With the COVID19 state of alarm shortly ending here in Spain, I've been slowly getting myself ready to do some long distance hiking. My original plan, before COVID19 hit the world, was to hopefully make it to Italy in the summer of 2021 to do a 10 day hike through the mountains. Whether or not that happens this summer is anyone's guess, but I'm still going to act like it may happen, which means I need to start training for a high-altitude hike in the mountains. For the last month or so I have been trying to hike 15-20km of the Camino de Levante every week or two just outside of Valencia to get ...

This last weekend I finally got around to writing up my trip report for my hike along the West Highland Way in 2018. Now that that's out of the way, I'm thankful I can finally get around to posting my thoughts on the Great Glen Way. The Great Glen Way for all intents and purposes can almost be looked at as the second half of the West Highland Way (WHW). While the WHW finishes in Fort William, the Great Glen Way literally starts where it leaves off. After I finished the WHW, my friend Tony and I took the train to Edinburgh to relax for a few days. Heading back to the Great Glen Way was essentially ...

While I've done my fair share of hiking in my life, as I've gotten older I've gravitated more towards multi-day hikes rather than single day hikes. I certainly enjoy an afternoon hike on a weekend, but there's something magical (and inherently challenging) about hiking for days or weeks at a time. In 2017 I did my longest hike yet - the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I spent 28 days walking from St. Jean Pied de Port, France, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, a distance of roughly 800km. When it was over, as I hobbled around Santiago de Compostela letting my feet heal, I told myself that my days ...

It won't be much longer now until things start heating up around here. It seems like just a few days ago that Christmas was here (or possibly it only seems that way because my tree is still up). I for one am getting pretty excited about enjoying the sun again when it comes. This summer I'm hoping to do quite a bit of camping and hiking. The campground reservation system for the lower mainland isn't open yet, but I found out that the one in Tofino actually opened the other day. So I decided to whip out my credit card and book three days of camping on the Island in July. I'm going to probably take ...

I woke up yesterday to another sunny day here in CowTown™. I was debating going to the gym, but decided instead to go and try a local hike. So I pulled my hiking boots out of a box, found some clean socks, and drove up to the trailhead for Teapot Hill, which is only about 10 minutes from my house. Teapot hill isn't that hard of a hike, but considering I haven't been hiking really in years, it did a good job of wearing me out. The elevation gain is only around 300 meters, but a lot of that comes near the end. At the top of the hike is a pretty nice view of Cultus Lake, so I snapped a few photos ...

Getting old sucks. It sort of creeps up on you when you're not really looking. I've been fairly lucky in that I don't really have many grey hairs yet. Many of my friends starting getting their first grey hairs in university. While I have a few now, they've only recently emerged. Grey hairs don't really bother me, but joint pain and random aches do. The first real joint pain I ever had was due to an injury I had after doing the West Coast Trail years ago. I hurt my knee pretty badly on day three (I suspect I tore my ACL, but never had it looked at), and was forced to chew tylenol 3's for the rest ...