day hike

Day 7: Lake Valhalla to Lake Janus.
The morning of my seventh day on trail I woke up in pain. My legs were so stiff, particularly my shins. As I got moving, got my pack on, and hit the trail, I realised that I likely would be unable to keep going. I came to the conclusion that it was the end of the road for my time on trail.

After hiking the first half of the Washington Pacific Crest Trail, it was time to do some cross-Canada adventuring. One of my best and longest-standing friends was having a wedding vow renewal ceremony near his original family home in Newfoundland. While planning our trip, I had done a little bit of research on hiking in Newfoundland. I laid my sights on the East Coast Trail and decided to figure out how to hike a couple short segments.

Before starting back onto the next section of the PCT, hubby and I spent a couple nights camping in Mount Rainier National Park. We had a picture perfect day of hiking in Sunrise.

Summer has arrived! Our first weekend of summer was spent in Manning Provincial Park camping with some friends. We relaxed around camp, hiked up to alpine meadows, and canoed on a beautiful lake.

Yesterday was the first day of spring and the forecast was for sunshine! I decided to head for the North Shore mountains and do a trail that I try to do every winter: Mount Seymour summit in Mount Seymour Provincial Park.

​Sunrise is a truly beautiful area of Mount Rainier to explore. We were lucky enough to get a taste of much of it, spending a couple nights at backcountry sites, a couple nights at a front country campground, hiking low, hiking high, seeing sunsets and sunrises.

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.)

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.

We’re now under 2 months until we leave on our trip! ​This past week we’ve been gathering and weighing our…