Initial thoughts After the past two years of excellent hiking I had lowered my expectations about how this year might go. We made the effort to book three big trips, reserving backcountry spots for two trips in Banff and one in Yoho, plus another week-long adventure in the South Chilcotins. But apart from that, I … Continue reading 2022 in review: Top Trips and Stats
Ah, the wildflower report.... Brought to you by - wait for it, all will be revealed later! With the exception of my jaunt up to the peak of Mount Thurston at the beginning of July, I decided against chasing glacier lilies this year. Last year's display on the Pushki Lake trail was so amazing that … Continue reading 2022 in review: Wildflowers
Wildlife sightings are always anticipated every year, and I have to admit that I look forward to seeing bears most of all. 2022 was a decent year for bear sightings and by far our best year for grizzlies, constituting five of our nine bear sightings. I don't think we've ever seen more than one grizzly … Continue reading 2022 in review: Wildlife
We had high hopes for 2021, both in terms of hiking and the pandemic. Alas, our pandemic hopes were largely dashed by the third and fourth waves, despite our vaccinations. However, the hiking was good and we had some truly outstanding trips, although the season was very uneven weather-wise and it felt like it ended … Continue reading 2021 in review
Despite the stressful nature of 2020 and the spring-time lockdown, we managed to have an excellent year of hiking, covering the most distance since 2006 and setting a record for elevation gain. No one is more surprised by this than us! We hiked half-a-dozen new trails and revisited a few others, pushing further than we … Continue reading 2020 in review
It's that time of year again where we look back at the trips we enjoyed over the past 12 months. We had a pretty good year, setting a couple of records that will be hard to beat: finding glacier lilies on 7 hikes, and getting out hiking every weekend between the beginning of June and … Continue reading 2019 in review
For the third (and probably final) instalment of my reflections on 2019's adventures I thought I'd mention my favourite wildlife sighting of the year. Unlike the hundreds (and maybe thousands) of flowers admired over the past 12 months, our wildlife sightings have been much rarer. (Provided the mosquito encounters are excluded...!) While we had nothing … Continue reading Reflecting on 2019: an encounter with wildlife
To relive a moment A different take on our year's hiking, rather than a straight factual summary I wanted to write about a few different kinds of highlights. The first was a question I posed to myself one evening. If I could return to any moment during the year, which would I choose? I thought … Continue reading Reflecting on 2019: to relive a moment
Let's get this out of the way first. Did I find my ultimate glacier lily patch this year? No, I didn't; that is going to have to wait for another year. But did I find glacier lilies? Oh, you bet, and on a couple of hikes where I wasn't expecting to see them too. The … Continue reading The Great Glacier Lily Quest of 2019
Looking back at 2018 I couldn't help but feel that it was an odd year, something we seem to say most years lately! We hiked a lot of trails that we'd hiked before, and the weather in what would normally be peak hiking season turned for the worse, with forest fires in August followed by … Continue reading 2018 in review
Being. Outdoors. 