Welcome to The Backcountry!
My mission of The Backcountry is to provide you with useful trail and trip information in a lively and inspiring way through photographs and short narratives. I would
also like to be an encouragement to those who may be hiking impaired to get out there and enjoy what God has created!
At Random
Photography
The photographs on this site were taken with a variety of cameras ranging from a Kodak 110 to a Minolta X570 SLR. Most of
the pictures were scanned from prints although some were taken from my JVC DVL-510 Digital Video Camera and a few were put directly on a photo
CD. The photo CDs were getting costly so I'm back to scanning. I do use Photoshop to edit the photos and for creating all of the graphics on
the site.
I decided to get more serious about photography a few years ago. In January 2005 I bought my first DSLR, a Canon 300D (Digital Rebel). Then in September 2007, I upgraded to the
full-framed Canon 5D. I have yet to use it in the backcountry due to my current 'disability'.
In The Beginning...
One day back around 1999 after surfing the web and finding some hiking and backpacking related websites, I thought to myself..."Hey, I could do the same thing". So I gathered up the photos of the few hikes that I had done, wrote a general trip description for each of them and Mike's Hikes and Stuff was born.
As my adventures grew, so did the website. Within a few years I needed more space. I also didn't care for the pop-up adds on the free site that I had, so I decided to get my own domain name. I wanted an appropriate and easy to remember name and on February 1, 2002 The Backcountry was born.
With most things change is inevitable, this site is no exception. It has undergone a few face lifts since it's conception and will probably continue to do so, but what I think has had the most impact has been the writing style. In my more recent trip details I've tried to add some personal thoughts along with the trip information, to breath life into what could be an otherwise boring "...turn left at the boulder..." trip description. These thoughts are sometimes thoughts I remember experiencing along the trail and other times they come as I reflect back on the journey.
