Several different parks organizations host hiking challenges throughout the year to encourage people to get out and hit the trails. One new one this year is a special event to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jack London's life. It's sponsored by the Jack London State Historic Park in the beautiful Sonoma Valley.



The Klondike Challenge seeks to encourage folks to hike or walk for a total of 500 miles within the Bay Area in 2016. The 500 mile length recalls the length of the trip he took from the Yukon to the Klondike around the start of the 20th century, an experience that helped shape his later writings.

Coppertone and I have already registered and we plan to do at least 500 miles this year. If you're in the Bay Area I encourage you to sign up as well. Getting to 500 miles is not required and even doing 100 during the course of the year may qualify you for as yet undisclosed prizes.

We signed up using the team name "Team HikingTrailhead.com". It's not entirely clear how the team concept will work on the challenge, but we'll see. If you're in the Bay Area and sign up, please use the same team name.

Per the challenge's suggestion we'll be setting up a crowdfunding account to raise some money for trail restoration at the park. So you can help a little bit even if you live elsewhere. More on this later.

Happy New Year and see you on the trails!

About two weeks into it and we sit at about 26 miles out of 500. The El Nino rains here in California have cut down on the number of hiking and walking opportunities. This past Sunday the rains let up enough for us to get to Jack London State Historic Park, the same location that will be the recipient of funds raised by my SpaceSpeak campaign.