Page 62 - Flathead Beacon // 7.16.14

62 | JULY 16, 2014
OUTDOORS
More Jaun
HIKE 734 CREATOR INTRODUCES COMPREHENSIVE “WMAP-GUIDE” TO GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
FLATHEADBEACON.COM
ts fr
hen Kalispell’s Jake Bramante became the first known person to hike all of Glacier National Park’s 734 miles of established
trail in a single season, it was clear that the former network analyst had plans to par- cel out the knowledge he gleaned from the outdoor feat.
And even though he exhaustively vid- eo-blogged the summer adventure and re- mained in the public eye even while trek- king across remote corners of the park, de- tails of the future of Hike 734 – the brand he attached to the hiking mission – were vague.
But in the three years since completing the harried summer of hiking, Braman- te has transformed the video blogs into a comprehensive virtual guide to assist all visitors in their park peregrinations and wilderness wanderings, while also provid- ing more traditional back-of-the-pocket resources.
Most recently, Bramante published a high-quality topographic map-guide, with one side featuring 15,000 words of text and the other a detailed map of the park, complete with a legend and color-coded, numeric key designating distances and re- gions of the park.
Glacier National Park’s 1 million acres of wild, rugged beauty are laced with 734 miles of trail, ranging rom dense forests to wind-scoured peaks, and marrying the right day hike to a hiker’s ability is a tric endeavor.
Bramante’s hybrid map-guide uses d
tance, slope difficulty and personal rec- ommendations to identify 88 hikes and sort them based on degree of difficulty and beauty.
Bramante said he created the map af-
wanted something more original, and so hedevisedthemap-guide.
“When I first got off the trail so many people said, ‘dude, if you wrote a guide I would totally buy it,’” Bramante said. “I
Kalispell resident Ja Bramante heads do the McDonald Creek in Glacier National P
BEACON FILE PHOTO
ky ter so many people asked him where they should go hiking. Although most people is- advised him to publish a guidebook, he
didn’t want to compete with other guide- books, so I sat on the idea.”
Last year, he published a Going-to-the
I
om Jake
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