Canada - Icefields Parkway

The road between Lake Louise and Jasper is widely regarded as the most beautiful in North America. Climbing more than 2000 meters into the mountains it passes about 20 glaciers and countless snowy mountains. Despite retreating significantly every year, the Athabasca glacier is still only a few hundred meters from the road. A short hike from the parkway got us to Peyto Lake, the most brightly coloured i've ever seen. Distaster was narrowly averted after a terrorist caribou launched a suicide headbutt attack on our SUV, which missed by just a couple of meters. The black bear suspected of masterminding the attack was spotted soon afterwards running just meters from the road. Speaking of bears, i've had 5 separate "encounters" since arriving in North America - 2 grizzlies and 3 black bears. Only one occurred while hiking and thankfully that was at a very safe distance. I've seen plenty of other critters, including a moose, some eagles, horned sheep, marmots, thousands of squirrels and a little guy swimming in a lake that was either an otter or a beaver. We spent the night at a delightfully rustic lodge right on the parkway (after an unintentional but scenic 50km detour) and awoke to climb one of the peaks in the "Endless Chain" of mountains. The hike proved very challenging firstly because it was steep and slippery and also because there wasn't really a trail, just some sporadically placed orange tape marking a suggested route. We struggled up through bugs and mud for about 3 hours, losing and then reacquiring the trail a few times before reaching the very top of the treeline and clear view of the summit. We considered the steep 200m scramble over damp, slippery rocks for a while but, given the summit was shrouded in clouds anyway, decided to accept a minor victory and headed back to the lodge. Fantastic hiking again from Jo! It's an empowering feeling to sit back and enjoy a 3 course meal in a restaurant overlooking the mountain you've just climbed!

Canada - Hiking the Rockies (part 2)

We set out the next afternoon for a shorter hike starting from a trail-head at Lake Louise itself. 300m above the lake was a junction branching off to numerous trails and we took a partly snow- covered path to Little Beehive, an abandoned fire lookout. At the summit I emerged victorious in a very brief snowball fight although, given Jo didn't actually throw any snowballs, i guess it was less a fight and more just me being a bully. It started hailing as we descended, so we took refuge at a remote tea house built right up on the mountain with a fantastic view over a frozen lake. The staff live on site for up to 2 months at a time, hiking the 2 hours or back to Lake Louise a couple of times a week to dump garbage and pick up supplies. Although the place didn't have electricity or running water, they made a mean pot of tea, earl grey, hot. The next morning we headed south from Lake Louise, stopping briefly at Banff - the most touristic city in the area - before heading just outside of the national park to the much friendlier town of Canmore. Jo was all hiked out so I headed to Chinaman's Peak alone. The mountain got it's name back in the 1800s when Ha Ling, a lowly mining cook, climbed the the peak 3 times in 10 hours to win a bet. The trail to the summit heads through forest behind the mountain for the first 500m before breaking out of the treeline into rocky alpine for the final 300m climb to the top. I found out the hard way that when Canadian mountain climbers quote distance they actually mean elevation. The trail was short but painfully steep, averaging a 35% gradient. The last 100 meters involved scrambling up rocks, not my strong suit, but i made it without any hassles for a great view of the town and nearby Mount Lawrence Grassi. Coming down was a little more tricky and i had to slide down quite a few sections, taking a small avalanche of rubble with me. It was easy going once i reached treeline and I made it safely to the car park in a bit over two and half hours. I think i could manage it a couple more times if there were a few thousand dollars on the line - any takers? :)

Canada - Hiking the Rockies (Part 1)

Situated on the edge of British Columbia & Alberta the Canadian Rockies are contained within 4 national parks - Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay. A beautiful day of driving got us from Kelowna to Lake Louise, probably the most famous attraction in Banff National park. Unfortunately, anything popular and easily accessible is inevitably swarmed by tourists. Note the giant hotel sitting directly next to Lake Louise - rooms start at $400/night. It caters to the thousands of mostly Asian tourists who drive around the mountains, decked out in expensive hiking gear just in case they encounter a freak storm in the carpark. Fortunately a few hundred meters of vertical gain sorts the tourists from the hikers. We set out from nearby Lake Moraine and headed steeply uphill to a point 400 meters above the lake before branching off towards Sentinel's Pass. This winter saw unseasonally heavy snow (reverse global warming?!?) and i think the trail was still technically closed, but we didn't let that stop us. Almost immediately we encountered patches of snow and above the treeline it thickly covered most of the trail, making navigation tricky at times. Although the snow makes it look cold, the air temperature was at least 8 or 9 degrees. I did go a couple of hours without being able to feel my toes though - a small price to pay for views this good! The final ascent was about 150m of extremely steep, thick snow which we made more managable by plowing shallow switchbacks. We were just past the the halfway point when a mini-blizzard came in from nowhere. The wind it was howling and the snow was outrageous, reducing the temperature and visibility significantly. We decided to head back before our tracks got covered and a very cold slide got us to the base of the final climb real fast. After a few tense minutes we located our tracks and trudged back to the trail. As quickly as it arrived, the blizzard gave way to beautiful blue skies, and we still had enough time and energy left to check out another great hike which branched from an earlier point on the trail. All up we covered just over 20km - A very strong effort from lil Jo!

Canada - Vancouver & Okanagan

After a couple of days relaxing in Vancouver, I joined forces with Jo from Suffolk, England. We met in London a couple of years ago and then travelled through New Zealand together. She's quite small, talks a lot and holds the great distinction of being a more laid back traveller than me! The first order of duty for anyone planning to drive around North America is to to aquire a SUV. Next, commence climbing mountains. The first hike we chose, "Grouse Grind," has something of a cult following in Vancouver. Only 3km long but with 1000m of elevation gain it's pretty much like walking up the stairs of a 500 story building. A nice gentle warm up. Despite being a little unfit, Jo possesses mental toughness uncommon in lesser hikers. She claimed to be "about to die" 30 or 40 times on the way up, but carried on anyway, reaching the summit just shy of the 27 minute world record. Driving on the wrong side of the road has been curiously easy, although there are a few road rules i still don't understand. Sometimes the traffic lights flash green, sometimes they flash red - i just smile, wave and drive slowly through. No-one seems to mind. Also speed limits seem to be more of a suggestion than actual law. It's common to be overtaken by stream of cars all driving at least 30 km/h over the speed limit. From Vancouver we headed east to Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley, one of Canada's most famous wine regions. Okanagan Ice Wine is great. Their non-ice wine (mostly Riesling and Gewurtztraminer) is drinkable, without being outstanding. Marechal Foch, a savoury red wine grape that i'd never heard of before, was my personal favourite.

The wineries are an interesting contrast to those back home. Unable to compete in terms of grape quality, they focus on marketing, funky bottles and unusual blends. Many also double as B & B's taking advantage of amazing views from high above Okanagan Lake.

The rest of our time in wine country was spent eating the world's largest plate of nachos, tasting cider at a beautiful fruit orchard and hiking up another 'practice hill'. Not long until the real thing!

Canada – Sunshine Coast

After a relatively stressful transit, I arrived in Vancouver, dumped my stuff at a hostel and caught a bus/ferry over to the Sunshine Coast to catch up with the friends I’d made in Seattle.

The "Sunshine Coast", was overcast and rainy for the duration of my stay but at least Matt and Matt were good value. We enjoyed a few beers at their local, then they took me back to their place and taught me a poker variant called “No-Limit Hold-Em”.

A run of lucky cards (and some beginners luck) saw me come out on top. They were still happy to take me on a tour of their radio station the next morning. Thanks again for a great visit!

I hate airports.

My flight to Vancouver was scheduled to leave at 1040 so being both organised and responsible (and slightly hungover) I got up early to shower, organise my junk and say a few goodbyes. By 0820 I rolled out of my hostel, carrying a huge 20kg pack on my back, a smaller 10kg pack on my front and a sleeping bag/mat in each hand.

I got a lot of strange looks as I bashed my way through the rush hour crowds, who must’ve thought I was an extremely well provisioned homeless person. The nearest BART underground station wasn’t far so I bought a ticket and headed down to wait for my train.

At that point the emergency venting fans kicked in and an evacuation siren blared. We were all ushered out of the station, and it was announced over the intercom that smoke had been discovered in a nearby station. I’ve still got no idea what caused the smoke but based on the fact that the “National Security Threat Level” (which is announced over the airport loudspeakers every 15 minutes) is still orange, I doubt it was anything serious.

I emerged from the subway next to a young British guy (carrying a much less impressive backpack) who was also headed to the airport, so we split a cab. He recounted some of his travels in the taxi, which seemed to mostly involve drinking until he couldn’t remember anything and then seeing where he woke up.

I told the taxi driver I was flying Air Canada, and he promptly dropped me off at the wrong terminal. So at 0935, I commenced the jog from terminal 1 to terminal 3 with backpacks and camping equipment in tow. I made it to the automated check in desk just in time, only to find that my flight had been delayed by an hour. This actually turned out to be a blessing because when i presented my boarding pass at the security check, I was taken to a separate “high security” checking point.

Apparently the highlighted SSSS on my boarding pass is randomly assigned to a small portion of passengers and stands for “Super Special Security Search.” First they made me stand in a sealed glass machine that buffeted me with air for 20 seconds. I think this was a test for illegal substances. Next my bags went though the standard x-ray scanner before being completely unpacked and searched by the security staff. Any item which could conceivably be a bomb was individually swabbed with a cotton pad and tested for explosive residue. Possible bombs included my 20 gram ipod shuffle and my sandals.

After about 45 minutes of testing i was certified 100% bomb free. Fortunately they failed to uncover my secret plot to take over the world using only a pair of mandals. I wandered over to my gate just as boarding was scheduled to commence only to find out that it had been delayed by another hour.

So unlucky.

San Fran

My first couple of days in San Fran were spent recovering from the camping and having some quiet drinks with people from the tour. We spent a chilled final night together at blues club near fisherman's wharf

I moved to a hostel the next morning and made friends almost straight away with a girl from New Zealand and 4 Dutchmen. They were touring California in a giant SUV for a couple of weeks and invited me to tag along while they drove the city. Props to Holland! Dutch Mike's driving is worth a comment – he drove the wrong way up a couple of one-way streets and then through 9 consecutive stop signs, without stopping once. He did stop at the 10^th, but assured me it was just a coincidence.

My knee is on the mend, although it's still a little painful to bend or walk downhill. To loosen it up, I hired a bike for a leisurely 30km ride over the Golden Gate Bridge and around the bay to the pleasant seaside town Tiburon, before catching the ferry back. At one point I struggled up a very steep hill, into strong headwind, to a lookout over the worlds most famous bridge...

What a view! In spite of the limited visibility the bridge really was magnificent. Being able to ride over it was great. If I had to describe San Fran in a word, it would probably be "foggy". If i had three "cold" and "windy" would also make the cut. The city seems to sits directly under a permanent raincloud. Just over the bridge is a completely different micro-climate with clear skies and warm weather. The next photo shows Sausalito to the left and San Francisco to the right. After suffering through 2 weeks of camp slop, I made an effort to eat out in San Fran as much as possible. Every meal was fantastic with two Chinese meals probably the standouts. At first glance the food seemed cheap, but accounting for tax, tips and exchange rate it was comparable to Australia.

I rounded out my week with an excellent tour of Alcatraz, some cable car rides, a trip to the "Full House" house, an evening at a microbrewery and a night at the hostel sampling some remarkably drinkable $2 bottles of wine.

Next stop, Canada!

Trek America - Afterthoughts

In a lot of ways, travelling in a fixed tour group is a lot like a temporary stint on Big Brother. You're thrown on a bus with a random mix of people and forced to spend 24 hours a day hanging out with them. You become best friends for the duration of the adventure and when it's over theres a good chance you'll never see each other again. It was surprisingly tough seeing everyone leave. In particular Maz (London), Lucy (Manchester), Thorsten and Yvonne (Göttingen, Germany) were great fun throughout. I'm hopeful that the wonders of the internet will allow us to stay in touch and catch up in the future – perhaps at German Drinking Festival 2008!

Trek America - Yosemite

The final national park I got to see in the US was also my favourite. Yosemite boasts an amazing glacier-chiseled valley complete with some of the worlds largest cliffs and waterfalls. There are miles of awesome hikes in every direction. We spent our first day busing around the park and then headed back to camp early to prepare for a big hike the next day. In the end 8 of us set out at 6am on a 30km quest to climb Half Dome, which rises about 1.5km from the valley floor. The weather was absolutely perfect the whole day. The first 4km were very steep and passed through the mists of 2 amazing waterfalls. The path wound steadily uphill for the next 8km or so before the final ascent - a kilometer of rock scrambling, culminating in 200 meters of near-vertical, cable-assisted climbing. If you look closely you can just see people climbing up the cable. I'd guess that only 3/4 of the people who started the cable-climb actually made it, and a fair portion of the rest were reduced to tears along the way. Huge kudos to everyone in our group for making it, especially Andy, Lucy and Jeremy who had the added handicap of being terrified of heights. After almost 5 hours of very tough hiking I wandered over a ridge and was greeted one the most impressive views I've ever seen. I walked a couple of steps more and a couple of friendly Americans offered me a beer - just like something out of a fairytale. The same Americans, who'd done the climb several times before, then showed me 'the diving board' a 3 meter long chunk of rock sticking out over the edge of a 1km vertical drop. Sliding out to the edge was just about the scariest thing I've ever done. Best view ever. On the 15 kilometer hike back to the valley my right kneecap started causing me some serious problems - possibly a lingering injury from when i landed on it awkwardly back in Australia. It's improved slightly over the past 2 days, but I'm still moving pretty slow at the moment. Anyone know a cheap knee surgeon in San Fran? ;)