Chanoatx

While we wait out this period of uncertainty and try to find armchair travel thrills elsewhere, why not start planning to sign up for a dream trip that you have to wait for anyway? Some of the country’s most coveted adventures require securing permits well in advance, and with this season suspended for now, you can use this time to prepare for next year. So mark the permit application dates below in your calendar and start thinking about trip logistics, because these spots are some of the hardest to snag.

Kalalau Trail 

Kauai, Hawaii

The Na Pali Coast, touted as one of the most breathtaking stretches of shoreline in the world, is best experienced via the Kalalau Trail, which provides the only land access to the area. Starting at Haena State Park, the initial two miles will see you to Hanakapiai Valley, a popular day hike. But to go beyond and complete the 22-mile out-and-back trip, visitors must apply for a permit in advance through Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources reservation system. The state issues 60 permits a day that allow for up to five days of camping. Spots often fill up a year in advance. 

Long Range Traverse

Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

The Long Range Traverse, in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Gros Morne National Park, is so unmarked and remote that the park service requires visitors to pass an orientation and navigation test before they head out. The 22-mile, off-trail traverse starts with an hourlong boat ride on Western Brook Pond into the fjords before climbing 1,800 feet from sea level to the plateaus. Most hikers take three to four days to complete it. You’ll need a reservation, made in advance, before you go. To minimize traffic, a maximum of three parties (with up to four people per group) are allowed on the route each day. Gros Morne Adventures offers guided four-day backpacking trips of the Long Range Traverse (from $1,035) if you want to skip the navigating and permitting processes.

Denali Park Road

Alaska

This scenic 92-mile stretch of roadway, which cuts through Denali National Park and offers views of North America’s highest peak, is normally closed to private vehicles; past mile 15, you can only access it by bus, bike, or on foot. But for four days in September (usually beginning the second Friday after Labor Day, but this year’s event is tentative), those lucky few with permits can drive the road and hike from various trailheads off it. Enter the lottery for this in May—you’ll have about a 14 percent chance of scoring a spot—and check the results in June. If you didn’t get a permit and still want to venture in, Denali Outdoor Center rents bikes and offers a bus-in, ride-out tour.

The Wave

Utah and Arizona

The Wave is an undulating red-sandstone canyon in the Paria Canyon–Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. The trailhead is in Utah, and the rock formation and its five-mile round-trip hike cross the border into Arizona. To get here, you’ll need a very difficult-to-secure permit from the Bureau of Land Management—only 20 people are allowed in each day. Ten of those permits are distributed via lottery four months in advance; the other ten are reserved for first-come, first-served walk-ins at the Grand Staircase–Escalante Visitor Center in Kanab, Utah. Around a dozen tour operators authorized by the BLM lead hikes into the Wave, but you’ll still need to snag a permit on your own. No luck? Head to White Pocket, a region of similarly colorful Navajo sandstone formations 46 miles east, for your geology fix and Instagram snap. 

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness 

Minnesota

Over a million acres in size, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has 1,200 miles of canoe routes, 2,000 campsites, and nearly 200 miles of hiking trails throughout Minnesota’s Superior National Forest, a four-hour drive north of Minneapolis. But if you want to explore this area overnight between May and September, you’ll need to request a permit online in advance—and there’s a limited number available from each of the 63 entry points on any given day. The number of walk-up permits available each day varies; sometimes stations have dozens, sometimes they’ll have just one. Permits become available on the last Wednesday of January at 9 A.M. Central Time. 

Another option is to visit during the colder, less crowded months of October to April, when you can pick up self-issued authorization at entry points and Forest Service stations. Or Wilderness Inquiry offers guided five-day canoe and camping trips from June to September—permit included (from $595).

Culebra Peak

Colorado

If you’re summitting all 58 of Colorado’s famed fourteeners, you’ll eventually hit 14,047-foot Culebra Peak, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The catch? This peak is on private land and has no designated trail. You have to make a reservation in advance with Cielo Vista Ranch, which opens up bookings for next year on December 1. The owners allow a maximum of 20 hikers per day access to the peak on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between January and July (the peak is closed to climbers from August through December, during hunting season). Camping for hikers on the property is free the night before your climb, but the ranch charges a fee ($150 per person) for your climbing reservation.

Middle Fork of the Salmon

Idaho

The Middle Fork of the Salmon River, in the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness, is one of the most stunning and in-demand raft trips in the U.S., which means you’ll need a permit to be on the water year-round. To paddle this 104-mile stretch on your own, apply for the lottery between December 1 and January 31 and wait for the announcement of winners in February. Be sure to manage your expecations: only one out of every 45 applicants scored a permit in 2020.

You can bypass the process by booking a commercial raft trip and having your outfitter get it for you. Adventure Sun Valley does six-day guided trips (from $1,950). If you’re set on paddling your own rig, the company also offers supported trips, permit included. 

The Enchantments

Washington State

Part of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, 100 miles east of Seattle, the Enchantments area of the central Cascades is filled with glaciated granite peaks, high-alpine lakes, and rugged trails. Day hikes and long runs are doable but challenging, with thousands of feet of vertical gain. The good news is you can tackle a day hike or a run with a free permit self-issued at the trailhead.

However, if you want to camp overnight in the area between May 15 and October 31 in 2021, you’ll need a paid overnight reservation from the Forest Service, which operates on a lottery system run from February 15 to 29. If you don’t win one, try your chances with a same-day permit, issued in limited quantities in person at the ranger station in Leavenworth.

John Muir Trail

California

With this year’s thru-hiking season suspended, the Pacific Crest Trail Association, which oversees the John Muir Trail, has stated that new or pending permits are not currently being approved and no decision has been made yet on whether 2020 permits will be carried over to 2021. Coupled with the existing demand, expect it to be even tougher to snag a permit next season to thru-hike the 211-mile trail, which crosses through some of central California’s most striking high country.

If you’re tackling the trail southbound from Yosemite, you’ll need a permit from Yosemite National Park, which is processed via a lottery 24 weeks before your designated start date. Or you can try your luck for last-minute availability in person at a permit station in the park—of the daily quota per trailhead, 40 percent are available on a first-come, first-served basis at 11A.M. the day before your hike. 

If you’re hiking the trail northbound from Mount Whitney, you’ll need a permit from Inyo National Forest. Set a calendar notification to enter the lottery between February 1 and March 15, 2021, and if you don’t land a ticket, try again on April 1 for the remaining dates. Don’t want to deal with the permitting process? Southern Yosemite Mountain Guides leads backpacking trips (from $3,445) on the trail, and it’ll handle the permit for you as well as remote food drops and transportation.

Havasu Falls

Arizona

Havasu Falls, located 50 miles west of Grand Canyon National Park on land administered by the Havasupai Tribe, is reached via a 10-mile one-way trail. Camping overnight in the designated campground (day hikes aren’t allowed) requires getting a reservation from the tribe in advance. Those are allotted on February 1 each year, and typically all the permits are snatched up in the first several hours. It’s worth the hustle: you’ll be treated to a red-rock canyon that ends at waterfalls cascading over limestone cliffs into turquoise pools. The Havasupai Tribe currently isn’t allowing any outside commercial tours or guiding outfitters to lead trips to the falls.

Half Dome Cables Route

California

Before the National Park Service began a lottery system in 2010, an average of 1,200 people would climb the Half Dome at Yosemite every day. Since then demand has only increased—in 2019, the preseason lottery saw 36,098 applications for one of 300 permits (225 for day hikers and 75 for backpackers) during the 130-day window. Your next chance to make the trip in an organized fashion is 2022, as you’ll have to cast your bid during the preseason application period, which only runs March 1 to 31. Hikers can pick up to six dates, and winners are notified by mid-April. If you’re intent on hitting Half Dome in 2021, give the daily lottery a go; it hands out around 50 permits during the season, which usually runs from Memorial Day to Columbus Day. The 14-to-16-mile hike, which gains 4,200 feet of elevation, ends with a 400-foot cable-assisted climb to the summit.

Looking For More Permitted Adventures?

A savvy backpacker from Colorado put together a handy calendar of the more popular permitting windows and dates to places like the Grand Canyon, Mount Whitney, and Yellowstone.

Looks like Crush the turtle's totally gnarly cousin is shooting some sick pond footage. 

But the credit truly goes to The Fish Whisperer, a YouTube channel full of one chill dude's adventures feeding fish, being one with nature, and recently, hanging with some turtles. 

"'Sup guys, we got a turtle right here," he starts off the video saying. You know it can only get better from there. 

After incentivizing a GoPro-strapped turtle with some fish, we're watching through the official turtle cam view, seeing the lush underwater world from their eyes. 

What's so cool is how much trust the Fish Whisper has in his new turtle buddy to return to him with the equipment. But as long as he keeps the turtle (and his buddies, who start to crowd around) fed and happy, I'm sure they won't mind. Read more...

More about Viral Video, Turtles, Culture, and Animals

Master Chief has been revived and he's ready to fight in Halo Infinite.

Xbox revealed a new trailer for Halo Infinite at its E3 press conference Sunday, moments after teasing its next-gen hardware currently being called Project Scarlett. Xbox's executive VP Phil Spencer announced that Halo Infinite will usher in the new era just as the first Halo brought in the first Xbox. 

In Halo Infinite, it look like Chief has been rescued but Cortana is still gone and the Halo ringworld has been terribly damaged.  Read more...

More about Xbox One, Halo Infinite, E3 2019, Entertainment, and Gaming

My favorite phone of all time is the BlackBerry Bold 9000. Unlike the iPhone 3G, which touted a revolutionary design when it was announced just a month later in 2008, the BlackBerry Bold wasn’t super flashy. But it had one thing the iPhone 3G didn’t: BlackBerry Messenger. It became a defining characteristic on BlackBerry devices and forever changed how business and casual conversations were held by phone users. Today, after years of dwindling usage and financial woes from BlackBerry developer RIM, BlackBerry Messenger is going away for good.

BlackBerry Messenger (better known as BBM) was one of the first instant messaging (IM) platforms that arrived on mobile devices in 2005. People could choose to use a BBM account tied to their unique BlackBerry Pin rather than send a standard text message. BBM managed to take traditional desktop messaging and translate it to the tiny computers in our pockets. It was astounding.

It wasn’t perfect, though. BBM looked like an early version of Facebook’s WhatsApp. The text bubbles were cluttered, the user interface felt clunky when navigating between messages, and if the wheel on your BlackBerry got stuck, good luck scrolling through messages. Despite BBM’s weaknesses, it became the app that defined my early high school experience for two main reasons: group chats and a striking similarity to desktop IM platforms like AIM.

I got my Bold 9000 in 2008. I was in the 10th grade and, like everyone else, my life revolved around my phone. My friends and I texted every single day and night. We all had BlackBerrys. Some people got new devices from their parents as birthday gifts, others used old recycled phones. Through BBM, those individual text messages soon morphed into elaborate, endless group chats. We became a perfect batch of new BlackBerry users. RIM already made a name for itself among businesses and governments, but then it started reaching a crucial new audience: young consumers. By 2013, BBM had 60 million monthly active users. My friends and I were some of the earliest ones.

It sounds silly to say today, when WhatsApp has more than a billion users and group chats are part of our daily lives, but back then, it was sensational. I didn’t have to wait until I was home to log on to MSN Messenger to continue talking to my friends.

It was also through BBM’s group chat function that I entered my first high school relationship. We became close through constant group chats with our pals, and eventually, we split off into direct messaging. Yes, in 2008, I did the BBM equivalent of sliding into the DMs. Every time I saw my Bold’s flashing green light turn red, signifying a new message, I experienced that little burst of warmth in the pit of my stomach. It was ridiculous and exhilarating. There was no difference for me at 15 between my physical relationship with this person and our life on BBM. If anything, the latter felt even more intimate and safe.

I wasn’t the only person who felt this way about BBM, either. Early messages on the Crackberry forum are full of people trying to sum up why BBM felt better to use than standard text messages. “It’s like an exclusive club,” one Crackberry member mused. “It makes SMS look ancient,” another added.

Ironically, one of the most cited reasons on Crackberry defending BBM’s superiority is also partially a reason why my relationship fizzled out. BBM helped create one of the most anxiety-inducing messaging features that still exists today: read receipts.

Read receipts were introduced alongside BBM in 2005. When a message was sent, a tiny letter “D” would appear beside it. When that same message was read, the “D” would change to an “R.” People thought it was genius. Colleagues knew when someone was available and could hear back instantaneously. But the read receipt function came back to bite me, a person who often reads a message and replies hours later.

In 2011, Urban Dictionary added the term “rbomb” to specifically address a cultural shift on platforms like BBM. People didn’t want the other person to know when a message was read. Multiple Reddit posts asking how to deal with “read receipt anxiety” started appearing. Just this year, Dazed Digital ran a piece about how read receipts can poorly affect people’s mental health. Read receipts haunted me for years after I left BBM. I only just turned them back on through iMessage recently as an experiment. The only difference between my anxiety now and then is not having to deal with an angry, blinking red light at the top of my phone. The BlackBerry, via BBM, demanded attention.

For all that made BBM sometimes frustrating to use, it gave me something I miss today: a private community. BBM felt like a tiny oasis in a growing field of social networks and sites that wanted everything to be bigger. Sites like Habbo Hotel and Twitter helped create the internet we know today, all based on giving people the ability to talk to one another. But BBM was different. Group chats provided emotional support and a closeness that other sites couldn’t replicate. The fact that it was on your phone, a thing that already feels incredibly personal because it lives in your hand, only strengthened that feeling. Today, during a time when the internet feels too noisy, I find myself wistfully thinking about those early BBM group chats.

New York Magazine’s Max Read says group chats are “making the internet fun again.” It feels like many of us are fighting to get back to a place that reminds us of quieter old-school forums and IM platforms. That never stopped being BBM for me. It was the platform that helped me fall in love with cellphones and the thing that encouraged me to share dumb memes. It was the service that showed me small online experiences are usually more fun.

In 2013, an investigative report from The Globe and Mail suggested one plan to help save RIM, a once burgeoning company that was failing to keep up with Apple and Android, was BBM. One executive pitched a plan “to push wireless carriers to adopt” BBM as a complete replacement for traditional text messaging. The plan never got off the ground. BBM hung around for a little, eventually becoming an optional messaging platform on Apple and Android devices, but it never managed to reclaim the cultural cache it once held.

I still use group chats today with my friends. I’m in about four. One lives on Facebook Messenger, the others are through iMessage or standard texting. Those friends are in their own group chats, too, across iPhones and a variety of Android phones. No one uses BlackBerry Messenger anymore, but it created the very foundation of how the world still communicates today.

Gotta be quite a feeling, that. Loading up on the roof of Half Dome, pausing briefly, then flinging themselves over the edge, pilot and skydiver Rich Piccirilli, together with Jim Hanbury and Brian Johnson, experienced one hell of a thrill in the ’77 hang gliding and skydiving mission in Yosemite. The group ascended Half Dome […]

The site’s perennial army-green design is being revamped

In social network years, DeviantArt is ancient. To paint a picture of the era it was born in, the online creative community was originally started in 2000 to share skins for media players like Winamp. But CEO Angelo Sotira, who co-founded the site when he was 19, maintains that the platform is very young, at least when you look at the age of its users and how long they’ve been making art.

Now, after its acquisition by the website-building platform Wix in 2017, the site’s perennial army-green design is being revamped with a sleek new layout called DeviantArt Eclipse. “The aim is to be DeviantArt for the next 10 years, not the past 20,” Sotira says.

In its heyday, DeviantArt was home to a tight-knit community for artists of all skills. Users could leave constructive criticism under people’s art and write messages on each others’ profiles, long before Facebook was invented. Professional artists — like the Oscar-winning director of Pixar’s Bao, Domee Shi — credit the site as the place where they got their start. “Online art communities are probably a huge reason that you’re seeing a lot more girls getting into animation and illustration,” Shi told The New York Times in an interview.

But as social networks began taking off, users gradually started to leave for bigger platforms like Tumblr and Instagram. Artists traded the niche, art-focused community for broader networks that were easier to use and could reach more people, and visits to DeviantArt began to plummet. In 2012, DeviantArt advertised having 65 million monthly visitors. Just three years later, it would fall to 45 million, and the platform hasn’t updated the stat since.

Now DeviantArt is hoping to reclaim its place as the creative social platform for artists — and it might be the perfect time. Recently, competing sites have been struck with their own set of problems: much of Tumblr’s oddball community fled the site after a crackdown on adult content, and Instagram’s algorithms have made it harder for artists to be discovered unless they post content regularly. Platform fatigue is setting in, and artists are looking for other options.

Eclipse is rolling out to users now, and the aesthetic is decidedly more modern, available in a light or dark theme. User profiles are more customizable with rearrangeable Wix widgets and huge header photos. There are redesigned pages for deviations (what DeviantArt calls submissions) that let you choose your background to make art stand out, and expanded search functionalities that let users browse commissions, polls, and tags. Eclipse is also getting rid of third-party ads, which used to be a perk that Core members (a $5/month subscription feature that also gets users more storage and site features) paid for.

Community reaction to the redesign appears to be split. Many longtime users aren’t happy about missing features nor the buggy new interface that’s still going through growing pains; others welcome it as progress, recognizing that it’s time to move away from the dated design. It’s also been criticized as being too similar to ArtStation, another creative platform for sharing art. Sotira doesn’t seem worried, having come to expect this sort of reaction throughout the 10 versions the site has gone through in 19 years. But none of the redesigns have been as drastic as this.

Illustrator Lois van Baarle has been a DeviantArt member since 2002 and is one of the site’s most recognized artists. She’s more active these days on Instagram or Twitter, but still updates her DeviantArt occasionally. Baarle describes her experience with Eclipse as “overwhelming” so far. “[It’s] like having to learn a new platform altogether! A lot of the people who use DeviantArt are attached to the way it used to be, so I think they’ll need to attract a lot of new members in order for this huge change to catch on.”

DeviantArt’s design is something the company has debated internally for a long time. In response to a 2012 Quora post titled “Why does deviantART look so archaic/ugly?,” Sotira acknowledged that the green was a point of contention for a lot of people, but said breaking the user interface lines that longtime users were used to would “destroy habitual browsing and harm traffic patterns.” As Eclipse rolls out, Sotira plans to give users the option to return to the original layout. It’ll stay for as long as it needs to, until the majority of users warm up to the new design.

When big tech companies take over established creative communities, it’s often gone poorly. But Sotira believes that it makes more sense for a subscription company like Wix to acquire a site like DeviantArt, than it did for Yahoo, an advertising-backed media business, to acquire a platform like Tumblr. “I think they didn’t really realize what they were getting themselves into,” he says. Justin Maller, the platform’s chief creative officer, agrees: “I don’t think they respected its DNA. They tried to homogenize it and not celebrate what was unusual about it.”

Wix is specifically focused on helping creatives build personal websites, which has a natural connection to DeviantArt. On a recent earnings call, Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami said artists and designers tend to need multiple websites, which makes DeviantArt users “our base customers.” Eclipse’s redesigned profile pages are also meant to double as portfolio sites, and with DeviantArt dropping ads, the more professional presentation can also be used to lure in new sources of revenue, like brand partnerships.

While DeviantArt’s content policies are much less restrictive than Tumblr’s, it still has clear limitations on what can and can’t be posted, especially around sexual themes. “Moderation is one of the hardest challenges on any one of these networks,” Sotira says. Some moderation is automated, but a lot of it is flagged by the community. DeviantArt also has a somewhat increased barrier to entry, in that the process of uploading art is also an act of self-moderation. Everything posted on the site — there are about 65,000 submissions a day — is a piece of art personally created by the user. You can’t batch upload photos or just dump dozens of files at a time. Everything has to be submitted intentionally. Art has to be placed into specific categories, and if it’s mature content, it’s supposed to be flagged as such when it’s uploaded.

You have to credit DeviantArt for sticking around this long, throughout the internet’s many trends and phases. In 2019, artists have more places than ever to showcase their work, from professional portfolio sites like Behance to giant social networks like Instagram. But DeviantArt has always felt like it exists in its own space, and there’s something comforting about the fact that it’s still standing.

People knock DeviantArt for the quality of art posted on the site, but there’s a vitalness in having a space for beginner artists to grow together. Fan art, which is commonly associated with the site, is often dismissed as being amateurish, but there’s real value in it. You learn to draw by imitating, and the best art comes from the subjects you’re passionate about. In nearly two decades of attending DeviantArt meetups, Sotira says he’s seen a consistent turnout of a young audience that replenishes regularly. And Maller knows the value of having a community, having first met Sotira at a DeviantArt meetup in Australia. “Not everyone’s there to be a professional the whole time, some people are there to learn,” he says.

Sotira wrote an article for Recode a few years back titled, “Never Forget That 16-Year-Old Girls Run the Internet,” which he still believes to be true. Keeping an eye on the art that’s being uploaded to the site, and what kinds of members are rising in popularity, Sotira can get a sense of what users are into. “Teenage girls really like horses and wolves, as a baseline,” Sotira says. “In 20 years, lots of stuff has changed on the internet. That has not.”

Each year about 4,000 backpackers attempt thru-hikes on the nation’s big three footpaths: the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide Trails. Each is a massive commitment, with gear bills in the thousands of dollars and up to six months away from work.

But backpacking doesn’t have to be a months-long, bank-account-draining undertaking. For many people, the real appeal of backpacking is the quiet remoteness it affords, a chance to step away from the rat race and experience some real solitude. With a little bit of planning and creative preparation, you can easily have the time of your life out there, even if this is your first overnight sojourn.

Safety First

As great as backpacking is, it also comes with certain risks. It’s your job to minimize them with some basic precautions:

• Assume that you’re not going to have cell-phone reception for at least part of your hike. That means if you get lost (and even the best hikers do), it’s going to be up to you to get yourself found. Always make sure an emergency contact is aware of your intended itinerary, when you plan to return, what vehicle you’ll be driving, and who is going with you.
• Invest in a decent compass and topo maps of your hiking destination, and know how to use both. Many major gear outfitters and regional chapters of Orienteering USA offer map and compass courses for new users that usually cost less than $100. If you can’t get to one of these locations, check out the Appalachian Mountain Club’s introduction to navigation or this video from REI.

• If you have the cash to spare, consider investing in a personal locator beacon (usually a few hundred dollars), which will allow you to send your exact location and/or an emergency distress call when there’s no cell reception.
• And be sure to study this guide from the U.S. Forest Service on what to do if you do get lost or find yourself in distress: it’s chock-full of great tips on how to keep it together when all else fails.

Keep It Simple

On the Trail

State and national parks can be great places for beginners: their trails are usually well marked, and their websites offer user-friendly guidelines for new and experienced hikers alike. For first trips, Warren Doyle, director of the Appalachian Trail Institute, who has been educating hikers for over 45 years, recommends staying close to home and restricting initial outings to easily accessible and well-indicated trails. Look for routes with low mileage and little in the way of difficult terrain, like steep elevation gains and losses or tricky footing that you might find with boulders, loose rock, or even a rat’s nest of roots. “Be modest in your expectations,” Doyle advises. “This isn’t about completing mileage. It’s about simplicity and the willingness to step away from society’s cradle. You can do that as easily in five miles as you can 500.” Websites like AllTrails and Trail Finder offer databases that can be searched by zip code or geography, and regional trail conservancies are also great resources.

Searching for a Campsite

“Don’t be afraid to set up camp after just a few miles on your first day, especially if you’re already tired,” Doyle says. Also consider using this camp as the base for your weekend adventures. For weekend hikes, this might mean hiking in and establishing a base camp on Friday night, which then allows you to day-hike on Saturday with a much smaller pack and return to your tent and sleeping bag that evening. There’s also no harm in using the hostel-hut systems at places like High Sierra Camps in California or White Mountain Huts in New Hampshire. But if you want the full backpacking experience, look for loops with designated camping areas or even established shelters (which often also come with water sources nearby).

Before You Buy

Jennifer Pharr Davis, author of The Pursuit of Endurance, hiking record holder, and owner of the Blue Ridge Hiking Company, in Ashville, North Carolina, recommends using loaner hiking gear before investing in your own goods. “It’s hard to know what you need without a frame of reference,” she says. “By borrowing or renting gear, you can decide what you love, like, dislike, or can’t stand about certain products.” REI rents out gear, including backpacks and camp stoves, but you should check with your local store for a complete list of available gear. Or, for $92 per day, startup CampCrate will mail you a complete setup, including a sleeping bag, tent, water filter, and headlamp. 

The Essentials

Once you’re ready to invest in your own gear, you need to determine where and how you’re going to regularly hike—different climates and trip lengths will call for different gear. Backpacks come in a variety of sizes, and most are measured in liters; you can probably get away with a backpack in the 50-to-60-liter range for a trip less than four days. Many sleeping bags are labeled by the minimum temperature an average sleeper will be comfortable; a compressible 20-degree bag will work for many people for three seasons. And while some prefer crawling into a tent at night, others prefer to sleep in a bivy sack or hammock.

Other essential items include a basic first-aid kit, activity-specific items like sunscreen, bug spray, moleskin or duct table for blisters, and a Mylar emergency heat blanket (which can also serve as a great signal for search and rescue planes in the event you get really lost). A reliable headlamp with fresh batteries is also a must, as is a whistle, a waterproof lighter or matches, and a collapsible knife or multitool.

For a comprehensive list of recommended equipment, check out the National Outdoor Leadership School’s basic gear list or Outside’s list of backpacking essentials.

Pack Right

When it comes to packing these essentials, play to the engineering of the pack itself. Modern-day backpacks are designed with waist belts that distribute the weight of a pack to your hips and lower body, where our real core strength lies. Keep heavy items, like reserve water, heating fuel, and food, low in the main pouch of the pack, and place light items, like a down coat or sleeping bag, higher in the back. The most essential items, like maps, snacks, a cell phone, and at least one water bottle, should be kept in an external pocket where they can easily be reached.

Practice Makes Perfect

At Davis’s store, mornings are by appointment only so that backpackers can receive one-on-one attention from employees trained to help customers find the right size backpack and make sure it’s properly fitted. Even if that kind of individualized treatment isn’t available where you live, find an outfitter that will take the time to show you how to use items like a water purifier, camp stove, tent, and rain fly. Practice using them long before you’ve hit the road. There’s nothing like getting stuck outside in a deluge to make you consider another hobby.

Hit the Gym Before the Trail

Even the most thoughtfully packed backpack is going to add extra weight and strain to your body. Couple that with the repetitive motion of hiking and you’re going to tax your body in new (and sometimes exhausting) ways.

To make sure that body is trail ready, personal trainer and competitive ultramarathoner Crystal Seaver recommends considering a workout strategy that leads with basic cardiovascular conditioning. “Before you even add weight to the mix, start spending some real time on your feet,” Seaver says.

After that, you’ll need to train your body for the unique demands of hiking with specific exercises. Building core strength will help keep you stabilized on variable terrain; back and upper-body strength will help you shoulder that pack. To achieve both, Seaver recommends these five exercises. Try for ten reps of each, making sure to focus on controlled movement and good form.

Step-Ups

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Lunges

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Single-Leg Deadlifts

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Downward-Dog Holds

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Push-ups—Regular or Modified

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(Emily Reed)

Consider Your Fuel 

When planning meals, think first about what and how you actually like to eat, and then add a little bit to that. Backcountry cooking can be a blast and even gourmet—but only if you have the time and patience to pull it off. And although dehydrated meals are super easy, they are also expensive.

Claudia Carberry, a registered dietician and Appalachian Trail thru-hiker, recommends starting with easy enhancements to supermarket meals. For breakfast, she’ll add peanut butter or Nutella to instant oatmeal and wash it down with an instant coffee. Lunches are almost always variations on wraps—there are endless combinations to be had with hummus, a good hard cheese, and some salami. Carberry’s preferred dinners start with boxed rice or pasta (think Annie’s mac and cheese or Near East’s rice pilaf), to which she’ll add pouches of tuna or precooked chicken. Umami goes a long way to making food taste great, so consider bringing along small bags of sun-dried tomatoes, olives, or freeze-dried mushrooms for some zing. Travel-size condiments like sriracha or flavored salts can add a welcome zip of flavor to the mix as well. “It’s a way less expensive way to eat,” says Carberry, “and you’re still ultimately just boiling a pot of water.”

Carberry advises hikers putting in light to moderate effort to add an extra 500 to 1,000 calories to their daily intake. Spreading out those calories with regular snacks is a great way to keep from bonking. Energy bars are easy, as is the omnipresent trail mix. And when it comes to hydration, Carberry says she tends to skip energy drinks or hydration powders in favor of water. “If you’re drinking the recommended daily amount”—at least 64 ounces, with more for cooking—“and eating adequately, hydration shouldn’t be a problem,” she says.

Take Only Photographs, Leave Only Footprints

We take to the trail because it is wild and often pristine. But it doesn’t take much to destroy that beauty altogether. That’s one reason why backpacking is defined by Leave No Trace ethics, and it’s essential you know how to follow it. Hike only on designated paths. Whenever possible, camp only on designated sites. Light fires only in established fire rings (or even better, don’t light one at all). Clean up every campsite before you leave, even if the trash isn’t yours, and leave the rest of the ecosystem as you found it.  

The Nitty-Gritty

With few exceptions, any trail should always be considered carry in, carry out. That includes obvious stuff like wrappers and empty canisters, but it also includes leftover food, water used for cleaning, toilet paper, and (let’s just get this out there) your own poop. If the landscape allows for it, you can opt to bury your organic waste in a cathole, so long as it is at least six inches deep and 200 feet away from any water source. If that’s not an option, you’re going to need to invest in a portable toilet kit—though on more than one occasion, I’ve successfully used pet-store poo bags to surprisingly good ends. To avoid lugging excess stinky trash, many female hikers will use a dedicated pee rag (often a bandana kept in a Ziploc bag) and a menstrual cup. To further cut down on what you need to pack out, combine meal ingredients into single bags and favor bulk-food items, especially those that can be stashed in resealable pouches. Resealable freezer bags make for great garbage-disposal units on the trail.

If any of these rules feel confusing, stick to this basic mantra: the woods do not belong to me. If that doesn’t work, try this one: I will not be a jackass. Got it? Good. Now get outside. 

Clutch your old BlackBerries dear, because the consumer version of BBM is officially dying at the end of May. In a blog post, Emtek (the company that has taken over running the BBM app since 2016) has announced that it will end support for the messaging app on May 31st, citing fleeting users over the past years despite efforts to revitalize the app with features like Uber hailing and video calling.

“We are proud of what we have built to date ... The technology industry however, is very fluid, and in spite of our substantial efforts, users have moved on to other platforms, while new users proved difficult to sign on,” the company wrote in a blog. “Though we are sad to say goodbye, the time has come to sunset the BBM consumer service, and for us to move on.”

Those using the enterprise version of the app, called BBMe, will continue operations as normal. If you really miss BBM and want to keep using it, you can also download the enterprise version on Android and iOS for free, but there is a $2.50 subscription fee for every six months. BBMe does offer end-to-end encryption and message editing / unsending where the consumer version didn’t, so it may be worth the dollars if you’re still an avid BBM believer.

But if, like most people, you’ve already moved on, then let us all remember a moment in time when it was considered cool to tell people to find you on an app using a convoluted mixture of numbers and letters as a way to add friends.

The story goes like this: A young Mohican woman named Bash Bish, accused of adultery, was lashed into a canoe and pushed over the top of Massachusetts’ highest waterfall. Though the pool at the bottom of the falls is relatively small, her body was never found. Since then, more than 25 people have died at the waterfall, now called Bash Bish, primarily from misguided cliff jumps and falls—and rumor has it that their ghosts still linger around the boulder-studded pools. Hikers have told the website America’s Most Haunted that they have glimpsed the figure of a girl (Bash Bish, perhaps?) watching them from behind the falls.

Mist might explain that ghostly outline. So could crowds. Come July, this corner of Massachusetts’ Taconic Mountains attracts plenty of hot and sweaty pilgrims, so it’s conceivable that the figure behind that watery curtain is actually a living, breathing adventurer rather than a long-dead Native American.

Assuming you don’t add to Bash Bish’s tally of deaths, it’s a good idea to climb to the top of the falls for panoramic views across the mountains that separate New York and Massachusetts. Wire fences drilled into the rocky summit now keep hikers from swan-diving to their demise—from this highest perch, at least. Gaze down into Bash Bish’s rocky maw, then descend to the bottom of the falls to swim in the pool and conduct your ghost patrol.

You can track more paranormal activity at these, um, haunts.

Manoa Falls

Oahu, Hawaii

Tales of the night marchers abound throughout Hawaii, where people claim to have seen ghosts marching to an ancient and primitive drumbeat. These night marchers, or hukai’po, sometimes appear as warriors in armor. Other apparitions look like Hawaiian royals. Typically, they carry torches and walk in processions that hover above the ground, though some observers have reported seeing footprints in their wake.

As their name suggests, the night marchers generally appear after sundown, but a few sightings have been reported during daylight hours, and Manoa Falls is one of their hot spots. This 150-foot waterfall, reached via a 1.6-mile out-and-back hike, is also popular with tourists—but if you see the hukai’po, local wisdom dictates that you should play dead by lying on the ground and averting your eyes out of respect for the walking deceased.

Vernal and Nevada Falls

Yosemite National Park, California

Lots of people have died by slipping and falling near Yosemite’s waterfalls. The aptly named Mist Trail to Vernal Fall (three miles round-trip) and Nevada Fall (seven miles round-trip) leads hikers onto wet rocks, where footing is precarious—and the temptation to snap selfies becomes irresistible. But Yosemite area folklore blames at least some of those tumbles on an evil spirit named Po-ho-no.

The story takes its genesis from Miwok tales of Po-ho-no, a trickster figure that takes the shape of an impish wind capable of shoving people off cliffs. If you remain a sensible distance from any precipice, Po-ho-no can’t hurt you. But should you succumb to the temptation to creep to the edge and peer over? You just might feel a shove on your shoulder before your wingless flight.

Ghost House Trail

Big Ridge State Park, Tennessee

Tales of heartache and woe abound in the southern Appalachians, where poverty and isolation have made life hard for the people who’ve hacked out a living in these hills. One such story documents how homesteader Matson Hutchinson lost his daughter Mary to tuberculosis in the late 1800s. But her cries are said to live on: People visiting the spot where the home once stood claim to have heard sounds of suffering from an invisible young girl.

The 1.2-mile loop also visits the family cemetery, which has given rise to even more ghost stories. Some hikers claim that their photos of the tilting headstones (dating from 1907 to 1929) included the occupants’ spirit shapes standing behind the markers. Should those not appear in your snapshots, search instead for a man in gray pants and a red flannel shirt—the apparition of Mason Hutchinson, who’s rumored to appear throughout the woods where he once worked.

Reality check: Hitting the gym is the quickest way to hike farther, easier, faster, and pain-free. Get into a routine—or take yours to the next level—with these smart workouts for three different levels.

The Best Beginner Hiking Workout

Ready to get started? Use this workout to ease into a new fitness regime.

Cardio: Shoot for hikes or walks of up to 2 miles once or twice per week. “Even half a mile will go a long way toward getting your joints ready for longer hikes on uneven terrain,” Fog-Wiltse says. This can be as simple as going for a walk around the block.

The Best Intermediate Hiking Workout

Established your base fitness? Take the next step by adding short, intense bursts of training to your workout.

Cardio: Grab a stopwatch: Variable Intensity Interval Training is your new best friend for netting cardio gains fast. Complete the following circuit three times in a row: Work for 30 seconds then rest for 30 seconds, totaling 12 minutes. Complete the circuit two to three times per week, alternating with strength days.

Plyojacks: Think of these as exaggerated jumping jacks, extending fully then retracting into a squat.

High-Knee Jog : Just what it sounds like.

Mountain Climbers: Place your hands on the floor in front of you and start in plank position. Alternate hopping your feet forward, quickly bringing each knee to your chest.

Skaters : Leap side to side, landing on one foot while touching the other foot in a low lunge behind you and reaching your inside hand toward the floor. Go for distance and speed.

The Best Advanced Hiking Workout

Want to crush any trail? From epic days to expeditions, you'll need maximum power and endurance.

Cardio: To go the long haul, you have to train for the long haul. Up your once- to three-times weekly cardio sessions to trail running 3 to 5 miles, hiking 5 to 10 miles, or mountain biking 12-plus miles, including hills in each. If you can only get one long session in, add two sessions of Level 2 cardio.

The Expert: Robyn Fog-Wiltse

A physiologist, personal trainer, and nutrition specialist, Fog-Wiltse runs Sasquatch Training, an online and in-person fitness platform.

Climb through Douglas firs and sword ferns to reach this 3,205-foot summit in Tillamook State Forest.

Trail Facts

• Distance: 4.4 miles (out and back)
• Time: 3 hours
• Difficulty: 3 out of 5

Summary

While Mt. Hood is still shrouded in snow, head into the Tillamook State Forest for a leg-burning ascent up 3,205-foot Kings Mountain. (The trail should be snow-free by mid-April.) Begin just an hour west of Portland at the Kings Mountain trailhead (45.5969, -123.5063). Follow the steep, twisting trail past Douglas firs and sword ferns, covering more than 2,500 feet of elevation gain in 2.2 miles. 

The view from the top is worth the punishing climb—with commanding vistas across the Lester Creek valley to the southwest. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Mts. Hood and Adams.Tip: Be sure to bring trekking poles to save your knees on the rocky descent. 

Tag us @backpackermag and #hikeoftheweek on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook if you do this Hike of the Week.

If you’ve only ever seen one piece of footage of competitive video gaming, there’s a good chance it’s this one: the “Daigo Parry” or “Evo Moment #37,” taken from Daigo Umehara’s Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike semi-final match against Justin Wong at Evo 2004. A legitimate feat of manual dexterity and timing that makes Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice look like Spyro the Dragon, Daigo’s incredible fifteen-parry comeback with just a pixel of health left drove the crowd wild.

Now there’s a whole new way to watch it. Mark Julio, a notable figure in the fighting game community who works on the Evo tournaments among other things, dug up some new footage himself and posted it to YouTube. The audio is almost more interesting than the video, as you can hear people in the audience discussing the match as it progresses before freaking out at the magnitude of what eventually happens.

The world of e-sports has come a long way since, but even 15 years on it’s hard to beat the sheer rush of this moment.

A new spin-off series based in The Walking Dead universe is coming to AMC in 2020.

Hot on the trail of the ninth season of The Walking Dead, AMC announced that a second spin-off will start production this summer and premiere sometime in 2020, IGN reported Monday. The new zombie show got a 10-episode order for its first season with Walking Dead writer Matt Negrete heading it up as a co-creator.

We don't know a whole lot about the new Walking Dead show, but AMC did provide a short description that gives us a hint of what it will look like, saying the series will "feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad." Read more...

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Not every shelter requires futzing with poles, guylines, and rain flies. Outside digital media producer Madeleine LaPlante-Dube praises her favorite car-camping staple: Decathalon’s Quechua 2 Seconds pop-up tent ($60) .

Whether it’s big elevation changes, big miles, or big moves, these 23 routes prove that the best hikes are often the hardest.

Adobe and Moleskine have teamed up again to launch the Creative Cloud Connected Moleskine Paper Tablet, which turns hand-drawn sketches into vectors in Illustrator in real time. The Creative Cloud notebook is the latest addition to Moleskine’s Smart Writing System, which works with the standalone Pen+ Ellipse to track what’s being drawn on the pages. The idea is that it’ll eliminate the extra steps artists have to take between sketching out their ideas on paper and getting to the finished digital product.

To get started, you need to download the Moleskine+ for Adobe Illustrator extension, which adds an option in Illustrator’s Windows tab to connect the pen. You don’t necessarily need to have Illustrator open while you’re working (as fun as it is to watch pen strokes showing up on the screen in real time). With the Pen+ Ellipse connected to the companion Moleskine Notes app on iOS or Android, you can sketch away from the desktop, and save your pages as an image, PDF, text, or an SVG file, which you can open up in Illustrator or Photoshop at a later time.

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Adobe and Moleskine’s first collaboration was the Creative Cloud Connected Moleskine smart sketch album, launched four years ago. The companion Moleskine, for Creative Cloud scanning app could be used to take photos of drawings on the Moleskine notebook, but in my testing, I found that it worked well with regular paper as well. The app automatically fixes the contrast and brightness to vectorize images, which can then be saved to your Creative Cloud or sent to Illustrator. The new Creative Cloud Smart Notebook saves the step of having to take a photo, and the lines appear automatically in Illustrator.

Still, it’s hard to say whether the notebook is going to fill a niche. There are already apps like Adobe Illustrator Draw that automatically vectorize strokes drawn on a tablet, and it’s definitely not hard for artists to take a photo of or scan their hand-drawn sketches before working on it digitally. Illustrator even has an Image Trace feature that lets artists turn images into vectors, which is a much cheaper option than the $180 pen and $35 notebook combo. Alternatively, you could just use the free Moleskine for Creative Cloud app to get your sketch into Illustrator, as it actually works quite well.

In addition to Creative Cloud connectivity, you can also use the notebook like you would with Moleskine’s other smart writing sets to digitize notes and transcribe text. The Creative Cloud notebook just costs an extra $5 over the regular smart notebooks, so it’s worth a try if you already own a Pen+ Ellipse and need a new notebook.

My one issue with the Moleskine line of smart notebooks, besides the price, has always been the ballpoint pen. The Pen+ Ellipse is certainly not my choice of drawing tool, and I wish Moleskine had other options like smart pencils or markers. Other analog-to-digital options like the iSKN Slate let artists slide a magnetic ring over their own art supplies, which is a start.

All criticisms aside, it is pretty magical to watch pen drawings on paper show up on real Adobe software. It works fairly well, and strokes are replicated instantly and accurately. The Creative Cloud Connected Moleskine Paper Tablet is available now in stores and on Moleskine.com for $34.95, and it requires the separate $179 Pen+ Ellipse to work. You can read detailed instructions on how to set up the process on Adobe’s blog here.

If the rumors are true, Breaking Bad is coming back with a sequel on Netflix and AMC.

A Breaking Bad movie starring Aaron Paul as Jesse will be coming to Netflix and AMC, according to unnamed sources cited by The Hollywood Reporter Wednesday. This latest rumor follows up on the rumor previously reported by the same outlet that there's a two-hour Breaking Bad movie in the works with the original show's creator Vince Gilligan at the helm.

Aaron Paul will be reprising his role as Jesse Pinkman in the movie, THR reports. The movie will be a sequel to the events of Breaking Bad, which means it's unlikely we'd see Walter White again, but perhaps some other familiar faces could pop up. Read more...

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The 20 games coming with the PlayStation Classic have been unveiled, including some heavy-hitting classics like Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII.

Sony revealed the PlayStation Classic game lineup Monday, a list of 20 pre-installed games that span almost every genre imaginable. The PlayStation Classic, coming Dec. 3, will cost $100 — just in time for the holidays.

Here's the full list of games:

• Battle Arena Toshinden

• Cool Boarders 2

• Destruction Derby

• Final Fantasy VII

• Grand Theft Auto

• Intelligent Qube

• Jumping Flash!

• Metal Gear Solid

• Mr. Driller

• Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

• Rayman

• Resident Evil Director's Cut

• Revelations: Persona

• R4 Ridge Racer Type 4

• Super Puzzle FIghter Turbo

• Syphon Filter

• Tekken 3

• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six

• Twister Metal

• Wild Arms Read more...

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At E3 this year, Microsoft unveiled a new Halo game — Halo: Fireteam Raven. It wasn’t Halo 6 or Halo: Infinite, but an arcade game set during the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The game is now available to play across the US and Canada at Dave & Busters.

The game follows a team of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs), as they fight alongside Master Chief on the original Halo ring. The game booth uses a 130-inch 4K screen to allow up to four players to play, manning four turrets in the game console, which allows them to fight across six levels. Players will also be able to log into the game with their gamertag to add their progress on Halo Waypoint.

The games have been installed at Dave & Busters, a chain of arcade restaurants with 117 locations in the US and Canada. Microsoft says that it will roll the game out to 20 additional countries in the next couple of months.

Whether you’re a neighborhood jogger or an ultramarathoner, fueling right will help you get the most out of every mile. Eating well before you run can prevent sudden fatigue mid-workout (aka hypoglycemia, or bonking) and can have a direct impact on your performance. “What you eat will help you through the run by either building your glycogen stores for a workout later or boosting blood sugar for a workout in the short term,” says nutritionist Amy Shapiro, founder of Real Nutrition NYC. As you start to increase your mileage, your body requires extra fuel—and eating right gets even more important.

Foods to Avoid Before a Run

Foods high in fat, fiber, and protein are best avoided right before you hit the pavement or trail. “Too much fat or protein before a run can cause cramping or tiredness, as your body will be spending energy on digestion instead of running,” Shapiro explains. High-fiber foods can also lead to GI distress and cramping because they are hard to fully digest, so they move through your system rapidly. Some runners swear by a caffeine boost, but be careful not to overdo it on coffee or tea for all the same reasons you wouldn’t want to overdo it at the office—elevated heart rate, stomachaches, and frequent bathroom trips. These foods could be rough for digestion before a run:

• Legumes
• Broccoli, artichokes, or other high-fiber veggies
• Apples, pears, or other high-fiber fruits
• Cheese, red meat, bacon, or other high-fiber foods
• Caffeine (in large amounts)
• Spicy foods

Foods to Eat Before a Run

The ideal pre-run snack is easy to digest and provides instant fuel, Shapiro says. Foods higher in carbohydrate content are best, because carbs break down into glucose, the body’s main source of energy during a run. Glucose circulates in the bloodstream, where it can be used for immediate energy, or it gets stored as readily accessible glycogen in the muscles and liver. A little bit of protein and fat can provide some staying power, but the majority of your pre-run fuel should be carbs. Shapiro encourages opting for real foods when possible, rather than sticking to bars and energy gels. Her go-to snacks:

• Banana and almond butter
• Turkey and cheese on whole-wheat bread
• Oatmeal and berries
• Cheese stick and carrots
• Toast with 1/4 avocado or one to two tablespoons of nut butter

When to Eat

The ideal pre-run meal is generally 300 to 400 calories, consumed around two hours before you hit the road, Shapiro says. Even if you’re going long, you’re better off fueling mid-run than loading up too much beforehand. If you’ve eaten a larger meal, you may need to wait up to four hours before running to prevent stomach discomfort, although 30 minutes is usually enough after a light snack, she says.

Exactly how much you ought to consume varies slightly based on your body and your workout, of course. For an easy run of less than an hour, aim for 15 grams of carbs. “Most people can get through a three-mile run without food beforehand,” Shapiro says. “But it might be easier to get through the three miles if you have a small carbohydrate snack, such as a piece of fruit.” If you’re doing a longer or more intense workout, go for 30 grams of carbs. Before a marathon, you’re looking at something between 50 and 75 grams. For runs longer than 75 minutes, you’ll also need to think about bringing along some mid-run fuel, because your glycogen stores will be depleted. Shapiro advises 30 to 60 grams of carbs for every additional hour you’ll be out, as well as added electrolytes and extra fluids.

RoboCop — the cyborg law man who cannot be killed by humans, the law, or Hollywood, apparently — is back. Today, Deadline reported that MGM is producing a new installment of the franchise, a reboot of the planned sequel written by the 1987 picture’s original writers, which never made it to theaters because of a writer’s strike the year after RoboCop’s premiere, and because Paul Verhoeven, who directed the original film, thought directing a sequel would be “déclassé.” The script languished for years, until the run-up to the 2016 election. The president of MGM, Jonathan Glickman, called up Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner, the two writers of 1987’s RoboCop. “He called me and said, ‘Did you actually predict in your sequel script that a reality star would run for president and win?’ We had,” Neumeier told Deadline. “So Mike and I wrote a draft and gave one interview in Barbados and I think the only person who read it was Neill Blomkamp, and that set this in motion.” Now Neumeier has a producer credit and Miner is an executive producer.

Fans would be forgiven for being confused by news of a new RoboCop reboot, considering that the studio already rebooted Verhoeven’s original sci-fi flick four years ago with Brazilian director José Padilha; that remake featured Joel Kinnaman (House of Cards, Altered Carbon) as Alex Murphy, the human copper remade with a cybernetic body, and Michael K. Williams (The Wire, Inherent Vice) as Jack Lewis, Murphy’s partner. The 2014 film debuted to mixed reviews from critics, with The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis saying it best: “Every generation, apparently,” she wrote, “gets the RoboCop it deserves, or perhaps desires.”

Neill Blomkamp — whose most recent features were 2013’s Elysium and 2015’s Chappie, and who has been working on films for his independent studio in the meantime — told Deadline he was excited to helm a RoboCop reboot, because he was so impressed by the original as a kid. “At first, the consumerism, materialism, and Reaganomics, that ‘80s theme of America on steroids, came through most strongly,” he said to Deadline. “But as I’ve gotten older, the part that really resonated with me is identity, and the search for identity.” At the end of every RoboCop film, Murphy remembers his humanity; it seems like Blomkamp is well on his way to making the mecha-cop human again.

These backpacking trips in the United States deserve John Muir Trail-level hype and Narrows-style recognition — but no one knows yet. Ditch the crowds on these weekend adventures that have been solitude glutton-approved.

Find a new adventure in the book “Backpacker Hidden Gems: 100 Greatest Undiscovered Hikes Across America.” Author Maren Horjus, Backpacker Magazine’s destinations editor, gives a sneak peek at 10 to whet your appetite.

1) Gore Range, Eagles Nest Wilderness, Colorado

Pitch-anywhere lakeshores and obscure summits are hard to find near Denver — the one downside of living in the country’s multisport capital. But there’s a workaround: the Gore Range. Devoid of 14,000-foot peaks — and, quite frankly, trails — the area simply doesn’t attract crowds. And for that reason, it doesn’t require a rigorous permit system.

So you might feel like you’re cheating when you’re tracing its 50-mile-long rampart of Thirteeners, taking your pick of pointy peaks, glacially carved valleys, and aquamarine lakes. It’s the way hiking in Colorado should be.

Do it: Use the Gore Creek and Gore Lake Trails to service a DIY adventure. They’ll deposit you at Gore Lake (mile 6), where adventure beckons. If you’re feeling spicy, stage an off-trail assault to Deluge Lake, bagging Hail and Snow peaks en route.

The off-trail scramble lands you on the other side of Snow Pass at Deluge Lake near mile 12 overall. Take the Deluge Lake Trail 4 miles back to the Gore Lake trailhead to close the loop.

2) Gap Run, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Crystalline swimming holes, secluded hollows, monster trout, see-forever ridgelines, showy fall color — every trademark of the Shennies is up for the taking on the Rocky Mount Loop in the park’s southern corner. Even better? This insulated piece of paradise is an hour’s drive from the metro mobs at the northern end of Shenandoah, making it quiet even by South District standards. Classic Appalachian wonders, no Appalachian crowds.

Do it: Piece together a 9.8-mile lollipop-loop by linking the Rocky Mount and Gap Run trails. The former serves up views across Gap Run Valley, Shenandoah Valley, and the main crest of Shenandoah’s Blue Ridge, while the latter ducks into a quiet forest. Pinpoint a secluded piece of waterside real estate anywhere along Gap Run between miles 5.4 and 6.4.

3) Jones Hole, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah

Lack of water for drinking and cooking bumps most canyon-country trips out of the beginner category. If you don’t have advanced water-scouting skills, you’re stuck hauling in a heavy load of your own supply. Not here, where a stupid-short approach leads to a bona fide oasis, where two creeks meet 1,000 feet beneath sunset-hued cliffs. Early Native Americans must have liked it too — petroglyphs and pictographs on the rocks date to the Fremont people who lived here more than a millennium ago.

Do it: To get to Ely Creek, take the Jones Hole Trail just 1.5 miles from the fish hatchery. Set up your tent on the far side of the bridge, then enjoy the central location: The best swimming hole is 0.4 miles west, and the Green River and Whirlpool Canyon (where dinosaur fossils have been uncovered) are 1.5 miles south.

4) Indian Point, Garden of the Gods Wilderness, Illinois

A can’t-miss plan for sussing out a stellar campsite: Go beyond the edges of where campers usually stay, evaluating sites by merit rather than convenience. The higher you go, the better the views, but don’t waste so much energy that you sleep through a good sunrise.

Such a strategy pays off in sites like this one in Garden of the Gods, a day hike-oriented park that funnels visitors into the car campgrounds on its fringes. You’ll share the area’s castellated bluffs and wide views with daytrippers in the afternoon, but when the sun melts into the prairie and paints the otherworldly rock sculptures unnatural shades of magenta, you’ll have it to yourself.

Do it: Get to Indian Point via the River to River Trail from Hitching Post Equestrian. Near mile 5.1, veer south onto the Indian Point Trail, which leads to a 300-foot-tall outcropping. There’s a stellar campsite tucked in a wooded area with east-facing views over the tapestry of hardwoods. When the morning sun dispels the rock garden’s evening cool, you’ll know you found the right spot.

5) Redwood Canyon, Kings Canyon National Park, California

There aren’t many places where you can sleep under the canopy of 2,000-year-old giant sequoias. This trip into the world’s largest such grove is bucket list material for backpackers of any skill level. Thanks to prescribed burning, the trees in the Redwood Mountain Grove vary widely in size and age — from 30-foot-tall juveniles to ancient behemoths that reach the heavens. And while the area is at least somewhat popular among day hikers, you’ll find surprising solitude when the sun sets: Even in summer, only about 60 people camp in this well-kept-secret corner.

Do it: Create a 6.5-mile loop by threading together the Redwood Creek and Sugar Bowl trails, overnighting in the Redwood Mountain Grove near mile 1.9. There, the tallest trees outrank skyscrapers, reaching nearly 300 feet (and 20 feet in diameter). And the easy access to Redwood Creek is hard to beat. Set up your tent amid the ferns and thick duff — you won’t find a softer bed for tree gazing.

6) Sal Hollow, Mammoth Cave National Park, Kentucky

Put “cave” in your name, and most visitors head straight underground — leaving the trails lacing the bumpy karst above eerily quiet. Embrace this park on a two-day loop that explores Sal Hollow, where the sun does shine. The above-ground tour takes you across riverside bluffs and through stands of beech, maple, and hickory, proving once and for all that Mammoth Cave’s topside features are just as attractive as its subterranean labyrinth.

Do it: From the Maple Springs trailhead, take the Sal Hollow Trail some 7.4 miles southwest to snag a quiet campsite on the canyon rim — just a short walk from an airy perch over Sal Hollow. It’s set back from the trail for solitude and tucked in a grove of hardwoods that turn in October. To vary the scenery, loop back to the trailhead on the Buffalo Creek Trail, creating an 11.7-mile circuit.

7) Sahale Glacier Camp, North Cascades National Park, Washington

You’re not on top of the world when you reach this rock-protected site at 7,600 feet, but you’ll think you are. Blame the views, which are crowded with mountains the way the night sky is crowded with stars.

Or maybe it’s the thundering crashes coming from the large towers of ice that drop from glaciers below you. Or maybe it’s because you’re sleeping on the edge of Sahale Glacier, which offers hours of adventures for those with crampons, ice axes, ropes, and experience.

Put it all together and you’ll come to a conclusion: Modest elevation be damned, this is high-alpine camping at its finest.

Do it: After landing the permit, switchback up the western slope of 8,681-foot Sahale Mountain on the Cascade Pass Trail. At the saddle (near mile 3.4), veer onto the Sahale Arm Trail, which weaves through talus and alpine meadows to the Glacier Camp at mile 5.5.

8) Charon’s Garden, Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma

At the turn of the 20th century, North America’s once millions-strong bison herd teetered on the brink of extinction. So the Bronx Zoo sent 15 of the animals by train to this refuge in an effort to save the species. More than 100 years later, about 650 of the beasts graze in its mixed-grass prairie, which was spared the plow thanks to the patchwork of granite outcroppings littering the area.

Best part? You can camp smack in the middle of prime bison-spotting territory at the refuge’s western edge — where your chances of glimpsing some of the preserve’s 600-member elk herd are equally high.

Do it: Do it as a 4.8-mile out-and-back, following the Charon’s Garden Trail the whole way to a rock-strewn meadow where the bison often roam. Set up your tent in the shadow of 2,770-foot Elk Mountain, a slabby granite dome that hogs the horizon to the southeast — and bring a rope to climb it.

9) Yankee Paradise, Cumberland Island National Seashore, Georgia

Moss-draped oak forests, soothing saltwater marshes, trickling tidal creeks, and white-sand beaches, all on a 37,000-acre barrier island — sounds like the perfect place for a resort with hotels and golf courses.

But Cumberland Island on the south Georgia coast remains steadfastly wild and pristine. Only 300 campers are permitted each day, and the 45-minute ferry ride across Fancy Bluff Creek keeps even those few away: Cumberland sees only 60,000 or so visitors every year. That leaves its 50 square miles of oak canopies, palmetto groves, and sand dunes virtually untouched — and a haven for hikers.

Do it: Book a round-trip ferry ride from St. Marys and connect the River and Parallel trails 7.5 miles to Yankee Paradise. There, you can tent in a shaded campground close to a beach where sea turtles nest from April to August. From here, you’re not only well past where most overnighters stop, but you’re also in prime position to tick off day hikes to the historic First African Baptist Church and the ruins of the old Cumberland Wharf.

10) Mt. Cabot, White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire

Blink twice: You won’t find many hikers on Mt. Cabot — and you won’t find any cars. Some 60 miles north of the people-magnet that is Mt. Washington, part of the Presidential Range in the White Mountains, Cabot remains blissfully off the radar.

This is despite its wealth of long-range views and early-changing leaves, plus a spiderweb of trails that make for any number of weekend-size loops. Climb to empty ridges and quiet pond campsites and you’ll know the secret to solitude in the Whites: the Pilot Range.

Do it: For the best introduction to the Pilots, make a 16.3-mile loop of the Mill Brook, Kilkenny Ridge, and Bunnell Notch Trails. As many as four big-view outcroppings are up for the taking along the way. Going counterclockwise, these include Rogers Ledge (peekaboo vista of Mt. Wash, 17 miles southeast), The Horn, The Bulge, and Mt. Cabot itself.

Camp at lily-padded Unknown Pond Campsite #5 (near mile 6.7), where bullfrogs stage a nightly concert. And, if the wind is calm, the 3,905-foot The Horn reflects into the pond’s silvery waters.

Itching for more secret hikes? Pick up a copy of brand-new “Hidden Gems,” published by Falcon Guides, for $28 wherever books are sold.

The post The 10 Best Hikes You’ve Never Heard Of appeared first on GearJunkie.

Is Tuesday actually the best day to buy plane tickets?

It's a rumor that we're sure you've seen circling around the internet or heard from family and friends for years — so why are we now hearing that Sunday is the day to buy plane tickets for cheap?

Do either of these days even matter when it's the holiday season? What about summer vacation season? What about international flights and that sweet last-minute pricing? Is flying ever really "cheap?"

Let us start off by saying there's no one-size-fits-all rule to cheap plane tickets — and if any article tries to tell you that, they're lying. Long distance trips and international flights will obviously be more expensive than domestic flights, and you probably could have assumed that flying over the holidays is more expensive than usual. But aside from the obvious stats, there are a ton of other tricks to take into account, and you're lucky if you can book a trip without having a slight panic attack. Read more...

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This year’s reboot of God of War on the PlayStation 4 was a wonderful surprise. It imbued the long-running series with an emotional core, turned Kratos into a likable character, and still managed to include some very satisfying action. It also looked gorgeous, as the series made the shift from Greek to Norse mythology with plenty of style. Now that style can live on your walls thanks to a new series of art prints from Cook & Becker.

If the Cook & Becker name sounds familiar, it’s because the art studio has slowly built up a reputation for offering some of the best game art around. In the past, that has included series for Fallout, Skyrim, Ni No Kuni, and even an absurdly large Final Fantasy XV art tome. The God of War collection includes six prints, which all feature Kratos and his son Atreus in a variety of scenarios: paddling past a giant statue, preparing to face dark enemies, or being stomped by an angry troll. All of the art comes from the team at Sony’s Santa Monica Studio, where God of War was developed.

The prints start at $95, and go up from there depending on framing and finish. You can grab them right here.

There is no shortage of comic book readers on the Play Store, but if you've ever read comics on your Windows computer, then you may have used CDisplayEx. It's one of the most popular CBR readers for the platform and now it has made its way to our beloved Android.

CDisplayEx supports the most popular comics formats: .cbr, .cbz, folders of images, and has experimental support for .pdf. You can manually transfer your files to your phone or tablet then use the app to read them, or you can take advantage of the app's integrated Samba and FTP network shares to grab your comics.

Read More

Whoosh! Bam! Kapow! CDisplayEx Comic Reader (CBR, CBZ, PDF) comes to the Play Store was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Right in time for NAB, Adobe today announced the latest updates to its Premiere CC and After Effects CC video editing and motion graphics tools. The general theme of this release is the introduction of two new AI-powered tools that will make the life of editors easier, as well as a variety of small updates that all result in an improved overall workflow.

“The demands and pace of video content creation are reaching levels we’ve never seen before. The time pressure on video professionals means the need for powerful and efficient creative tools has never been greater,” said Steven Warner, vice president of digital video and audio at Adobe. “Adobe video apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects give them that power which, combined with the services available in Creative Cloud, provides broadcasters, media companies, filmmakers and YouTubers a complete ecosystem to bring their stories to screen faster than ever.”

The standout feature of this release is the new Color Match feature in Premiere Pro CC. When you shoot with multiple cameras — and especially cameras from different brands — the colors between shots usually don’t match. It’s then the editor’s job to make everything look right, which can be a rather tedious job. Now, Adobe is using its Sensei AI platform to help editors match colors automatically, so that the changes they need to make are pretty small.

The company is also bringing face detection to Premiere Pro, which will make it easier to adjust skin tones between shots.

The second new AI-driven feature is an improved audio autoducking feature that also leverages Sensei. The system intelligently reduces the volume of the music or effects soundtrack around dialog, though editors can always manually override any of these changes.

Unsurprisingly, this release also includes plenty of other updates. Adobe is launching a deeper integration with Adobe Stock, for example, to give its users direct access to the footage and Motion Graphics templates available in the service. Those Motion Graphics, which allow you to mix animations or graphics and videos for title sequences or callouts inside a video, are also getting an update with new controls for positioning them, among other things. Editors who are experimenting with storytelling in VR now get an improved version of the Adobe Immersive Environment to allow them to edit right in VR. And with this update, these editors can now also use a Windows Mixed Reality headset to edit.

The highlight of the new release of After Effects CC is probably the enhanced Puppet Engine. This feature now makes it easier to create organic-looking and realistic effects when you have layers like a fluttering flag or ripples on water.

Editors who need to build data-driven animations can now also import JSON and CSV files to create graphics and timelines.

Adobe Character Animator CC, the tool behind shows like “Our Cartoon President,” is also getting a refresh with improvements across the board. These include the inclusion of new puppet templates to help you get started, improved particle physics to add dynamic elements like snowfall or collapsing brick walls to your animations, and overall improvements to how the puppets behave when you animate them.

Amazon is recalling six models of its AmazonBasics Portable Power Banks in cooperation with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The power banks, sold between December 2014 and July 2017, have a risk of overheating, which can cause the unit to melt, posing a fire hazard.

The affected power bank models include the 16,100mAh, 10,000mAh, 5,600mAh, 3,000mAh, 2,000mAh with Micro USB cable, and 3,000mAh with Micro USB cable. Amazon is sending out emails to those who have purchased the power banks, recommending they immediately stop using them. The email also provides a one-time URL for the user to register the product and get further instructions about returns and obtaining a refund. All listings for these power banks have already been removed from the Amazon website and they can no longer be purchased.

Image: Amazon

Thanks to A. Shakouri for the tip!

Fortnite developer Epic Games has announced that it’s bringing Fortnite Battle Royale — the incredibly popular free-to-play multiplayer game — to iOS and Android devices, via Polygon.

The port is coming to both phones and tablets, and Epic Games promises that “it’ll be same 100-player game you know from PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac,” with the same gameplay, content, maps, and weekly updates as the console and PC versions. Users will be able to sign up for an iOS beta starting on March 12th, with invites rolling out shortly afterwards. Players who get an invitation will also get several invites to send to friends as well. Android support is planned for farther down the line in the next few months.

Fortnite Battle Royale on mobile will support cross-play and cross-progression between the PlayStation 4, PC, Mac, iOS, and eventually the Android versions of the game — meaning that you’ll be able to play with and against players from other platforms, and that you’ll be able to team up with friends across devices.

Notably missing from that list is the Xbox One, which seems to be left out of the cross-platform fun. Epic Games’ blog post does mention that the cross-platform function is “in partnership with our friends at Sony,” which may explain the Microsoft snub here. On a purely technical level, we already know that cross-play between Xbox One and PS4 consoles in Fortnite is completely possible, since that very thing happened last year for a few hours due to a “configuration issue.”

Sony has also repeatedly turned down Microsoft’s overtures for cross-platform play between Xbox One and PlayStation devices in the past, claiming last year at E3 that it wouldn’t be willing to turn on cross-platform play for games like Minecraft and Rocket League because of concern for the safety of younger players.

Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, known for his moody, minimalist scores for films such as Sicario, and Arrival has died, according to a post on his official Facebook page. Jóhannsson was 48 years old, and no cause of death has been given.

Jóhannsson grew up in Reykjavík, and played guitar in a variety of indie rock bands before founding a music label that encouraged collaboration between various musical genres, which sparked his own musical experiments. He released his first album, Englabörn, in 2002, and he eventually moved on to score films like Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, Sicario and Arrival, James Marsh’s The Theory of Everything, and Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, and many others. He later joined Villeneuve once again to score last year’s Blade Runner 2049, but he was later removed from the project and replaced by Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch. His work on The Theory of Everything and mother! earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Score, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his score for Sicario.

My first encounter with Jóhannsson’s music wasn’t through one of his film scores, however: it was a song in the first trailers for Jonathan Liebesman’s 2011 film Battle Los Angeles, “Part 5/ The Sun’s Gone Dim And The Sky’s Turned Black” from his minimalist album IBM 1401, a User’s Manual.

The haunting track and album was inspired in part by his father, who worked for IBM, featuring sound from one of the company’s mainframe computers along with an orchestral score. It’s a distinctive, beautiful work of music, one that made me seek out Jóhannsson’s work when it popped up.

His score for Sicario opens with a haunting, driven beat that carries a claustrophobic, hunted feeling that complements the film perfectly, while his score for Arrival is beautiful and ethereal (and sadly disqualified from the Academy Awards), capturing the otherworldly nature of the film’s Heptapod aliens. But Jóhannsson did more conventional work as well, such as with his score for The Theory of Everything, which retained some of his minimalist tendencies alongside the film’s soaring themes. I’ve often found myself working with his music playing in the background.

Jóhannsson’s work was beautiful and original, demonstrating that a film’s score could go beyond merely setting the mood or filling silence: it could be an integral, complementary part of the story.

Over a year ago, I wrote this post about a tiny DIY Game Boy that could fit on a keychain, saying that I would like to buy it. It took some time, but here we are now with the PocketSprite, a polished, commercial version of the original keychain Game Boy. This is a collaboration between the original’s creator, Jeroen Domburg (Sprite_tm), and manufactuer Steve K. The PocketSprite is looking for funding over at crowdfunding site Crowd Supply.

The PocketSprite looks like a more polished version of the original, hacked together version that Domburg created, but internally it seems to be packing the same specs: an OLED screen, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, a rechargeable battery, and a built-in speaker. It’s powered off a dual-core, 240 MHz ESP32 chip and 520 KB of RAM. All of those make this vastly more powerful than the original Game Boy, with its 4.19 MHz processor and 16 KB of memory.

With built-in emulators, the PocketSprite can play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Sega Master System, and Game Gear games, but the device is also open source, so you can in theory load on whatever you want, assuming you’ve got the coding skills to make it work. Adding ROMs to the device is done through a clever system — the PocketSprite creates a local Wi-Fi network, which you connect to with a computer, allowing users to easily upload games to their devices through a web interface.

Interestingly, the PocketSprite isn’t the only pocket-sized GameBoy out there. There’s a slew of competitors, including the PocketStar (which is also crowdfunding on Kickstarter), the Arduino-based 8-bit Arduboy, and the NES-copying BittBoy Mini handheld.

The PocketSprite is being sold in two versions: a fully-assembled model and a DIY kit that you can assemble yourself. It’s also being sold on a crowdfunding site, which means you need to factor in the usual warnings about using your best judgement before backing. The company does intend to ship early-bird orders on April 15th, which is either a good sign that production is going well or dangerous levels of hubris, but if you’re interested, early bird pricing starts at $45.