Author Info

This website began in January of 1996 as "Chuck's Backpacking Bonanza" and was one of three sites dedicated to providing info on backpacking. The Internet was in its infancy and quite rudimentary then. My access was via CompuServe which was later bought out by America OnLine (AOL). Dial-up telephone modems were slow and it would take minutes to upload text pages and low quality photos took far longer.

Update: December 13, 2023

During my 34 years of teaching high school and after retiring in 2001, I took long road trips during Spring and Summer vacations, and my mountain bike was always in my van.  The following list of over 175 bike trails has photos and info on every trail I've biked.  Enjoy!  I am in the beginning stages of vascular dementia so my traveling days are over, but I still bike the trails near my home and I'm very glad I biked many across the country while I was able.

Author Info (updated July, 2021)

I was born and raised in Chicago and developed my deep and abiding love for the outdoors through the Cub Scouts and then the Boy Scouts. I'm now in my mid 70s, have been retired from teaching for 20 years, and live in far northwest suburban Lake County, about 40 miles northwest of Chicago. 

Biking, hiking, and paddling are my favorite outdoor activities, and from the index in the right sidebar of this page you will find links to all my outdoor adventures on foot, on water, and on a bike. 

Hiking and biking are available in several dozen forest preserves in my area. In fact, the six counties around Chicago offer over 200,000 acres of forest preserves for recreation, with over 500 miles of biking trails (paved and unpaved) available. Within a 25 minute drive of my house, I have a choice of a dozen forest preserve or state park trails of three or more miles for hiking and numerous biking trails. In fact, the lake County Forest Preserve's Millennium Trail borders my subdivision and continues 8 miles north or 10 miles south from my house and connects to other trails along the way. 

I've been averaging 2200+ biking miles each year for the last 21 years, and on my twice-annual five or six week road trips (with my mountain bike in my van), I've biked over 250 trails across the country and have a page with photos and info for each trail.  I do not bike on roads because I don't trust distracted drivers, plus I much prefer to do my mileage in forest preserves where I can enjoy Nature. See the sidebar to the right for links to these trails.

I derived my love of Nature at an early age while in the Cub Scouts. Here's the Woodpecker Patrol of Pack 3886 in Chicago back in the 1950s (I'm the geeky kid at bottom left)...

Then I entered Boy Scout Troop 808, where we did a lot of camping and hiking and even a bit of backpacking. I was awarded Order of the Arrow status and later became Junior Assistant Scout master. I left scouting when I went to college, but after graduation, I volunteered at Chicago State Mental Hospital (Dunning) and for five years was Scoutmaster for a dozen multiply-handicapped boys. We were a chartered troop in the Chicago Boy Scout Council which managed to get us hand-me-down uniforms from other troops. Once or twice a month the nursing staff got the boys into their uniforms and the kids were always excited and proud. Their mothers gladly sewed the proper patches on the uniforms.

And yes, we took them camping, first on the neighboring grounds of Reid Center, and when that was successful, we then were granted permission by the Chicago Boy Scout Council to have overnight campouts at the Chicago Boy Scout's Camp Fort Dearborn in the forest preserves. I was informed that our campouts were the only time that females (my fellow volunteers, Sue and Deanna) had ever been granted a waiver to spend nights at the Scout camp!

The teepee was given to me when a scout troop disbanded and the kids loved sleeping in it!

Backpacking was my primary outdoor activity for 20+ years during which time I did over 60 backpack trips in 52 different wilderness areas across the country. Some were with my wife and sons, some with my buddy, Len, and many were solo trips. All my backpack adventures have photos and info in the right sidebar.  Age and arthritis have ended my backpacking days, so my main outdoor activity now is biking (during clement weather) and my goal is always 2000+ miles for the year. When the temperatures fall below 40 degrees, hiking becomes the primary outdoor activity. 

Below is Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness as I embarked on a 10 day backpacking trail project with American Hiking Society several decades ago, my first of 36+ volunteer trail projects.

Below is a view from the Continental Divide Trail in Colorado's Weminuche Wilderness.

Hiking, especially in national parks (I've been to 54 of our 62 national parks) is another favorite activity of mine. Below I'm hiking The Narrows of the Virgin River in Zion National Park -- three hours in cold water through a narrow slot canyon. Great fun! Yes, all my national park adventures are delineated in the sidebar, too.

I also love to paddle a canoe, kayak, or raft, and have done so on 60+ bodies of water. Week-long river expeditions where you camp each night on the shore are another favorite adventure, and I've been on 17 such expeditions. Snorkeling is also a hobby. All of these water adventures also have webpages with photos and info available in the sidebar. Below is North Carolina's Nantahala River...

Snorkeling Orange Sink in Florida with Sierra Club...

Paddling 150 miles on the Mississippi River with The Great River Rumble...

Each year I do at least one week-long volunteer trail project, 35 projects so far, and again, each has its own webpage. I've done projects from Maine to Arizona and from Washington State to Florida. It's great to spend a week camping and working with people who love the outdoors as much as I do, all while accomplishing important work for the hiking community. Below I'm cutting new trail tread in Tennessee for the Cumberland State Trail. We were required to wear the orange hats and vests at all times because it was turkey hunting season.

Here I'm helping to clear fallen trees on a trail project in Washington State's Pinchot National Forest in the Goat Rocks Wilderness. Since it is a wilderness area, we must use hand saws as no motorized equipment is allowed in designated wilderness areas. These huge tree trunks require three cuts, one on each end of the trail and one in the middle, because the huge piece left after two cuts is too heavy to move off the trail!

Here's one of two bridges we built up at 10,000 feet in the Manti-LaSal National Forest in Utah on two different projects...

Several times a year I go on lengthy (5 or 6 week) road trips on which I bike, hike, and paddle, plus camping, hiking, visiting family and friends, etc. I often include an active outdoor Road Scholar (Elderhostel) program and have done 41 of them, and also I've participated in 17 Sierra Club Outings.

Family

My oldest son received his Bachelors and Masters in Architecture degrees from the University of Illinois and is now a licensed architect He also plays flute for the Palatine Community Band and his church orchestra. He and his wife have two young sons ages 7 and 5.

My younger son graduated magna cum laude (economics) from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, where he was honored with the Byron Rivers Award for the school year 1996-1997 as the Overall Best Disk Jockey. He currently works as a financial planner. He and his wife also have two young children, a daughter who is 5 and a 3 year old son.

Videos

I love photography and computers, and the natural coupling of these two passions is the creation of videos. Over the last decade and a half, I've put together videos of my adventures across the country and have over 150 of them on my YouTube channel. They have been viewed more than 540,000 times and I have over 500 subscribers. Click on PLAYLISTS to see the categories.

Music

I love music and have sung in church choirs continuously for 62 years. I also sing in a local community chorus which performs two concerts per year along with appearances at a variety of community events. Our membership ranges from 30 to 40 voices, depending on the concert. Occasionally I bring out the banjo or guitar and accompany the group. I also video the concerts and make DVDs for the participants.

Finally, I taught high school for 34 years and also coached cross country for 18 years, directed the school variety show for 25 years, and was chairman of the English department my final 9 years. Creating and participating in faculty musical skits in the variety shows was a blast, and the kids loved seeing their teachers on stage making fools of ourselves!

It’s better to be lost in the woods than found in the city.

–Ollie Olsen–

Last Revised 10/19/19