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 …
Big Baldy Mountain — A Long March Into Spring
Most people mark the passage of time by annual events in their lives like birthdays, holidays, the New Year, and so on. Since I’ve started my Island Alpine Quest, I’ve started marking the march into Spring by how early I leave home on Sunday morning. During the winter, my departure …
Canoe Peak: Go Slow to Go Fast
View PostA Family Snowshoe Loop: Featuring Another Family!
As parents, my wife Kim and I fall into all-too-familiar parent-child relationships with Hemingway and Octavia. My behaviour exemplifies the old platitude: When you love your kids, you want the best for them. You’ll go out of your way to make sure their lives are better than how you perceived …
Mackenzie Range Adventure: Turning Back Again
Canoe Peak is a thorn in my side! It’s approaching comical how many times I’ve set this peak as our objective for a trip and then had to change the plan. Be it weather forecast, avalanche conditions, a blizzard through Sutton Pass, or zero visibility, for one reason or another …