Washout at El Chaltèn

Fitz Roy: Day 1 **Completed in November 2019, Fitz Roy (Los Glaciares National Park of Argentina) is Sylvia and Brian’s sixth BucketList adventure completed together. It is also the furthest they have ever ventured for a hike.** The wind blew with vengeance most of our first night in El Chaltèn, but by morning had tapered off to a light breeze. […]

The Cross of the Condors

Colca Canyon, Peru: Part One, The Cross of the Condors **BecauseItzThere is currently in “Patagonian Summer” re-runs as we are off fixing up new adventures. Be sure to check back soon! In the meantime, here’s a repost of our trip to Colca Canyon and Misti Volcano which appeared on this blog over a year and a half ago. At 1 am we […]

Snake Safety in America’s Snakebite Capital

Snakes, Snake Safety, What You Should and Shouldn’t Be Worrying About Fall might seem like a strange time to be talking about snakes. However, just this past weekend we saw this on the trail during a routine walk at Forest Ridge Nature Park just a few miles from our home. In fact, Brian nearly stepped on it. Sylvia and Fitz […]

Highway to the Sky

Rocky Mountain National Park IV: Trail Ridge Road ***Warning this post has a whole ton of photos and may load slowly.*** After our horseback riding adventures at Moraine Park, we had to high tail it out of Dodge before the sun quit. We had many miles to cover before we reached our next destination — the ski resort of Vail, […]

Deer Mountain, an Epic Rockies Hike

Rocky Mountain National Park II: Deer Mountain With the limited time we’d had on our first day in Rocky Mountain National Park, we’d still managed to bag scenic Emerald Lake. But with a full day to play with we wanted something more ambitious. Brian had considered several all time Rocky Mountain greats including Deer Mountain, Mount Ida and Sky Pond. […]

The Colorado Rockies At Last!

Rocky Mountain National Park I: Emerald Lake We had one week to see as much of Colorado as we could. But it only took us maybe an hour after landing to start asking, “Why did it take us this long to get out here?” We boarded a nonstop flight in from RDU and spent the first night in Denver itself. […]

Centennial State

We FINALLY Make it to Colorado After returning from Mexico we found ourselves at the tail end of the summer season, not in the best of shape and with barely fourteen weeks left until our trip to Patagonia. Temperatures in Raleigh were nearly what they had been in the Baja Peninsula…not ideal for hiking, and our time spent by the […]

A Mexican Nautical Hijink!

Cabo San Lucas One: Snorkeling and Nautical Hijinks By the time we arrived in dusty Cabo San Lucas regional Airport, we had crossed 2,500 miles, two time zones, three airports, one duty free shop and two rings of people near the final exit gate attempting to sell us things we didn’t need, before we knew we didn’t need them. We […]

The Return of the King

The Rae Lakes Loop Days Five and Six The most scenic parts of the hike, and the hardest parts, were now behind us. By we were by no means finished. In fact, we had still had more than a third of the hike in front of us. Fortunately, it was very nearly all downhill. One of the pleasant things about […]

King Charles Town

Charleston, SC Part II After visiting Fort Moultrie Sylvia made Brian swear not to visit any more forts or historical sites for the remainder of the trip. Brian grudgingly agreed. However, this would not really be possible since Charleston  — Travel and Leisure Magazine’s ‘World’s Best City” in 2016 — basically is one gigantic historical site. With apologies to the […]