Hot answers tagged mountains
23
No, there is no way without hiking from base camp at least. I have had extensive talks with three people who went up there either as a tourist or even as a professional Sherpa.
The one and only helicopter landing that is cited on Wikipedia was an extreme stunt and not something that is done in any kind of routine for tourists. The helicopter neither touched ...
12
A few things to understand about trekking in the Himalayas, especially in re: everest base camp trekking:
While it is true that if you trek from Lukla to Base Camp, you will have ascended and descended more than the 8848 meters that Everest is, this is not cumulative. You will be hiking between mountains, not over them, for the most part. (Where you draw ...
11
I am fairly certain that this is Mt. Adams, second-tallest mountain in Washington State. It is neither Mt. Rainier nor Mt. Baker, because both of those are heavier glaciated. The profile looks an awful lot of what I expect of Adams from the air (I climbed it a couple of times from the ground, and so have a reasonable mental picture, though of course ...
10
I'd want to hire it as far from busy big cities as possible. The idea of damaging one, even if insured, would be so upsetting.
So to maximise this, you'd want to do it during term time (kids in school, less people on holiday), when there's good weather.
You'll want to pick up the car outside of rush hour, so around 10am, and still have a couple of hours ...
10
Short answer: Nothing out of the usual.
The days of bandits roaming the mountains seem to be long gone. According the US State Department, the main risks are pickpocketing and theft from cars, the same as in Romania and the Ukraine (and pretty much anywhere in Europe).
Landmines were laid on the Kosovo-Albania border in the 1990s, but according to the ...
8
That's the kind of gear I'd use when going to hike well into subzero temperatures. Attempting to hike in such a gear at +20°C, especially in humid air, you'll not be comfortable at all. It's a total overkill. Especially the pants.
What I'd use for such a hike:
t-shirt, preferably non-cotton stay-dry kind;
soft shell fleece jacket (Windstopper or ...
7
My first reaction on reading this question was to wonder if it was a joke or an attempt to satirize the concept of "extreme tourism." If so, then well done.
If not, then I would like to correct an apparent misconception stated in the question. "Hiking too far" is not a good description of what it takes to climb a mountain that's over 8000 m high. Climbing ...
6
Here's an estimate:
A 250km ride in a shared taxi or marshrutka costs the equivalent of 5 - 10 euros per person, with a petrol price of about 1 euro per liter, depending on how popular and difficult the route is.
A marshrutka typically seats about 15 people, so a low estimate for renting a marshrutka for a 100km circular (that is, starting and finishing in ...
6
Mt. Fuji is one of Japan's "Three Holy Mountains" (三霊山 Sanreizan) along with Mt. Tate, in the Toyama Prefecture, and Mt. Haku, in the Hokuriku region.
If you want to be immersed in Shinto religion, I'd recommend visiting Kyoto. There's lot of temples and shrines to see, and lots to do and even more to eat.
Spending just a day there wouldn't do the city ...
5
I have hiked to the top of Half Dome twice, once in September 1996, and in June 2009. I didn't do any particular preparation either time; however, I was prepared for a long day hiking, and had reasonable fitness. If you've hiked in the Alps for 5 hours or more in one day you should be ready to tackle Half Dome.
You should prepare for the weather with ...
5
Why not? I've been to the top of Jungfrau mountain in January and liked it. It might not offer great views, but it is still worth it. Also, Interlaken ain't that far from Luzern. If you travel by train, it takes an hour approximately and offers great views through the windows of the train. Interlaken and it's surroundings have some great things to offer.
5
Depending on where exactly you´re going to hike, a normal sunglas can be not even enough. If you´re hiking on snow or especially glaciers, it is absolutely necessary to have snow goggles. The snow and ice reflects the light very strongly and you could damage your eyes severly if you go there without protection.
To quote from Wikipedia:
Mountain climbing ...
5
Yeah, you can still walk them as suicidal tourists:
Its altitude is 1614m above sea level. Many trekkers and tourists have
died while walking down this trail. Local authorities have finally
woken up to the increasing number of tourists and added safety
measures like a chain, railings and deeper pathways. But these are
hardly any insurance against ...
5
Yes, you can! I've been wanting to do this one for a long time but haven't been in the Xi'an area since I found out about it!
Hua Shan is about 80 miles from Xi'an in Shaanxi province. There is a regular bus from Xi'an, or you can take a taxi although that will obviously cost more.
From all of the accounts I've read, as long as you're not afraid of ...
5
Pilatus is a good day out from Luzern however also very easy to get to is Mount Titlis via Engelberg (an easy train ride out of Luzern station also with cog railway), it also has station at the top and is much higher.
Titlis has magnificent views.
If you've got the time do both, if your not a skier you can hire toboggan on both mountains, awesome. I took my ...
4
It is possible to land with an helicopter on top of the mountain, even though this is very uncommon and also a little bit dangerous. Additionally, there are no commercial flights. So you would have to find a suitable helicopter, and adventurous pilot, and obviously also the permissions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HckQcNNoJc
The only other way I could ...
4
I would say that you don't have to negotiate a price - usually driver just tell the price and you accept it :) However, you may get a "bonus" as a foreigner, but I don't expect it to be more then 20-40%.
Regarding sample price for 100 km. According to my latest experience (and google result), MastaBaba is more-or-less right - ~30 euros for bus for 10-15 ...
4
First of all: is it legal?
Well, I have never heard about such problems too. Regarding Chornogora - yep, it is a kind of national park, there are even some official fees at some entrances, but all camping activities are pretty much allowed. The only places you may have legal problems at are country borders (like Marmarosy chain) - usually you have to ...
4
The answer to my own question will not deal with all issues mentioned, but because there are no other answers I'd like to share my experiences.
I wasn't personally camping in Georgia, but I met people that were camping and I saw people camping.
Georgia still has an underdeveloped tourist base, most of the sleeping places are in hotels (big cities) and ...
4
The suworow monument shown in your first picture is on Gotthard-Pass. There are lot of excellent tours on Switzerland Tourism described.
The second picture show the "Martinsloch" through which the sun shines on church tower of Elm. This happens only twice a year (around march, 12th and september, 30th).
4
Most of these castles are located in Aosta Valley (Italy).
I've driven around this place and also did the Italian Job (Great St. Bernard Pass).
If you plan to visit this part of Italy, I would also recommend the Great St. Bernard Pass (closed in winter).
4
In England and Scotland, there are castles where the owners will provide the equivalent of "bed and breakfast" in order to defray the expense of upkeep, meaning that you'd get to see at least part of the interior of the castle.
I'd be very surprised if there weren't castles with similar arrangements in Italy, France, etc. Not to say that every castle would ...
4
THere are two base camps - North and South.
South is what is usually meant by the term.
North is accessed from China / Tibet and you can, all going well / luck holding / YMMV / ... , drive there. Without using a helicopter (as you specified) that's probably as close as you'd get without "hiking".
3
The town you want to get to near the mountain is called Santa Elena de Uairén.
From Caracas there are direct buses (22 hours) or buses via Ciudad Bolivar (8h + 12h) or Puerto Ordaz (12h + 9h). Bus companies you can try are: Expresos Los Llanos, Expressos Caribe, Expressos San Cristobel and Expressos Occidante.
In Santa Elena you can get on a tour, a ...
3
Shinto is at heart an animist religion that imbues many natural features (rivers, trees, mountains) with spirits, and Japanese buddhism has been influenced heavily by this, so yes, "sacred mountains" are pretty common in Japan. For Buddhism, sacredness is usually centered around places where famous Buddhist teachers lived, taught or are buried. The two ...
3
Indeed, the prospect of someone else falling and leading to a 'domino effect' is frightening. When I was there, I saw someone drop a water bottle. It bounced a few times and then plunged thousands of feet down the granite face.
The National Park Service has recognized that the Half Dome ascent has become too crowded, and recently began requiring permits ...
3
Mount Pilatus is not really a high mountain, so you can expect that the temperatures are almost the same as in the lowlands. For example just today, it is -2 degrees on the mountain and -4 degrees in the surrounding lowlands. But nevertheless, you should prepare well and take appropriate clothing with you. The actual day to day temperature you can check for ...
3
The EHIC card, that offers state-provided health care abroad is applicable only to Economic European Area, which is basically EU plus a couple countries. Georgia is not part of this set so you will not have any standard health care protection there (any form of health care at all actually).
But honestly, I am not sure mountain rescuing is included in any ...
3
Another possibility is meetup.com. Here in Vancouver, at least, there are several travel groups on it, and many of them schedule trips together.
You can also try the Lonely Planet Thorntree forums, and see who else is travelling in the same area, or even put up a post there for people to join you. It's fairly common to see that on there.
3
Because this does not involve providing a service or product, but something that's very much open to personal taste, I would think it much harder to actually maintain a successful platform in comparison to, say, couchsurfing.
That said, these communities or services do exist, though I have no personal experience with them. Here are a few:
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