Dear Octavia (22 months) and Hemingway (five years), Taking the whole family on a backpacking trip is a significant milestone, and it was an excellent way for all of us to spend two days together in the middle of July. Getting everyone involved with the adventure is exciting, but I …
Eden Mountain: Gully Grovelling and Needle Threading
Eden Mountain is a high point among a series of bumps that form an aesthetic ridge in the Genesis Range. Like many peaks in the region, it’s seldom summited, has little in the way of trip report beta, and is nestled among a series of twisting logging roads. The trip …
Crown Mountain: a Canada Day-Trip
View PostNine Peaks, The Jewel of Strathcona Park
On June 23rd & 24th 2018, I was one of five Island Mountain Ramblers who summitted Nine Peaks, located on the southern boundary of Strathcona Park. It earns its name from the nine distinct peaks that rise out of the Beauty Glacier, forming a line that runs along a northwest …
Mount Abraham, Easy Scrambling
In the past three years, I’ve summited more than one hundred peaks on my list, and I’ve categorized them based on their type – which makes it easier to make recommendations to friends. When it comes to aesthetic ridge scrambles on Vancouver Island, Mount Abraham is among the best; for …
Hiking Between the Peaks in the Genesis Range: A Failed Attempt at Mount Abraham
It’s great having a regular group of friends to hike with. From week to week, the members of the group may change, but each person comes to be someone on whom I can rely. It’s more important that they are consistent and always improving than that they are the best at …
Hiking Mount Derby & Mount Peel: Uphill Both Ways
Another May long weekend has come and gone, and with it another “first of the summer” camping trip. I don’t put much stock into the idea of the shoulder season — it’s a myth made up by The Man — but this trip felt more like a summer getaway than …
Mount Tzhouhalem: Mad Dog Hemingway
Dear Hemingway, Every day you do something that makes me pause and think, Dang, how did he figure that out? But what you managed to accomplish on May 12th blows my mind! At not quite five years old, you successfully finished your first hike to the summit of a mountain, …
Mount Sarai
View PostMount Adam: Spring in the Genesis Range
Every once in a while, one of my adventures doesn’t live up to my expectations (ahem, West Coast Trail). Be it an error in planning and predicting terrain, or environmental conditions, sometimes a trip is either much easier or much more difficult than anticipated. In our planning for Mount Adam, we …