Social Hiking

I have been a hiker for many years now and love walking in The Great Outdoors. I have always walked (and wild camped) solo as I enjoy the peace of my own company. (Although it takes a few miles of walking to quiet my restless mind!)

I find I can 'hear' God more clearly when surrounded by one of His greatest miracles - nature, and can see His handwork more clearly as I walk through His gift to us. It is always good to hike and walking clears my mind of the clutter of everyday living, purges my heart of the troubles in my life and soothes my soul.

Recently I discovered a website called Social Hiking (http://new.socialhiking.org.uk/) created by, a now friend of mine, Phil which allows me to share my adventure's outdoors with anyone. This has proven especially useful for my children as they can 'see' where I am 'live' by following me on the website.

The website uses my mobile phones ability to send my location via GPS and logs the GPS beacons my phone transmits to create a live map that can be viewed in Google Maps or OS maps. Not only that, but it allows me to send photo's from my mobile that are then placed in the map at the point I took them. Very handy for highlighting and sharing photo's I take as I hike.
I can also send other media to my map such as Tweets, video and sound files as I hike so that family and friends can share more fully my adventure.

The reason I took this photo of my laptop screen (I guess I could have taken a screen grab for better clarity of image, but then that wouldn't be a true photo!) was because I am going to Llanberis in Wales with my 11 year old son on Monday (22nd Aug 2011) to hike up Snowdon and I will be using Social Hiking to record our route.

I hope to blip a nice photo or two whilst there so watch this space!