I recommend you start winter hiking on trails that are close to home or familiar to you. I also advocate keeping the mileage and elevation modest. Short day hikes (no more than 3 miles) will help you adapt to the extra gear and energy needed for winter conditions. The following routes are easy or moderate treks that lead into the frozen backcountry. Organized GO winter trips are listed in our Events Calendar. 

The following hikes traverse sections of wilderness and lead into the very heart of our natural surroundings.

Learn about the tools volunteer trail crews like GayOutdoors use by trying to match the image with the clue.

To feed my need these days, I buy the goods in digital format and score a US region for $100 or less.

Isn’t it worth finding a next-to-skin friend that is warm, comfortable, and made for the activities you’ll do together?

These scenarios are readily avoided with the help of three useful backcountry gadgets: altimeters, anemometers, and two-way radios.

A lot of times, if you don’t monitor your heart rate, you won’t work out as hard as you could.

What is it like to hike up high when it's really cold? And what's needed to make it work? In the context of a severely cold weather forecast, I could entice no fellow GO members to join me this past weekend to see and feel the answers first hand on Mt. Eisenhower, a Presidential peak in New Hampshire requiring an hour or more of above-timberline time to hike.

Frigid fingers are unpleasant. Numb wooden hands are far worse, and potentially dangerous in the chilly backcountry. Prevent the fingertip blues this season and keep your dexterity, enjoyment, and digits intact with these handy tips.

You are stranded, injured and alone. Night is falling, conditions are deteriorating, and there is no way out until the next day. Or longer. Are you equipped to survive? Your chances will be vastly improved if you carry these essential items and know how to use them.

Sure, headlamps make you look like some sort of cyclopean beam brain. But it's a small price to pay for the convenience of hands free lighting, whether in camp, on the trail, or in the depths of your closet! The possibilities can be blinding so here are some tips.

Our recommended clothing/equipment list for summer hiking, strenuous above treeline hiking, winter hiking and overnight backpacking.

(6/2/08) The jacuzzi jets pulsing with energy, first two men, then three, and then another, each jockeying for position.

About a year and a half ago I began researching the most troublesome bugs and the effectiveness of the available repellents. The purpose of this was to make a more informed decision as to which repellents worked best and more importantly, to understand the limitations and potential risks of each repellent.

For years, hikers only had three real options when it came to treating water in the backcountry: boil it, filter it, or add iodine. Now a broad array of weaponry is available to exterminate all the aquatic baddies looking to take up residence in your gut: bacteria, viruses, cryptosporidia, and especially parasitic enemy number one, giardia cysts.