Mountain Top Sunrise

I woke up at 3 am after spending the night camped out in the woods. The cold dark and silence surrounds me as I put one foot in front of the other and climb. My other senses heighten and the once familiar trail looks foreign and strange. Slowly, The dark veil fades away as I climb higher and the once shapeless and dark clouds ignite into brilliant shades of yellow and orange.

Trekking to the Unknown

This was the time I decided to take a random trail on the side of the road. I had no idea how steep and muddy it was going to be and had how much steep frozen snow was ahead of me. All of that made the view from the summit that much more incredible.

First Experience of the Northern Lights

A master painter takes the cool, dancing lights of green and blue and mixes it with the radiating warm light of the hot sparkling bonfire to paint a masterpiece on a canvas of starry sky. That camping trip at the end of a remote back road under the perfect may long weekend sky was something not soon forgotten.

Walking on Glacier

This was something out of this world, a desert of snow and ice, stretched out as far as the eyes can see. As you get close, you can witness the age of the glacier and count the seasons of snow and ice, like looking at a cross-section of a tree trunk. This was my first experience on a glacier and I don’t doubt it won’t be my last.

Tallest of the Rockies

I was so excited about going on a backpacking trip to the toe of Mount Robson. What an incredible experience standing in front of the tallest mountain in the Rockies. I stood in awe of it’s prominence, gaping at the endless field of jagged snow and ice. I wonder what it would be like standing in front of Everest. I will probably find out one day hehe.

Unexpected Starry Night

Sometimes it pays to drink too much water before bed and having to go pee in the middle of the night. I looked up and saw the most incredible night sky. We were bivouacking out in the middle of nowhere the night before a big two-day ridge traverse, funny how incredible sights catches up with you when you least expect it.

Colorful Mountains

One of my coolest experience this summer was the Castle ridge traverse because it was a place I never knew existed and it was a very exploratory style trip. There was no trails and no set instructions, we had to map out where we wanted to go and looked for ways to get there. This whole trip I felt like I was an explorer, we traversed 48km of the beautiful ever-changing ridge and climbed 3700 meters over the two days. What an incredible experience.

Finding Glacier

I heard word on the internet there was a way to get to the toe of the Fraser glacier from the Tonquin Valley trail so we set out one day to look for it. After a lot of uncertainty and crossing a river, we eventually made it to a lake that was right in front of the toe of a glacier! We got so close to it, tasted the water straight from the ice and hopped on to an iceberg. It was really memorable because we were able to wander away from the well travelled path and found a place that few people know about.

Hiking the Fimmvouduhals

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The Iceland road trip was one of my highlights of the year and the Fimmvouduhals trail was the highlight of that highlight. The trail started at the bottom of the mossy green canyons called the forest of Thor (Thorsmork), ascended to pass through two glaciers in a field of ash, and ended with a descend following a river with 27 waterfalls. This trail surprised me at every corner and there was not one point where I was not amazed at how beautiful it was.

Icelandic Northern Lights

The best way to see Northern Lights? Take your sleeping bag and a tarp hike into the highlands from the top of a waterfall. Set up camp beside a herd of grazing sheep, lay down and watch the magic unfold. This was not even the coolest part since I was too busy pissing myself with excitement when beams of light started raining down on top of us.

Coming Up… Finishing off 2017 with hiking the Kepler Track in New Zealand. Who knows what adventures will unfold! 

Thank you to my friends and strangers who became friends for an incredible year of adventure. I can’t wait to see what the new year of adventure will bring, especially as I try to hike back to Canada from the border of Mexico .

What was your highlight of 2017? Get in touch and let me know!