This is way, way cool: Gmap-Pedometer.com. It uses Google Maps to calculate how far you’ve walked and how many calories you’ve burned. The distance tool is reasonably accurate given that the only way to create points on your route is…

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Lordy, another excellent SportsGeezer post: Tips for hiking at high altitudes. I did my first hike with notable altitude effects last summer at Lassen Peak, which tops out at over 10,000 feet. Lassen is at best a moderate hike; many…

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Sports Geezer links to a bunch of suggestions. (The Geezer has a pretty much constant stream of interesting links for folks who do outdoor stuff. Saves me the trouble of looking it up. )

I haven’t written about hiking poles in awhile, and this story in an Oregon newspaper offers a fine excuse. The article primarily focuses on “nordic walking,” which I define as cross-country skiing minus the skis and the snow. According to…

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Handy reminders from Newswise.com; one of the bunch: Try lubricants and antiperspirants. For short hikes, petroleum jelly and drying powders can help. For longer hikes, antiperspirants containing aluminum chloride hexahydrate have a proven effect by reducing the amount of perspiration…

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Stephen Regenold on what keeps him satiated on a mountainside: Lately, I’ve become more scientific about adventure eating, reading nutrition labels, counting calories and divvying food up in baggies for per-hour and per-diem ratios. For big adventures, including overnight mountain…

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Here’s a story about a guy who hiked his disc problems away. Now he’s into doing Grand Canyon rim-to-rims in 15 hours.

Fixing Your Feet e-zine has a lengthy list of ways to get your shoes and feet ready for summer. This assumes you goofed off all winter and let them get out of shape.

Newsday reports on getting in shape for summer hikes. “Exercising in the great outdoors hardly feels like exercise at all,” says Ted “Cave Dog” Keiser of Portland, Ore., who has set numerous records for speed-hiking and last fall completed 50…

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