Wrapping up an amazing year of travel

Last March I reached a personal milestone: I have been to all 10 Canadian provinces and 3 Northern territories at least once. Business trips have helped immensely, especially to get to Canada's North.

Here's a quick accounting for 2014. Leisure trips with Jan took us to:

• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a perfect yoga retreat with our local studio
• Yukon for hiking, camping, arts and culture and visiting friends this summer
• Adirondack Mountains in New York for further High Peaks bagging
• Toronto, ON to see friends 

On the business side, I added considerable mileage with trips to:

• New York, NY
• Boston, MA
• Phoenix, AZ
• St. John's, NL (twice!)
• Charlottetown, PEI
• Halifax, NS
• Haliburton, ON (twice, too)
• Midland, ON
• London, ON
• Toronto, ON
• Portage La Prairie, MB
• Whitehorse, YT
• Iqaluit, NU

I traveled about 70,000 km which is more than any other year so far. Put another way it is close to twice the circumference of our home, Earth.

For 2015, a few trips are already confirmed including a return to Halifax and a first trip to Regina, SK for conferences. We are looking at a return to the Yukon to keep exploring its wild places, perhaps combined with a first foray into Alaska. And it is time for a trip to Germany to see family and friends again, even though perhaps it will have to wait until early 2016 - we'll see. 

Meanwhile, Jan will kick of 2015 in amazing style with a few weeks to explore Ecuador from the Andes to its coast. Look for her blog posts right here as her adventures unfold!

Ah, so many places to go next!

Lesser 46ers deliver big

Gil brook near Indian Head 

We headed back country in the Adirondack High Peaks for the Labour Day weekend to enjoy the essential life of the outdoors for a few days.

It was a stellar weekend.

A lovely and very large camp site just for us.

The drive down on Saturday was fast, as I didn't need to stop in at US Immigration due to my still valid I-94. We left our car in a spot at the 73 at St. Huberts hiker parking that had just become available - sometimes, on one of the busies hiking weekends, it pays to arrive relatively late in the day. From there access to the back country runs through the private Adirondack Mountain Reserve - Ausable Club (A short history - driven by conservation). Mandatory trail head registration featured the Club's security person quizzing us on our overnight plans, whether we had bear barrels and so on. Satisfied that we were well equipped for 3 days he wished us a fine trip.

Inga on a cloudy Colvin summit.

After about an hour we left the private Lake Road, and within 30 minutes we located a designated camp site near Indian Head. Arriving much faster than expected, we decided to set up camp and then work up a proper appetite. As the trail became noticeably steeper that worked very well. By 6:30 pm we were set up by the brook to heat up dinner. An hour later dusk began to rapidly turn to dark.

The rain arrived on cue overnight. We lucked into a dry spell for breakfast and then headed out on the trail to Mt Colvin and Blake. These are two of the lesser 46ers. In fact, Blake is a historic artifact, since it is not quite 4,000' in height. (These two are 4,057' and 3,980' respectively.) However, the 46ers years ago decided to not alter the historic list just because newer surveys recalibrated heights a little better.

Hiking out on a super beautiful, sunny day.

Still life of boots drying and gear awaiting packing.

Summit-wise, neither offered us much: Colvin was engulfed in clouds and Blake is in the trees. Hiking-wise, we enjoyed the usual Adirondack wilderness challenges of steep, rocky and wet terrain that requires the hiker's constant attention and vigilance. One hallmarks of the remarkable technical hiking here is that the descent often takes as long as the ascent did; this 7-mile return took us about 7 hours through rain and clouds and mud. We met just 5 other people in 2 groups all day: When the weather forecast is for adverse weather, the back country-exploring population drops dramatically. This usually feels like a bonus; at least as long as the weather is "bad within reason".

By the time we settled back at camp to make dinner, the rain had subsided and we enjoyed a well deserved meal by our own private brook.

On Sunday, we had a leisurely morning followed by a quick hike out and a drive to Chapel Pond, the best High Peaks swimming hole. The it was off to The Cottage in Lake Placid for a late lunch, a bit of shopping and a beautiful drive home.

Best patio in Lake Placid! The Cottage at Mirror Lake. 

In recent years, wilderness has taken an ever greater place in my world. These days, it is the  perhaps mythical place where we can still roam freely that makes most sense to me. Living in a city, even one as splendid and close to the outdoors as Ottawa, has me feeling wistful for the essentialness, the self-reliance of the unpaved.

It's great to have the Adirondack wilderness close by and to have mountain excursions and wild places on my mind for the next adventure.

A Giant - Esther weekend

Actually Esther at 9.4 miles (15.2 km) return was a longer hiking day than Giant's 6 miles (9.7 km). Especially the way we did it this weekend: for Esther, we parked at the Reservoir which adds 2.6 miles to the return trip. Esther is the kind of herd path that is impossible to lose, and best of all, it follows the ridge with just small up and downs to get to the summit once we turned off the main trail to Whiteface.

Inga posing on Esther's summit. The clouds were thick,
there was a little bit of sleet, views non-existent, but that
was all  secondary to making it up in the first place.

The trail was very wet, with muddy puddles on flatter parts and running water most everywhere else. The picture below doesn't quite do that part justice. In any case, we did our best to walk right through it all and not make new detours that further erosion. Happy to wear my backpacking boots, which are water proof. Even though I never bothered putting on gaiters, the wet stayed out despite "testing" a few rather deep.

This 6.5 hour excursion, featuring over 3,000 feet of elevation difference, I did with a 40 lb backpack - for training purposes; made the gluteal muscles take note as well as the knees, while merely 'massaging' the feet and ankles.

Summit plaque commemorating Esther McComb's first
ascent in 1839 at 15 years old. Just for the joy of it.

After another easy camping night at the ACC Montreal's Keene Farm property - this spot is like a home away from home having spent many nights both in the hut and camping - we embarked on the shortest route up Giant.

Jan provides gorgeous scale on open ridge
below Giant's summit.

This is a very pretty and varied hike, passing 2 mountain-side lakes (Giant Washbowl is aptly named), and rising steadily by over 3,000 feet almost right from the roadside parking area near Chapel Pond. The sunny weather made us appreciate the alternating shady wooded sections and wide open ridges with gorgeous sweeping views. The summit affords beautiful views of the Dix Range and over to the Great Range. We took 2:30 hours up and 2:10 down - with much lighter packs. Well, Jan could certainly do this faster, so I always go first to set the pace :)

View from Giant's summit across into
the Dix and Great Range.

Esther is our 19th 46er. Giant was our first in 2007 just ahead of our trip to Argentina and our first foray into the higher altitudes with a trek to Aconcagua's Plaza de Mulas. That feels like such a long time ago considering our varied trekking and mountaineering ventures covering much mountainous ground in North and South America and even a challenging foray along Germany's Rhine river. Still the Adirondack's High Peaks are our best training and proving grounds, where miles and miles of steep, technically demanding climbs - usually more difficult than anything we've encountered on most other routes - help us get trail fit for our further afield adventures.

Desert riches

This is a cool place! And there are plenty of spots with shade; that's like a 10 degree difference at least! A few more impressions.

Native Americans adapted well to desert life.

Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix

Since I'm travelling alone I opted for the trails of this awesome garden with 1000s of cactii, desert trees and shrubs as well as a fine range of desert dwelling birds, cute rodents, rabbits and lizards. It's a hot day, feels like well above 30 C and more under the clear desert sun.

It's a day off and looking at the local flora and fauna is just the thing.

Hope you enjoy these few impressions.

Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry.

Walk about in sunny Aspen

The Rio Grande makes for a lovely backdrop to our "last-morning-in-Aspen" walk-about. Sculptures abound, including this awesome one replicating Jan's fav pose. Scenic views aplenty.

Life's grand.

We're at the Aspen airport now awaiting or departure in about an hour. We're flying via Chicago which appears quite convenient so far.

Snowmass delivers 6th ski day in sun

Skiing with friends is awesome!

Highland Bowl

This pic shows the hike up the ridge to the very top of Highland Bowl at 12,392' (3,777 m) (another photo by Jan). Jan and our friends did the hike up to ski down this impressive face. I would have loved the hike up, but doubtful about the descent. So I headed to easier terrain that time.

Gorgeous sunny days

We've been skiing hard and loving the sun each day. They said we'd get up to 8" of new snow last night/today. But that didn't happen at Aspen Mountain today. Still fun skiing. At Snowmass on the other hand they had whiteout conditions today. Glad to miss that!
Here is a first photo of these gorgeous mountain views.

Aspen Skiing

We're skiing in Colorado for the first time. Yesterday, Snowmass Mountain offered up an epic adventure when some of us ended up not skiiing the promised steep bowl (off the very top - the Cirque) but narly steeps that lead to trees then glades. I definitely got more than I bargained for on Headwall and Hanging Valley.

Today we enjoyed pristine sun and warmth at Aspen Highlands. Steeplechase was an interesting adventure (double back moguls with all manner of consistency of snow).

It's great being here and getting worked out. Pics to come!