Winter is my favorite hiking season.
No roots, no rocks, no mud - just a clean, sparkling, magical path through the winter wonderland.
Natalie and I opened our winter hiking season on Mount Cardigan a couple weeks ago, but we decided to have a more proper entry with a winter ascent up Mount Starr King and Waumbek.
Outdoor adventures are my favorite, but it’s nice to wander around a beautiful city like Montréal once in a while, especially when special events are taking place.
Every autumn, Montréal hosts “Jardins de lumière” or “Gardens of Light”. For two months, September through the end of October, part of the Montréal botanical garden becomes illuminated with lanterns and various Chinese mythology characters. The show is amazingly beautiful.
21 miles is easy. Easy when you are hiking on perfectly compacted, rock-free, root-free trails of Yosemite, Glacier, or Olympic national parks. When it comes to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, 21 miles is a grueling marathon, an improbable, if not impossible ordeal even for seasoned hikers.
I took a bit of a hiatus from backpacking last summer so hiking the Wild River wilderness was my first backpacking trip since Glacier National Park two years ago.
The Wild River Wilderness is located at the northeast corner of the White Mountain National Forest, on the border between Maine and New Hampshire. It is very remote and rugged with but a few trails segmenting the wooded landscape. There are not a lot of campsites in the entire Wild River Basin, and only one on the Carter Range - Imp Campsite.
I've been coming to this magical place for almost 3 years. The Cape Anne area is probably the most beautiful spot on the New England coast. Few places offer such sweeping views of the water, marshes, islands covered with trees and hills, historical New England cottages, antique shops, and a plethora of local seafood options.
Sebago Lake in Maine is a special place. I've made a habit of visiting almost every year. The lush forests surrounding the lake, the wide open water, bald eagles, world-class lake kayaking, fishing, and pristine sandy beaches are all the things that make it worthwhile coming back to year after year.
The New England seacoast is a magical place. Small fishing towns, beaches, miles of marshland, islands and inlets. The seacoast is a source of income for many local fishermen, business owners hoping to cater to the bustling summer beach industry, as well as a source of inspiration and creativity. Many antique shops and galleries are scattered throughout towns like Essex, Portsmouth, and York.
Colorado doesn't need a ten paragraph blog post to explain the awesomeness of this place. So this time around, I won't bore you with the details. Not to say that there isn't much to talk about when it comes to my trip to Colorado a few weeks ago, but I figured this time, I'll let my photos do the talking.
Enjoy.
Fall is awesome. Pacific Northwest is beautiful. Pacific Northwest in autumn is awesomely beautiful. Epic.
At the center of the fight for public lands, lies the most stark, and arguably the most beautiful landscape in the continental United States - Utah.
Many think of the desert as wasteland - a place of death, nothingness. That is far from the truth - sure, there may be few trees, few lakes, and seemingly little wildlife in the desert. But when we look closer, we find that the desert is teeming with life, diversity, beauty.