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Garmin eTrex 22x
The handheld I want when the canopy eats the phone and the furnace road is no longer on a maintained trail.
Field notes
Two pieces that are actually written. If a card is here, it opens that piece.
GW National Forest
The Lost Iron Furnaces of the Blue Ridge
What those mossy stone stacks in the Virginia hollows actually are, and why hunting them is a different kind of hike than a park loop.
Read the dispatch →
Shenandoah & the A.T.
How to Read a Trail Blaze
White, blue, and yellow in Shenandoah, and what a double blaze is telling you before the turn.
Read the dispatch →Gear I link to
Three named picks. Each button goes to that product on Amazon, not a homepage shortcut. Affiliate disclosure.
Navigation
Sleep
Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT
The pad I point people to for a brisk Shenandoah overnight. Regular size, 4.5 R-value on the listing.
Water
Sawyer Squeeze
The squeeze filter, here as the in-stock kit with a Cnoc 2-liter bladder. Hollows do not care about your empty bottle.
Buy a route, or ask for a custom one
The thing you can buy today is the $19 Iron Furnace Route Pack. Custom plans are still email.
BUY THIS
Iron Furnace Route Pack
$19
Digital download. One route, not a subscription.
- The furnace-route file: waypoints, parking, water notes
- Built from the same hollows as the furnace dispatch
- You get a file. I am not hiking it for you.
Custom plan, by email
$99 / $199
Still a conversation, not a cart.
- $99 digital itinerary for a route you actually want
- $199 adds a gear shakeout call
- Both go to dispatch@hikingwild.com