Hiking adventures up and down the West Coast of Canada and the U.S.
The day after our aborted backpacking trip in the north-east corner of Mount Rainier National Park was grey and dreary, though a bit less rainy. After some discussion and perusal of our map, we decided to head to Glacier Basin, a trail that conveniently started about 50 feet from our campsite.
I was seriously itching to get back on trail after getting home from our California road-trip after completing the John Muir Trail. For Labor Day weekend we’d promised ourselves a trip to the Sunrise area of Mount Rainier, which is only open for a short time through the summer season.
Dan and I rarely travel back to a previously visited location. Yosemite Valley is now an exception. Two years ago we came through Yosemite Valley as part of a backpacking trip from Tuolumne Meadows (in the High Sierras) to Half Dome and then to the Valley.
When we started planning our John Muir hike, we decided that we wanted a few extras days to spend in Yosemite Valley so we booked ourselves into the Curry Village tent cabins (now known as Half Dome Village.)
What an awesome send-off before we venture down to California! We spent this past Saturday night in the Park Butte lookout tower on the South-West side of Mt. Baker and the mountain was an amazing sight! Our last training hike ended up being one of the better ones, thanks to a few different factors.
A couple weekends ago we had an amazing trip to Mount Rainier National Park with the friends that will be joining us for a section of our JMT hike. Our goal was to hike up to Camp Muir, on the South-East shoulder of the mountain. The hike climbs nearly 5,000 feet in 4 miles, travelling over the Muir Snowfield.
This year we knew we had to get our packs on and do a “shake down.” Thankfully we are lucky enough to have an amazing National Park right in our back yard. North Cascades National Park is about a 2 hour drive from where we live and has a huge variety of backcountry trails. We studied our map and some trip reports and finally decided to hike alongside Ross Lake on the East Bank Trail.
We’re now under 2 months until we leave on our trip! This past week we’ve been gathering and weighing our…
For our second training hike of the season we decided to stay a bit more local Eagle Bluffs is a relatively easy, very rewarding and popular summertime hike on Vancouver’s North Shore. A couple summer’s ago we were able to do the “normal” approach, from Cypress Provincial Park. On that approach you climb the ski-hill, wander through a ridge-top forest and then drop down to the rocky bluffs.
Last week we drew out a 3-month plan, filling in tasks that need to be accomplished through the weeks and listing out training hikes to get us in shape. The first hike we chose to do is one I was familiar with, having done it with some friends a couple summers ago.
At first I really didn’t feel like blogging about our hike from last weekend as there isn’t a whole lot to…