If you live in Southern California and are looking for an opportunity to get outside with the kids, here's a site that should be in your RSS reader: modernhiker.com. Modern Hiker uses a well written blog, digital photography, and Google Maps to track trail descriptions and conditions for a number of hikes in the Los Angeles area.
We caught up with Casey Schreiner, the author of modernhiker.com, and asked some questions about how parents hiking with kids in LA might benefit from the information that he posts. He was happy to provide some tips and tricks for using modernhiker.com to plan a family outing.
1) You have built up quite a list of hikes in the LA area and differentiated them with a red - green - blue color scheme. Is there any additional advice would you give to parents hiking with children when they use your map system?
I'm a mostly-solo hiker, so I'll assume that parents hiking with
their kids already know how to keep track of the little ones on the
trail. Depending on their age and enthusiasm, I would recommend
sticking to the green and blue labeled hikes. Greens are pretty short
and easy, almost like 'nature walks,' while the blues can get a bit
more strenuous.
I try to give as much information about the trails as I can on my
write-ups, so that people can see if there's something in particular
that interests them - like waterfalls or historic areas - or would
steer them away, like thick brush and ticks. If you're taking your
kids out into the wilderness, it's your responsibility to be informed
about where you're going. It's a good habit that will hopefully rub
off on the little ones when they venture out for hikes of their own.
2) If you were going to go on one of the hikes that you have blogged about with kids, where would you take them and why?
If I were taking kids out on a hike, I'd want to bring them
somewhere that could get them into nature, but also provide some
colorful local history. A shortened version of the Mount Lowe hike
gets to some really fascinating remnants of an old resort hotel built by
America's first military aviator (a hot air balloon pilot from the Civil War).
San Gabriel Peak is a short trail that gives some great views of the mountains,
as well as an old Nike Missile site. And another shortened version of
Santa Anita Canyon is like a trip back in time to the turn of the century.
Also, there's a big ol' waterfall.
If the kids are a bit older (and hardier), I'd take them down the East
Fork to the Bridge to Nowhere It's got a ton of river crossings to splash
through, and seeing a giant bridge by itself in the middle of a canyon is
fascinating, no matter how old you are.
3) What is your favorite thing about modernhiker.com that we might not know?
Other than the fact that it's a one-man, spare-time, labor-of-love
operation, everything is pretty much right there on Modern Hiker. I'm
familiar with web design, but by no means a designer. There are a lot
of things I'd still like to do with the site that I just don't quite
know how to do yet. Maybe one of these days I'll spring for a
bonafide web designer to spruce everything up ... but for now, I'm
just focusing on content.
4) You mentioned in a recent post that you used to hike on the Freedom Trail in Boston. It's a bit outside the parameters of the map, but would you mind giving us the modernhiker.com report?
I went to school in Boston, and long before I developed a love of
the outdoors, I'd been developing the History Nerd aspect of my
personality. Growing up in New England, you're never more than a mile
or two away from some significant historical site, and Boston's
Freedom Trail gives you all that historic goodness through some of the
most picturesque neighborhoods of Beantown. It's a 2.5 mile trek,
marked by a red brick pathway, that takes you from the oldest public
park in the nation to the oldest active warship in the nation. Along
the way, it passes historic graves, homesteads, markets, political
hotspots, and plenty of Dunkin' Donuts shops.
I used to walk to the trail down Commonwealth Avenue's branch of the
"Emerald Necklace," an innovative city-wide park system designed by
Frederick Law Olmstead, which added a bit of green to the day. Now
that it's just about done, the Big Dig has chipped in an additional
300 acres of parkland to the North End of Boston.
So in just a few miles, you get some great American History, some
historic parkland, and the biggest civil engineering project ever
undertaken in the U.S. There's a little something for everyone!
Modernhiker.com is a great blog that we have been following for a few months now. If you are planning a hike in or around Los Angeles, or just like well written outdoor blogs, this site is worth a visit. Thanks Casey!