I’ll be flying back to New England for a week tomorrow morning, so posting will be very light – if at all. When I get back to California, assuming nothing gets me sick out east, I’ll be joining Kolby for his 100th Hike!

I wish everyone safe travels and happy holidays – and I’ll see you just before 2010!

If you’re looking for some new baselayer shirts or pants, you might want to head to the West LA Adventure 16 this weekend, because they’re having a sale on Icebreaker wool.

The New Zealand merino garments have been picking up in popularity over the past few months, although I haven’t yet had a chance to try any myself. Reviews I’ve read have been mostly very positive, and the Ultralight Bodyfit line is being billed as “the lightest pure merino base layer available.”

Apparently, A16 loves them enough to devote a section of their West LA store to the garments, and through December 24th, they’re offering 50% off your second garment. The offer is ONLY good at their West LA store, and you may need a coupon for it – so just in case, here’s a copy of the one they emailed me (click for full size):

I’m probably going to head down there this weekend to see what all the fuss is about.

SPOT - the company behind the consumer-friendly SPOT Satellite GPS Messengers – has announced a voluntary recall of their newer, smaller unit, the SPOT-2.

According to a statement on their web site, SPOT says some users have been having unsatisfactory experiences with both the battery life and messaging functions on the new units, and they are offering to replace them if you’ve been having trouble.

Just fill out a form on their web site and they’ll send you the shipping materials to replace the unit. Upgraded SPOT-2’s are not expected to be available until early March, but anyone who does send in their unit will get 1 free month of the required subscription service.

Remember – not all of the SPOT-2 units are affected, and NONE of the original SPOT units are. Or, in graphic terms:

Thanks to Dave for the heads up!

Steven Bumgardner – a.k.a. YosemiteSteve - is the producer for Yosemite National Park’s Yosemite Nature Notes – a wonderful video podcast highlighting the human and natural history of one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

In his most recent video upload, Steve focuses on the human footprint, showing some great HD timelapses of some of the most crowded and popular areas of the Park – but don’t let the hustle and bustle dissuade you from visiting – as he writes, “I could have just as easily pointed my camera in another direction and shown nothing but plants, animals and wilderness. Yosemite is popular, but it’s also still a relatively wild place.”

Watch for some amazing footage of climbers, at about 2:45!

Earlier this year, I went up to Big Bear for some snowshoeing. I went on the Pine Knot Trail, and while it was fun, I definitely got lost more than I like to when I’m in the middle of the woods – both due to the snow covering most of the trail junctions and a very poorly designed map.

While wandering through the snow, I had to resort to checking my iPhone to make sure I was taking the right turns on the area’s labyrinthine system of fire roads – but the low levels of detail on the Google Maps and the poor cell phone coverage in the area made that very, very difficult.

Cut to several months later. I was planning a trip to Yosemite, and noticed AccuTerra was offering a free Yosemite pack, so I loaded it into the phone and gave it a go. It was great for finding which way to go at trail junctions (and much faster than taking my pack off to get at my maps), but I didn’t really dig into the features any more than that. When I found out they were releasing high-resolution map packs for the L.A. area mountains, though, I opened up my wallet to give it a go.

Here’s how it works – you download the free app from the iTunes App Store, and after a sizable download, you’ll be presented with this opening screen, which should give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll be able to do:

The first thing you’ll want to do is fire up the map store to start loading some topo maps onto your iPhone, so you won’t run into the same problem I did in Big Bear, where you’re relying on a spotty network to download a Google Map that’s vague at best.

The maps are divided into four categories – National Parks, States, State Parks, and Recreational Areas – and mostly range in price from $1.99 to $2.99, which is a pretty great deal. Most physical topo maps of single state parks can run you 12 bucks, wheras the “California South” regional map, which covers from Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands to the Mexican and Arizonan borders and all the way north through Death Valley and Sequoia, is only $1.99 (plus, your first map download is free with the App!)

“HD” maps are usually $2.99, and cover a smaller area, but in higher resolution. The Angeles National Forest is currently in “standard definition,” but still gets the job done for showing you where all the peaks, trails, and campgrounds are in the Forest. The San Bernardino HD pack lets you zoom in to about this level before it starts getting blurry, and has a higher level of detail in the elevation contours:

If you’re worried when I say these HD maps cover a smaller area, don’t fret – the coverage area for the San Bernardino Map is shown in red below:

Of course, all this level of detail and coverage comes at a cost — and that is hard drive space. The App itself will fill up 111MB of space on your iPhone. HD maps like the San Bernardino Mountains are 192MB, while the regional maps like California South will eat up almost twice that amount. Even with a 32GB model, this almost guarantees you’ll only be able to hold a small number of maps on your phone at a time – and will most likely want to delete and reinstall the app before you head out to save on space for more frequently used apps – but again, the level of detail on the maps themselves – along with the fact that you won’t have to rely on network coverage to get your maps on screen – is worth it. Space-conscious iPhone owners can rest easy, knowing AccuTerra keeps track of every map you’ve purchased, so if you need to delete one to save space, you’ll be able to get it back anytime for free.

Now, to the actual field testing.

On Thanksgiving, I took a leisurely, late afternoon hike in Icehouse Canyon, and tested out the route recording functions of AccuTerra. iPhone users know our mobile devices of choice are not known for their battery life – so be sure you turn off Bluetooth, 3G, WiFi, and all the buttons and whistles you won’t need on the trail. If you get cell phone coverage, AccuTerra will use that to triangulate your location before using GPS, but even without the assistance, I found AccuTerra was able to get a lock on my location significantly faster than my Garmin GPS receiver.

If you’d like, you can also save battery power by reducing the GPS accuracy and turning off elevation recording through the App’s intuitive menu system. Once you’re ready to get started, just click the “target” icon (the same one the Google Maps App uses) to center your position. Hit the slideout menu on the right hand side and tap record to start recording your trek!

In that image, you can also see another new feature in the latest version – Google Maps integration. You can easily toggle between Google Maps original view, satellite hybrid, or the AccuTerra topo maps, which can be helpful if you’re getting lost trying to drive TO the trailhead.

On the trail itself, AccuTerra can be as unobtrusive as you want, but for all intents and purposes, your phone has just become a fully-fledged GPS receiver. You can stop to take pictures with it (geotagged, of course) and mark waypoints with full text along the way, and they’ll all be saved as part of your track. If you’d like, you can even set AccuTerra to play a chime at certain intervals – so you can know every time you’ve hiked another mile without having to stop and check the phone. It’s all pretty cool, and it’s getting more powerful with every update.

Of course, if you just want to lock your iPhone and keep it in your pocket, that’ll work, too.

Checking your route on the trail will be very familiar to anyone who’s ever used a GPS reciever before – you’ll see your track in green, and your current location in a pulsing blue dot. Note the level of detail in Icehouse Canyon, even on this “low res” map:

If you have a 3GS, you can tap the compass button to use the iPhone’s internal compass to show your true-view position on the map, too:

When you’re done with the hike, the App has some great presentation options. You can view all of your statistics on a single splash screen, and a detailed elevation chart on a second screen:

Of course, one of the main benefits of having all these statistics is boasting to your more sedentary friends when you get home, and this App makes that easy, too – you can send an email with your trip in a Google Map (the link expires in a few weeks), email a Google Earth KMZ file, or share the stats and pictures on Facebook. Like the rest of the App, it’s all very easy and intuitive.

Final Word:

While no hiker should ever be on the trail without a hard copy of a map, AccuTerra is by far the easiest, most full-featured, and slickest hiking App I have seen to date. While hard drive space will probably be an issue, the maps are cheap, coverage is wide, and the level of detail is great for most hikers (and the HD maps should be good for pretty much everybody).

On the iPhone 3GS, I found AccuTerra to perform as good as – and in some cases better than – a dedicated GPS receiver. While the iPhone’s battery life will never be as good as a handheld GPS unit, I was able to get great coverage and tracking in a tree-lined canyon that had previously given my Garmin some trouble.

Bottom line – if you have an iPhone and you hike, you should download AccuTerra.

… just wanted to call your attention to two new minor improvements to Modern Hiker –

First, I’ve added a Books section to the Shop. Right now, I’ve listed all of the guide books I use and recommend (that are still currently in print!), often times with more than one option to purchase — so if you’re setup with a sweet deal like Amazon Prime, you don’t have to worry about spending the extra bucks at another store. Eventually, I’ll add some other types of trail-books, like hiking stories, biographies, and other books I’ve enjoyed curled up in a sleeping bag out in the woods.

And secondly, I’ve finally managed to get a Facebook page up for Modern Hiker! Yes, now you can get your daily dose of hiking and outdoor news without leaving your favorite time-waster at work. Of course, I’m also on Facebook pretty much all the time, so if you have burning questions, you can ask me there, too – and maybe get a little bit of advice from your fellow hikers – or meet some new trail buddies or show off some of your best photos from L.A.’s trails. Also, you’ll look much cooler if you’re a fan of L.A.’s best hiking web site. It’s been scientifically proven.

Eventually, I’ll post some important dates to remember – and if people are interested – even lead a hike or two. Who knows? To become a fan, click on the little box on the left hand side of the page, or just go to the Facebook Page itself. As with all aspects of the Modern Hiker, I’m always open to suggestions!

Eaton Canyon is a fairly non-intense, easily accessible trail in Pasadena, which can make it seem pretty innocuous to causal forest strollers – but four hikers found out the hard way that even these “easy” trails can be dangerous in the right conditions.

On Saturday afternoon, around 4:30 PM, four hikers -three men aged 18, 18, and 43, and an 11 year old boy – became stranded in Eaton Canyon when water levels in the canyon rose, stranding the lost group until rescuers could reach them at 7AM on Sunday.

Luckily, everyone made it out all right, but hiking on this trail in the on-and-off downpour conditions we had this weekend was a TERRIBLE idea – and it could have turned out much, much worse. Eaton Canyon is extremely narrow in parts, with very few escape routes. Light rain can be enough to cause flash floods out here, and since Eaton Canyon is downstream from some of the Station Fire burn areas, these hikers could have very well been slammed with a wall of mud and debris with no way out.

Lesson learned!

The LA Now Blog is reporting an ankle-deep flow of mud on roads in La Crescenta, as well as a series of mudslides on the Angeles Crest Highway that have stranded 80 vehicles.

If you are driving anywhere near the Station Fire burn area in the foothill communities during these rainstorms, please exercise extreme caution!

The Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club’s Wilderness Travel Course is offering an early-admissions discount to anyone who’s interested in taking the class next year, but it ends very soon.

If you sign up before December 15th, you’ll save $15 off the tuition for the class, which covers pretty much everything anyone would need to know about staying safe in the wilderness – from map reading and orienteering to water purification, rock climbing, snow camping, and how to make tasty trail meals at camp.

It’s a three month long class that meets once a week, and is a mix of classroom lessons and four hands-on outings. I haven’t taken the class myself, but I’ve known a few hikers who’ve gone through it and they all said they learned invaluable survival skills … and had some fun while they were doing it.

For more info and to sign up, head to the WTC web site.

Have any readers done the WTC? What were your impressions? I’ll have to make a note in next year’s calendar to sign up for the 2011 course!

Steve Berardi at PhotoNaturalist has become my go-to-guy for photography tips — not just because he’s got a great eye and lots of knowledge (and he helped me with some technical problems a few nights ago), but also because he’s willing to shout out other sources when people are looking for help.

His recent post, “7 Great Resources for Winter Photography” runs the gamut from lessons on how to get a good exposure with all that reflected light to tips on keeping your gear safe in the cold and galleries of really unbelievable winter photos on Flickr.

Now that we’re starting to get some snow in the mountains here, it might be a good time to brush up on these winter photography skills before you strap on those snowshoes to take some photos of your own!