The Most Exotic Places on the Bucket List …And once more into the bucket we go! As promised here are landing pages for the rest of our BucketList destinations by region. Some of these are among the most exotic and far flung of our wish list! Click on the links or pictures below to see the landing page… Photo credits […]
Everest, Traffic Jams…and Death.
I think by now almost everyone who follows news in the outdoor world has seen this incredible photo. A queue reported by CNN to be over 300 people waits in the ‘death zone’ (above 8000 meters) just below the summit of Everest. Of the over two hundred climbers who have died on Everest, most have died in the death zone. […]
Is There Still Time to Plan for the Tour Du Mont Blanc?
Want to hike the Tour du Mont Blanc — Europe’s most celebrated Alpine hike — this summer? Well, you better get cracking…The trekking season gets under way in less than six weeks. Realistically, you probably should have started planning for it already. Sylvia and I did the complete tour in late July of 2018. But we began our bookings in […]
It’s National Parks Week!
US National Parks Waive Their Entrance Fee for a Day It’s National Parks Week! US National Parks offered free admission on Saturday, April 20. Did you take advantage? Many people have likely heard about the entrance fee increases in National Parks. While some ghastly numbers were bandied about as trial balloons early in the process, the actual fee increases ended […]
Patagonia (or Bust): Staying There
Getting Ready for Patagonia Means Figuring Out Where to Stay Once we’ve reached Patagonia, the logistical challenges do not end. One might be tempted the think that you can just show up with a backpack and hike. The temptation is false; you can’t just show up and hike either the ‘W’ or the full Torres Del Paine circuit. In fact, […]
Patagonia (Or Bust): Getting There
Getting Ready for Patagonia, the Hard to Get to Place (Featured image Cerro Fitz Roy by Martin St-Amant – Wikipedia – CC-BY-SA-3.0) The departure time for our Patagonia Trip is approaching. Last year we embarked on the Tour Du Mont Blanc in mid July. Knowing we would likely face severe logistical challenges we booked everything well in advance…most of the […]
Waterfalled and Waterlogged: Dark Hollow Falls and the AT
The Great Shenandoah Trip Part II During the first night of our trip to the Shenandoah NP it rained. Quite intensely. Brian has been through several terrible storms in his tent, the worst probably being an absolutely petrifying thunderstorm in Canyonlands NP in 2007 or so. This night was no where near as bad as that one, but it was […]
On A Clear Day…Olympic National Park
A while back we did a post about our visit to Hurricane Ridge in Washington’s great Olympic National Park. Hurricane Ridge is one of the best viewpoints in the Pacific Northwest, for sure, with a tremendous panorama of the Olympic Range. But this was not Brian’s first visit to the area. He first visited Olympic National Park in 2007, during […]
Thinking of Doing Something Big This Year?
Visit Our Tour du Mont Blanc Planning Resources! Thinking of attempting something BIG this year that will change the way you look at the world (and yourself?) Consider the Tour du Mont Blanc. A very strenuous but incredibly spectacular loop hike out of the French town of Chamonix through the Alps, over a hundred miles in length, passing through three […]
A Day on the Mountain (Sort of)
Medoc Mountain State Park, Halifax, NC **We have added Medoc Mountain State Park to the list of our Best Hikes in the Triangle Area. Okay, so there’s no actual mountain here…it’s still one of the best and least crowded outdoor getaways within an hours drive of Raleigh.** For our first official expedition with new team member Fitz Roy, the captain […]