For the most part, hiking takes me to the Rocky Mountains of Canada. The mountains around Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper hold a special place in my heart and I spend as much time there as I can. Yet, my love of hiking extends beyond those magical boundaries, and out into the world at large through our travels.
To me, travel is a complex idea. It is not a vacation, even though it takes you away from the familiar day-to-day events of your life. It is far, far more than that. Travel is adventure. It is a collection of experiences that open your eyes to the ways of the world. It exposes you to new ideas and new ways of thinking. It helps you meet…
This section of my blog revisits some of my favourite photographs and memories of our years spent discovering the unique places of the world and the hidden recesses of our innermost selves. Each post takes one photo, and tries to capture that memory so that you can experience what it was like at the moment in which it was…
We climbed ancient moraines, balancing along their very pointy, lofty, narrow ridge-like tops. We scrambled up steep scree slopes. We accessed heights that from below seemed totally daunting, but up close were simply a grunt. We crossed (and got soakers in) many mountain streams. We hiked through pristine high alpine meadows with no trails, marmots, pikas and fall colours. We revelled in lofty views. We walked along airy ledges. We scrambled a bit through notches in cliff bands. We saw cascade after cascade of icy glacial water. We got above the Bow Glacier to marvel at its wrinkled skin and poked our head into the vast blue depths of its toe (a little like peeking under a toenail!!).
Battling the wind up that rocky rubble, we eventually found ourselves standing on a very large, wide peak, with views all around, having climbed 1500m on the 23km trail to get up there… that’s a long hike that includes climbing one and a half kilometres straight up into the sky!
With mountain peaks cresting like waves all around us, picture perfect alpine lakes and wildflower meadows far below us, snow patches for Seamus to roll in, a bit of scramble on rock added in for fun, and moody skies all around, it was both a challenging and a super fun day!