I tried upping my street cred (okay, hiking cred) recently while having pints with a group of fellow hikers. Emboldened by a pint (or two) of IPA, I claimed out aloud: “You know, you could say that I’ve hiked with Robert Redford and Martin Sheen.” The deafening silence was quickly followed by an outburst of derisive laughter that basically suggested: “Dream on, dude!” While I haven’t actually hiked with either of these stars—I have shared…
The Pickle Jar Lakes hike is a standout if you're a fan of mountain lakes. And judging by the popularity of this Kananaskis hike, people love a lake as a destination. Four lakes. Even better - though not all are equally beautiful. Be sure to go as far as the third of the Pickle Jar Lakes as it's the prettiest of them all. This post includes some affiliate links. If you make a qualifying purchase…
This post on the Camino de Santiago Walk is sponsored by Moon Travel Guides. Planning the Camino de Santiago walk across northern Spain just got a whole lot easier. In April 2019 Moon Travel Guides released a new book - Moon Camino de Santiago: Sacred Sites, Historic Villages, Local Food & Wine in a format every walker will appreciate. Back in 2007 when my daughter hiked the 780 kilometre Camino de Santiago for the first…
The Fitz Roy trek in Los Glaciares National Park is one of the best hikes in Patagonia. The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981, is located in the Austral Andes of Argentina. The gateway town is El Chalten, about a three hour scenic bus ride from El Calafate - where there is a decent sized airport. Los Glaciares National Park is best known for its day hikes rather than multi-day backpacking trips, though…
The Lake Agnes - Big Beehive hike delivers world-class mountain scenery. Normally the hike to Lake Agnes Teahouse is a ridiculously busy one, especially in the summer. But we elected to do the Big Beehive hike in the third week of October, a couple of weeks after a particularly big, early season snow storm, so the number of hikers was way down. Starting early always helps but on this occasion the trail to Lake Agnes…
Climbing Mweelrea Mountain, the highest peak in western Ireland, was the highlight for me of a week-long hiking trip with Wilderness Ireland, a local Irish company focused on outdoor adventures. There's something about the feeling you get deep inside you when you make it to the summit of a peak. And it doesn't have to be Everest to get that sense of accomplishment. Climbing Mweelrea gave me that feeling too. Mweelrea Mountain, located near the…
Look out your airplane window as you fly into Hong Kong and you can't help but be wowed by the density of development and the sheer number of skyscrapers packed into a space the size of six Washington, DC's. But what most people don't realize is that Hong Kong is more than a big city. It's an archipelago of 236 islands and islets - and a hiker and nature lover's paradise. While locals are very…
I've wanted to hike to Rockbound Lake in Banff National Park for some time despite the fact it's one of the 'don't do' hikes in the book Don't Waste Your Time in the Canadian Rockies. The author actually suggests "it helps to wear colourful boot laces so you'll have something interesting to look at." But when it's late October and you still have the itch to hike in the mountains where do you go from…
Our second to last day of hiking in Mallorca took us from Soller to Alaro but we cheated as most people do and started the day with a taxi ride to the Cúber Reservoir. We did that for two reasons. The day before had been a "rest day" so we had already hiked a couple of hours on the route to the reservoir and the thought of repeating the route - despite it being very…