Trek America - Jackson to Lake Tahoe

The second week of the tour began with a big night out in Jackson, Wyoming. We met up with another trek group at the bar there, and experienced first hand what happens when Trek America tour guides let their hair down. After several beers my tent mate Andy (pictured) mistook a large speaker for a grizzly bear. It's an honest mistake, and earned him a cool nickname. A lot better than "Princess" anyway. After Jackson we had 2 days of 'van appreciation' whilst driving the 1200kms to Lake Tahoe. At least it was warm there. Located around USA's 2nd largest lake, on the Nevada/California border, it's an interesting combinations of casinos and NOT casinos depending on which state you're in. An evening out in Tahoe started with an all-you-can-drink sunset boat cruise and ended with me being booted out of a casino for not having my passport. This inspired me to quit poker and instead take up a contract modelling pink clothing. Any positive feedback appreciated... ;)

Trek America - Week 1

After almost a week in sunny Seattle I had a cheerful 5am wake up to join my Trek America tour. This 14 day camping safari winds inland, via a bunch of national parks, before heading back out to the coast at San Francisco.

3 Aussies, 6 Poms and a couple of Germans on a small bus sounds like the start of a bad joke but so far everyone has gotten on really well. Our fearless leader Jen, has done a great job of organising everything, and although the camping lifestye is starting to wear a little thin, I'm coping better than I predicted.

The trip started poorly for me health wise with a projectile vomitting incident putting me out of commission for the first couple of days. By day 3 we'd reached Glacier national park, up near the Canadian border and i'd recovered enough to get out for a short but beautiful hike.

Next stop was Yellowstone NP, the first ever created, which is most famous for it's geothermal features. Geothermal features are rubbish. They smell bad and for the most part aren't very exciting. It's a very beautiful area in spite of them.

We spent the first day driving past some of the tourist sites, camped just outside the park border and then headed back in the morning for an awesome full day hike.

Six of us headed off on the 12 mile hike. It snowed steadily for the whole 7 hours and as we approached the 3200m summit the snow was a couple of feet deep. At this point the temperature was probably down around -12C. Given the trail was well covered by snow we were relying on orange trail markers attached to trees every 100 meters or so. It got a bit hairy a few times when we lost the trail and ended up crawling along in thick snow a couple of feet away from a very significant cliff. At one point a dribble of snot actually froze solid under my nose. I don't think hiking gets any better than that. Note that i did the whole hike in shorts and running shoes. What a man.

The pre-summer weather up in the mountains isn't exactly an improvement on an Australian winter. So far it's been unseasonally cold, rarely reaching 10 degrees. At night it's often 5 below. Not ideal camping weather but I was wise enough to pick up a bunch of camping equipment and warm clothes from the world's biggest outdoor store ("REI" in Seattle has 4 huge floors of awesomeness). Once i'm all rugged up things aren't so bad.

The weather was much better yesterday at Grand Teton NP although everyone was too tired to do much hiking. Everyone except me that is! By myself I managed to fast hike another 12 miles or so around a lake and then into a valley with some amazing views. Squirrels are my new favourite animal. I also like moose.

I'll finish with one of my favourite photos from the trip so far. It's taken from a truckstop somewhere in the middle of Montana looking out into an approaching storm.

I'm off now to cook food for the whole group. Pity the poor fools, they don't know what they're in for. More posts when i make it to San Fran in a week or so - All the best!

New Pics up

I've uploaded some pics from the first 3 days of my Trek America camping safari. (Check out the Link to my Picasa Travel Album at the top right) Mostly they're from around the Glacier National Park which is right up north near the US/Canada border. I'll add a blurb when i get some more time!

The rest of seattle

I really can't say enough good things about Seattle - it's easily made the shortlist of places that i'd live in. My opinions may be slightly biased by the fact that i've been staying at a great hostel and hanging around cool people in weather that the newspapers have descibed as "Sizzling". Seattle has a reputation for being wet, gloomy and depressing. My arrival triggered the two hottest days of the year and I got sunburnt. Perhaps they should fly me up here more often... And despite the fact that Americans may be carrying a few extra pounds, they've proven to be as friendly as any people i've met. The other travellers i've met so far this trip have been fantastic fun. I've spent most of my time hanging out with Lizzie, (red jacket) a music fanatic and part time drug dealer from central england who talks at almost weslike speeds and Daniela, (blue jacket) a french/italian/spanish tutor who grew up in africa and still manages more fluent english than me. For the record I did crush them both at pictionary. Activity-wise i've managed to fit in a picturesque ferry ride (including a close encounter with nuclear submarine), a (very wimpy) 30 mile bike adventure, the worst Underground tour ever, some shopping in the world's largest outdoor/camping store and - the highlight of my trip so far - a visit to the worlds coolest library. It's 10 stories tall, shaped like a bizarre glass mushroom and has sloped floors which allow you to walk across 5 stories in a continuous loop from dewey 0 to 1000. If that doesn't sounds cool to you then you're just not nerdy enough. You can check out the rest of the pics from my trip so far via the link on the right hand side of the blog. I'm heading out in a few hours on a 14 day hiking/bus tour of the American North-West and I don't anticipate a lot of internet access. I should have a bunch of good stories and photos ready when I make it to San Fransisco! I've also organised a US sim card so feel free to drop me an SMS at 206-965-0933 (i think the prefix is +1).

The one constant through all the years...

Is Baseball. After 24 hours or so of recovery sleeping, I headed out with a bunch of people from the hostel on a mini pub-crawl. The pubs had atmosphere, the beer was cheap and we even got to see a pretty decent live band. Towards the end of the night I made friends with [read 'arm-wrestled'] three Canadian Radio Announcers and fanatical Yankee fans. They were down from Vancouver for the baseball series against the Mariners. Excited at the prospect of an oversized mascot, they drugged me, dressed me in a Yankee's shirt and dragged me along to the game. To say that America is baseball crazy is a significant understatement. I checked a Seattle Mariners program and found that they literally play every single day - 30 times in May. Apparently most teams rotate about 5 pitchers while all the other players have no choice but to suit up every day. The game I saw was on a Sunday afternoon and the 45,000 person stadium was almost filled. Not bad for a city of 580,000 people! Cheers to Matt, whose expert commentary helped me better understand the intricacies of America's favourite game. I'm looking forward to catching up with the boys again when i make it up to Vancouver!

I've arrived!

After a little over 24 hours in transit, I made it to Seattle. My backpack decided on the scenic route, taking a little extra time to see the sights in Auckland before heading up via LA. It eventually made it to my hostel in Seattle about 18 hours late. This was actually fortunate as it temporarily legitimised my decision to wear the same underwear for the entire trip. I've already had a couple of revelations about the US. American people are fat. I'd guess on average about 10kg heavier than Ausralians. The reason for their fatness was demonstrated during my first trip to Subway. The girl in front of me requested 3 different sauces and received literally five (australian sized) servings of each. In the end the whole sub was just a giant pool of brown. At least she got a diet soft drink. American Currency is worsto. Having to tip, add sales tax and then pay for it all with one dollar bills is a nightmare. At one point i used a $20 note to buy something which was just over $5 and recieved 6 notes and a pile of coins in change. Take a few seconds to give thanks for gold coins. I'm relaxing in Seattle for the next few days (taking advantage of the free wifi) then heading off on a 14 day camping tour of the North-West. Cheers, WesC :) ps. My phones seem incompatible with the US network so if anything important happens (like someone close to you giving birth) you'll have to let me know via email.