother with a commercial camping towel like ones from MSR or REI that cost $12 and up. Instead, I use a dish towel, like the ones you can buy at Trader Joe's or supermarkets for 2 or 3 bucks. These are made using a slightly thicker absorbent fabric than camping towels but perform exactly the same with almost no extra weight penalty. If you're a complete fanatic, you can probably cut one of these down to 1/4 if its size and use it like a sponge.

I've been think of doing that myself to save a few grams. Haha!

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I stopped in at The Mountain Wanderer Bookstore on my way back from backpacking up Mt. Garfield and the AT last weekend. It's a neat little shop in Lincoln, NH that carries excellent maps and a unique selection of books that focus on the natural areas in New England, including the Catskills, Adirondacks, Vermont, and the White Mountains.

For example, they have a bunch of books privately published by the Randolph Mountain Club (RMC.) This is the trail maintenance organization that maintains all of the Northern Presidentials including Mt Jefferson, Mt Adams and Mt Madison. The RMC has a lot of historical information that they're beginning to publish, including one book which I was leafing through, that has the history and location of every trail (present, closed, and lost) in the White Mountains since 1840. Pure gold if you want to add a little history to your hiking trips or do some historically motivated bushwacking.

I ended up talking with the owner Steve, for quite a while. He's been hiking all over New England for decades and is very knowledgeable about the history and people of the region. If fact, he's the co-editor of The White Mountain Guide, which is the bible for hikers in the region. He didn't tell me this, I just happen to know it about him. He also has a great blog which I enjoy reading appropriately called Mountain Wandering.

Steve and I talked about a bunch of stuff, starting with the weather of course, and ended up talking about bushwacking in the Catskills and our mutual love for those under-appreciated mountains. We're both about halfway through the peak list of the Catskill 3500 club, with just the peaks that require bushwacking ascents to go.

There aren't a lot of bushwackers (off trail hiking) in the White Mountains. But it turns out that Steve knows the bushwacker named JR, that I met up with on Mt Osceola last weekend, quite well. He told me about some of JR's incredible climbs in the Great Gulf and all throughout the Whites. It's funny how everyone and everything is connected.

Steve and I also jawed about search and rescue up in the Whites because I bought a T-shirt sponsoring the local SAR team. It turns out that he's Treasurer of the Pemmigewasset Search and Rescue Team, which is interesting because I'm seriously thinking about volunteering myself for SAR down in Massachusetts. He told me that most of the rescues that his team does in the Whites are in Franconia Notch on the Old Bridle Path leading up to Mt Lafayette and are simply due to the lack of preparation: people climb up the trail, which is quite rough, leaving the trail head at 3pm in late fall without headlamps. Anyway, you get the idea. 

So if you're in the Lincoln, NH area, you should stop by and pay Steve a visit at the Mountain Wanderer Bookstore. The store shares a storefront with a hairdresser and is located right on the Kancamagus Highway (Route 112), just off Interstate 93 at Exit 32.

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