If you followed our blog last year, we thank you. We also apologize. What we expected would be only a short break beginning last fall has ended up being a four-month hiatus.
We won’t burden you with a mundane, tediously long explanation for our absence from the blogosphere. Broadcasting the minutiae of our personal life isn’t our purpose when blogging, and we trust it’s not what you’re seeking when you visit hikingcamping.com.
The intent of our blog is to inspire you to hike and camp by providing you with specific, practical, albeit enthusiastic suggestions based on our recent ventures, many of which are beyond the scope of the guidebooks we write and publish.
Now that we’ve resumed blogging, we hope you’ll hang with us again in 2011. We’ll do our best to post once a week.
Just bear in mind, hikingcamping.com is a molecule of a company. The entire full-time staff comprises just two people: me (Craig) and Kathy. And our goal has always been to spend maximum time outdoors, hiking and camping. So it occasionally becomes impossible for us to maintain a quality, reader-focused blog.
At the moment we’re in southern Arizona, near Tucson, camping beneath the Santa Catalina Mountains. When not working on upcoming books, we’re hiking. Though it’s mid-January—the heart of winter—the weather is warm enough that we can stride all day in T-shirts and shorts.
So far, we can strongly recommend several hikes in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness:
• a 17-mi (27.4-km) round trip gaining 3200 ft (975 m) to Romero Pass via the Romero Pools in Romero Canyon
• a 10-mi (16.1-km) round trip gaining 4000 ft (1219) to Mt. Kimball via Five Finger Canyon
• an 18-mi (30-km) loop gaining 1600 ft (488 m) up Sabino Canyon to Hutch’s Pool, then returning through Bear Canyon past the Seven Pools
• the 6-mi (9.7-km) Phoneline trail gaining only 600 ft (183 m) while traversing the east wall of Sabino Canyon between the visitor center and the final tram stop (end of paved road)
And—presuming you’re a camper, not a hotel softie—we can say with certainty that the ideal place to base yourself here is Catalina State Park, in Oro Valley, just off Oracle Road. It’s big, well organized, not overly refined thus reasonably priced, and located at the mouth of Romero Canyon, where a trail network begins at the campsites.
Catalina State Park is also a short drive from a dizzying array of shops and restaurants, which to us seems bizarre but is, we confess, convenient and enjoyable. Whole Foods Market, and Sprouts Farmers Market, Trader Joe’s, all of which are natural-foods grocery stores, are nearby.
Mexican food, our favourite cuisine, is ubiquitous, excellent, and temptingly affordable. After a big day hiking the Catalinas, we beeline-it to a unique Mexican grill called Chipotle (www.chipotle.com), or to a contemporary tacqueria called Rubio’s (www.rubios.com).
Heck, winter hiking can be such a hot, sweaty activity here, we’ve even patronized Orange Leaf Frozen Yogurt.
You’re a fellow Canadian, and you’re in Canada right now? We hope you relish winter, as most Canadians do, and therefore don’t feel taunted when we rave about winter hiking in Arizona.
You’re a genuine, snow-lovin’-and-proud-of-it Canadian? We urge you to consider a mid-winter vacation to this exotic land of saguaro cacti. It’s dreamy this time of year. Hiking opportunities are abundant and superb.
We’ll be back soon with continued hiking/camping advice we hope you’ll put to use when you come down here to thaw and explore.
Regardless where you’ll be hiking, here’s to a high-mileage 2011.

Enlarge Fleet Foxes (upper left), Adele (upper right), Peter Bjorn and John (bottom)

Fleet Foxes (upper left), Adele (upper right), Peter Bjorn and John (bottom)

For a band called Fleet Foxes, the Seattle indie-folk outfit has been pretty slow to release new music. The band emerged from relative obscurity in 2008 and quickly scampered into listeners’ hearts, landing its self-titled debut on year-end lists far and wide. Now, after nearly three years of silence, the band is readying its follow-up LP, Helplessness Blues. This week’s show features the new album’s title track. Also on this edition of All Songs Considered, Son Lux delivers the latest from his album-in-a-month project (you can follow his progress on the blog). Plus: new music from U.K. pop star Adele, Swedish trio Peter Bjorn and John, Oregon 12-piece Typhoon and the Mexican rockers in Chikita Violenta.

Michael David Smith
Lead Blogger

Bobby Lashley, the former WWE wrestler who dabbles in mixed martial arts, will step into the cage again next week for the first time since suffering the first loss of his MMA career in a Strikeforce fight last year. And in case there’s any doubt that Lashley’s promoters, Titan Fighting Championship, are setting Lashley up for an easy win, here’s what you need to know about Lashley’s opponent: He’s a middleweight with an 8-7 professional record. Lashley’s opponent was originally supposed to be a guy named James Jack, but Jack has dropped out of the fight and been replaced by a guy named John Ott. In his last fight, a unanimous decision victory over Brian Imes at Bellator 26, Ott weighed in at 184.75 pounds. Yes, that’s right: Lashley, who’s 246 pounds of chiseled muscle, is going to fight a guy who’s been fighting 185 pounders, and losing to them almost as often as beating them.
Titan Fighting is trying to put its best spin on the matchup, releasing a statement describing Ott as “an amateur body builder” who “is currently walking at 225 lbs.” “John might be a little heavy for the fight but the extra weight he is carrying is all muscle,” said Titan Fighting CEO Joe Kelly. “From a pure strength standpoint, he will be able to go in and compete with Bobby. His strong amateur wrestling credentials will also potentially allow him to neutralize Bobby’s takedowns and force the fight to stay on the feet.”The Titan Fighting card, which takes place March 25 on HDNet, is actually not a bad one by the standards of smaller MMA promotions. But if you’re looking for a competitive main event, you’ll need to look for something other than Ott vs. Lashley.

Diva

Artist: Beyoncé

Label: Columbia, Music World Music
Director: Melina
Album: I Am…Sasha Fierce

Bath & Body Works is suing Twilight distributor Summit Entertainment, hoping to get a declaratory judgment that its “Twilight Woods” line of lotions, shower gels and other products doesn’t infringe the trademark on the hit vampire film franchise.

This might be the best toiletry-related lawsuit since Johnny Carson’s estate sued to stop ”Here’s Johnny Portable Toilets.” Bath & Body Works says it’s under threat from Summit because its lotions and other bathroom products allegedly rip off the design and color palate of Twilight promo materials. Perhaps the folks at Summit saw this blog post on a New Moon fan site about “Twilight inspired products,” including DuWop Twilight Lip Venom, Twilight Woods Body Lotion and Twilight Woods Candle.

Confusion in the marketplace?

Summit allegedly thinks so. Now Bath & Body Works has beat Summit to the courthouse to stake its claim in federal court in Manhattan.

“The term ‘Twilight’ is used so as to evoke the idea of a particular time of day when the sun is just below the horizon, illuminating the landscape,” the lawsuit says. “Whereas defendant uses the term ‘Twilight’ to refer to defendant’s teen vampire saga.”

Sounds downright relaxing, unlike the other big trademark case in the news — the one where Lady Gaga is threatening to sue a British vendor of breast milk ice cream named “Baby Gaga.” We assume that Bath & Body Works execs never told anyone they had the potential to smell like Rob Pattinson. Obviously, that would reek of trouble.