Northern Ireland Outdoors Forum - Hiking, camping and more
Information => Introductions => Topic started by: Transplant on June 24, 2010
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Awesome website!!! You should all be proud of the great questions, insightful answers, helpful hints you all share. It is especially nice to see there isn’t any ugly trash talking. It seems like you are all just people wanting to drop the remote, put down the Xbox controller, stop watching endless signing competitions on TV and live life to the fullest.
I am currently in the States, but will be movin’ back to NI in August. I love the outdoors, camp year round (camping: tent, tarp or stars in nature…no caravan no car park) with my family. I am looking to continue my quest to throw on a backpack and go explore the outdoors with the family. I am hopeful that ya’ll will lend me some knowledge and expertise. Don’t expect you to give away your favorite secret spot, but maybe send me your second or third best. In return I will keep your spots just as pristine as I found them and better in some cases.
Thanks for letting me in,
Eric
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Welcome Eric. It will be a shock leaving the size of wilderness you get in the States and coming to NI which is smaller than an American state.
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Welcome chum ;) What part of the US were you living in?
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Hello and welcome Eric
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welcome to the forum Eric
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Welcome Eric. Where in the US are you coming from? What's your favourite spot out there?
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Thanks for the welcomes...I am currently in Idaho and it is easier to tell you where not to go than to pick a favourite (forgot we spell it different here) spot.
Sawtooth Mountains are chock full of lakes, rivers, streams all teamin' with fish and very few people. Easy access by car Spring through Fall. Winter gets tricky with so much snow. If you do happen to venture this way, Red Fish Lake is a world class trail head with jaw dropping scenery in all directions. God still brags about that place.
Yellowstone is spectacular but bring a friend, bb gun and running shoes (Grizzly country).
Basically, there is no end to the great places to go backpacking, just gotta get out there.
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Sawtooth Mountains...
(sigh)....want!
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Sawtooths2.JPG/400px-Sawtooths2.JPG) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sawtooths2.JPG) (them puppies are five times the height of Donard)
Yellowstone is spectacular but bring a friend, bb gun and running shoes (Grizzly country).
Just have to make sure you can run faster than your friend. ;D Me dad came home from a CA trip with a couple of bear bells, always thought they were more of a bear dinner bell rather than a bear scaring device ;)
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That looks like its got a bit of ascent :)
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Sawtooth Mountains...
(sigh)....want!
x2
Yellowstone is spectacular but bring a friend, bb gun and running shoes (Grizzly country).
Just have to make sure you can run faster than your friend. ;D Me dad came home from a CA trip with a couple of bear bells, always thought they were more of a bear dinner bell rather than a bear scaring device ;)
Speaking of bear bells...
(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk305/Zia_033/2705747843_51ee3ed137.jpg)
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Yep, shoot your buddy in the leg with the bb gun and take off runnin'. They say that bears are just as scared of you as you are of them...ummm no.
Red Fish Lake is at 10,000 ft. with the better lakes even higher. You think your gunna die when you first set out, then you see all the families in the carpark playin volleyball and riding bikes. They even hold a triathalon there...Gotta start smoking just to have an excuse for being so winded.
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Sawtooth Mountains.......Want to
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Paul72...that is one funny sign!!! Bear bells are just a welfare program so blind bears can eat too.
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Paul72...that is one funny sign!!! Bear bells are just a welfare program so blind bears can eat too.
;D
Welcome to Niwild
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(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk305/Zia_033/2705747843_51ee3ed137.jpg)
So glad you posted that Paul, I remember getting it on e-mail once and wished I'd saved it ;)
Welcome to the forum Eric! Sounds like you'll fit right in :) I've a distant, distant dream of doing something like the Pacific Crest Trail some day so looking forward to having some bear related chat about it :D
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I have been on the PCT in various spots but never more than 20 or 30 miles at any given time. And that was in my younger and dumber days. It is like 2500 miles in legnth so choose your start/stop points.
I always wanted to do the Centennial Trail because it is only 900 miles long http://parksandrecreation.idaho.gov/recreation/idahocentennialtrail.aspx (900 miles...I ain't even drivin' 900 miles let alone walkin' it).
I was up in the local mountains camping last week with my 8yo son and a bear came through camp. My 13yo son opened his tent at the same spot last year to find a bear looking in which had to be chased away. People like to train the bears to come to campgrounds to feed. So good reason to stay away from built up campgrounds and get out there further.
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....I always wanted to do the Centennial Trail because it is only 900 miles long...
(bold for emphasis)...ok, now you are starting to annoy me ;D ;D
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Whilst backpacking in Scotland I met a young American from Georgia who had walked a fair bit of the Appalachian Trail (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail). He said the Appalachian isn't quite so bad for bears as they are mainly black bears which you can generally scare off. After a bit more research I was more worried to read this:
The Appalachian Trail is relatively safe. Most injuries or incidents are consistent with comparable outdoor activities. Most hazards are related to weather conditions, human error, plants, animals, diseases, and fellow humans encountered along the trail....
...Violent crime, including murder, has occurred on the trail in a few instances. Most have been crimes by non-hikers who crossed paths relatively randomly with the AT hiker-victims...
...Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974. In 1981, the issue of violence on the Appalachian Trail received national attention when Robert Mountford Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, both social workers in Ellsworth, Maine, were murdered by Randall Lee Smith. Another homicide occurred in May 1996, when two women were abducted, bound and murdered near the trail in Shenandoah National Park. The primary suspect was later discovered harassing a female bicycler in the vicinity but charges against him were dropped, and the case remains unsolved.
On May 6, 2008, Randall Lee Smith, the killer of Mountford and Ramsay in 1981, shot two fishermen from Virginia near the trail in Giles County, Virginia, not far from the site of his 1981 murder; he then stole their pickup truck but crashed it and was imprisoned. The fishermen survived, but Smith died in jail four days later, most likely from an acute pulmonary thromboembolism incurred when he crashed the pickup truck...
I'm sure its all just fear mongering... right? :o
Still, I'd love to spend a load of months "thru-hiking" in America. Would be just the tonic!
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....Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974.....
That's better odds than Belfast on a Saturday night...
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OMG, sounds like something outta Somalia, Congo or Darfur not the States!!! That is hillbilly country where the family tree has no branches. Deliverance was filmed there too...
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....Nine homicides have been documented on the trail since the first reported homicide in Georgia in 1974.....
That's better odds than Belfast on a Saturday night...
Yep, I kinda thought that the figures are actually pretty low when you consider how long its been open and the vast distance it covers. I said exactly the same thing as you to Kat - you would be at more risk sticking a rucksack on your back and walking through Belfast on a Saturday night! :)
That is hillbilly country where the family tree has no branches. Deliverance was filmed there too...
:D Love it!
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(http://i283.photobucket.com/albums/kk305/Zia_033/2705747843_51ee3ed137.jpg)
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;D ;D ;D
Absolute cracker
;D ;D ;D