Lots of great trips in this thread. Like a lot of you, my bones and joints have aged--two new hips and a new knee--plus a paunch--so most of my hikes are day hikes that have at the end of a day a reward like a gin & tonic. Plus, I fish a lot, so I still spend a lot of time hanging out with rocks.
Back from the 70s through the 90s I mostly hiked the White Mountains in New Hampshire--especially in the late winter, when the snow was ideal for summiting. The peaks were largely 4,000-6,000 feet, but in the winter nothing is easy and you can't take anything for granted. This is on Carrigain in the Pemigewasst, with the Presidentials to the north:
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In the spring of 1977 when I was in Europe I did a traverse of the West-Ost Weitwanderweg, from Wien to Bregenz (it's now called
Österreichischer Weitwanderweg 01). The route was then fairly new (I was the 37th person to complete it)--and back then it was all maps and compass and luck at times--things are rather better organized today, and the equipment is better too. Because I was hiking early in the season when many huts were still snowed in, the Austrian Alpine club lent me a master key to the huts and winterrooms--which made the nights so much more fun. Nothing like arriving wet and cold and having a big cast iron stove at your disposal! Sometimes I'd use a tent; sometimes I'd bivouac. Once I spent a night on the porch of someone's chalet; another time in a woodcutter's shack. It took 57 days all told, with some bizarre weather and storms. I met some great people along the way too. That's the best thing about long-distance hiking--not just how it draws out character from the land, but people as well.
Over the Totes Gebirge:
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From Hochkönig:
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Lower altitudes:
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Hut stamps:
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OAC acknowledgement (I scrambled my last name with photoshop):
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