Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Religious pilgrimages have existed much longer but they involve walking long distances for a spiritual purpose associated with specific religions.
Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is the oldest outdoor group in the United States. Created in 1876 to explore and preserve the White Mountains in New Hampshire, it has expanded throughout the northeastern U.S., with 12 chapters stretching from Maine to Washington, D.C. The AMC's 275,000 members, advocates, and supporters mix outdoor recreation, particularly hiking and backpacking, with environmental activism. Additional activities include cross-country skiing, whitewater and flatwater canoeing and kayaking, sea kayaking, sailing, rock climbing and bicycle riding. The Club has about 2,700 volunteers, who lead roughly 7,000 trips and activities per year. The organization publishes a number of books, guides, and trail maps.
The Bay Area Ridge Trail is a planned 550-mile (890 km) multi-use trail along the hill and mountain ridgelines ringing the San Francisco Bay Area, in Northern California. Currently 390 miles (630 km) have been established. When complete, the trail will connect over 75 parks and open spaces. The trail is being designed to provide access for hikers, runners, mountain bicyclists, and equestrians. It will be accessible through trailheads near major population centers, while the trail will extend into more remote areas. The first trail section was dedicated on May 13, 1989.
Conejo Valley Botanic Garden is located in Thousand Oaks, California, and consists of a peak with vista views along with 15 hillside botanical gardens. It provides a teaching laboratory for what flora works and what does not work in the Conejo Valley.
Harvey Manning was a noted author of hiking guides and climbing textbooks, and a tireless hiking advocate. Manning lived on Cougar Mountain, within the city limits of Bellevue, Washington, calling his home the "200-meter hut". His book Walking the Beach to Bellingham is an autobiography and manifesto fleshing out his journal of a hike along the shore of Puget Sound over a two-year span.
Boney Mountain in Ventura County, California is one of the highest peaks in the Santa Monica Mountains. The prominent mountain visible from Newbury Park, California is 2,825 feet (861 m). It is also known as Boney Peak. The mountain contains four of the highest peaks in the coastal range of the Santa Monica Mountains: Boney Peak, Sandstone Peak, Exchange Peak, and Tri Peaks. The highest summit in the Santa Monica Mountains is Sandstone Peak, situated less than a mile northeast of Boney Peak along the same ridge of volcanic rock. It is the top section of a mass of volcanic rock which solidified around 15 million years ago, and was later uplifted to its dominant position, overshadowing western Conejo Valley. The Chumash Native Americans have a long and deeply spiritual history of interaction at and near the mountain, and the peak is considered a sacred mountain to the Chumash people.
Outdoor recreation or outdoor activity refers to recreation engaged in out of doors, most commonly in natural settings. The activities that encompass outdoor recreation vary depending on the physical environmental they are being carried out in. These activities can include fishing, hunting, backpacking, and horseback riding — and can be completed individually or collectively. Outdoor recreation is a broad concept that encompasses a varying range of activities and landscapes.
As Canada's only national fishing and hunting magazine, Outdoor Canada has been in print since 1972 with a mix of how-to articles, buyer's guides, profiles, travelogues, reportage and analysis. In 2015, Outdoor Canada West was launched.
Tom Stienstra is an American author, outdoorsman and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. He has written several guide books for California, the Pacific Northwest and America. He produces a radio feature for KCBS-74/San FranciscoHe hosted and co-produced a television special for PBS. He has also won national awards.
The 'Whitestone Cliffs Trail' is a 1.7-mile (2.7 km) Blue-Blazed hiking trail in the Waterbury area in Thomaston and Plymouth, Litchfield County, Connecticut. It is contained almost entirely in a section of the Mattatuck State Forest. The mainline trail is a loop trail with one connector trail to the Jericho Blue-Blazed Trail.
The Aspetuck Valley Trail is a 5.9-mile (9.5 km) Blue-Blazed hiking trail in the Aspetuck River Valley area of Fairfield County in the towns of Newtown, Easton and Redding Connecticut.
Barbara Grunes is the author or co-author of 50+ cookbooks. A food consultant and historian, Grunes has also written on food and dining for the Chicago Sun Times and food consultant to the State of Illinois. She is well known as an effusive and popular cooking teacher and food writer in the Chicago area. Barbara Grunes is the most published cook book writer in history putting the Midwest on the culinary map and making flour-less chocolate cake a household phrase.
The Pequot Trail is a 7.6-mile (12.2 km) Blue-Blazed Trail, a hiking trail maintained by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association.
The Wildlands Conservancy is a California nonprofit organization that buys, restores, and preserves nature preserves, and provides free environmental education programs for children. Headquartered in Oak Glen, California, as of 2021 TWC owns and operates 21 preserves totaling 163,000 acres, including mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers and oceanfront lands.
Wildwood Regional Park is a suburban regional park in the western Simi Hills and Conejo Valley, in Ventura County, California. It is located in western Thousand Oaks, northern Newbury Park, and southern Moorpark.
Casey Schreiner is an American author and outdoor journalist. He runs the site Modern Hiker, where he writes trail guides on various hiking routes in Southern California. His blog is one of the most popular hiking blogs in the United States, ranking number 2 on USA Today's Best Hiking and Outdoors Blogs.
Ventu Park Open Space is a 141-acre open space area in Newbury Park, California. Its primary features are the Rosewood Trail leading to Angel Vista, a 1,603 ft peak in the Santa Monica Mountains. Parking for the Rosewood Trail is located at the Stagecoach Inn Park, across Lynn Road from the primary trailhead. The Rosewood Trail begins with oak woodland and crosses a creek at the canyon floor, before climbing up towards the steep Angel Vista Point. There are 360-degree panoramic views of the Conejo Valley, the Oxnard Plain, the California Channel Islands, Pacific Ocean, Point Mugu, Hidden Valley, as well as the Santa Monica-, Santa Susana- and Topa Topa Mountains.
William Lawrence "Bill" Sullivan is an author of outdoor guide books, histories, and fiction. He has written over twenty books, almost all of them related in some way to his home state of Oregon. Before he began his writing career, he attended several colleges, earning degrees from Cornell University and the University of Oregon. His "100 hikes" guide book series is especially popular with people who enjoy backpacking in Oregon's wilderness areas. In 2005, the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission selected one of his books, Listening for Coyote, as one of the 100 most significant books in Oregon history.
Tarantula Hill, also known as Dawn’s Peak, is a 1,057-foot-high (322 m) peak in Thousand Oaks, California. It is located on a 45-acre (18 ha) open space and is operated by the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency (COSCA). Climbing Tarantula Hill is a steep 0.5-mile (0.80 km) trail; the trailhead is located at 287 West Gainsborough Road, across the road from the main entrance to Conejo Valley Botanic Garden. Atop the mountain there is a 360-degree panoramic view of the Conejo Valley, the Simi Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains. There is also a fenced-in water reservoir located on top. It was once a popular hang-gliding site. It was once a volcanic mound but went dormant 16 million years ago.
Mount Clef Ridge is a 1,076 ft volcanic mountain in Thousand Oaks, California. It is a volcanic outcrop that resulted from lava eruptions 30 million years ago. The ridge was formerly under ownership by the Janss Corporation, but was acquired by the Conejo Recreation and Park District (CRPD) in 1967. Trails here are available from Santa Rosa Valley, Newbury Park and Wildwood Regional Park. Although being a major feature of Wildwood, it occupies its own open-space area bordering Wildwood's northern boundaries. Mount Clef Ridge Open Space Area occupies 212 acres. From the ridge are great panoramic views of Santa Rosa Valley, Conejo Valley, Hill Canyon, as well as the Santa Susana-, Santa Monica- and Topatopa Mountains. The open-space area is home to plants such as coastal sage scrub, chaparral, Lyon's pentachaeta and Conejo dudleya. The fauna includes mountain lions, deer, coyotes, gray foxes, and more.
