February 21, 2012: Welcome to the official web site of Tom Stienstra, award winning columnist and two-time National Outdoor Writer of the Year.

California Camping, hit the stores in 2011

Pacific Northwest Camping, also a No. 1 bestseller

1,000 hikes, the only complete hiking guide

A how-to guide in revamping woeful DFG

by November 18, 2011

In response to recent outrageous gaffes by the Department of Fish and Game, several readers have asked me to re-post my column on how to solve the DFG’s perpetual foray into the  abyss. By Tom Stienstra Excerpted in part from San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 2002, Copyright © 2011 Hearst Communications Inc. Used by permission. [...]

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Nominations Open for California Outdoors Hall of Fame

by November 18, 2011

Nominations are now open for the 2012 class of the California Outdoors Hall of Fame. A new website was unveiled this past week to recognize the event. Go to http://caloutdoorshalloffame.org The California Outdoors Hall of Fame recognizes individuals with a profound scope of outdoor accomplishments that have impacted others and improved the lives of Californians. Personal achievement [...]

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Park dynamites fallen redwood (with video)

by November 15, 2011

The explosion wasn’t anywhere as dramatic as when rangers blew up a whale that washed ashore a few years ago, but trail crews at Redwood National and State Park dynamited a giant redwood tree that fell on Newton P. Drury Scenic Parkway and hope to reopen the famous road by Friday. The tree, a coastal redwood [...]

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Boy’s Wish For A Boat — Divine Intervention

by November 14, 2011

The Lord works in mysterious ways, much to the delight of a young man in search of a boat. Watch this one-minute video to show how divine intervention can work in the outdoors: http://www.youtube.com/user/triumphboat           Feel great in the next 24 hours: Hike. Bike. Camp. Fish. Boat. Wildlife watch. Explore. For [...]

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A creative video captures the John Muir Trail experience

by November 9, 2011
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Elk marauds hikers, park closes trailhead road

by November 6, 2011

  In a flashpoint moment at dusk last week, Michael Furniss and I came around a bend in deep forest on the Friendship Ridge Trail, on the last leg of a loop hike, and found ourselves staring into the bugged-out eyes of what appeared a 175-pound juvenile female, about 40 feet away. It then ran [...]

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