The US of Nay?

I've been searching for some camping, hiking, day-walk options for my time in the USA next year and I was starting to get disillusioned. I mean, don't get me wrong, hiking in the USA brings up images of the Grand Canyon, Colorado mountains, evergreen forests and shivering in tents scared witless of bears. But I was looking for some middle range stuff, you know, a few days along a trail, a few hours out of a main or outlying city/town, somewhere it's relatively secluded but not real hyper survival wilderness stuff.

And my searches were coming up fruitless. They all seemed to be based around city walks (say, Boston or Washington DC) or the treks listed above, ones where you find skeletons along the way with backpacks on them. I was thinking maybe all Americans drive when they're hiking? Is there no middle range? They're either fat n lazy or extremists, dangling off rock faces, sleeping in a nook in a cliff. That's when GORP finally came along, which seems to be a site with actual information on it, not just those trick links that take you to pop-up heaven.

You'll have to register but it has some great links and information. The articles are written by people who actually go and a lot of the fact file type pages are great, like what I've just devoured about sleeping bags and what type to buy. That's the next thing on the agenda, to test out this Easter, a new bag. So reading through the guide, checking out what's what really helps when you go into the shop and the sales assistant's help (if they know their stuff) starts going over your head. At least with this I'm getting a heads up and can match what I read with what they tell me. The more accurate they are, the more I trust their judgement and more willing to get into open discussion about what's better etc.

Check it out.