Sequoia Forest

Our last major stop on this trip was in Sequoia National Forest.

It’s very difficult to describe the size of these trees and the impressions that they leave behind, and even more difficult to take pictures that truly capture their scale.

It’s really a little bit dangerous, walking the whole time with your head tilted all the way back.

To round off our exciting weekend of wildlife sightings, we also saw a bear. At the end of the day, we were heading to a nice rock outcropping with our fresh local watermelon (bought from a farmer who thought we were from Iowa, because it sounds close enough to Ottawa, and he didn’t know where the latter was anyway) when we heard squealing and saw a group of excited japanese tourists walk back towards us. I thought they had imagined it when they said they had seen a bear, but we decided to investigate anyway.

What do you know – shortly we spotted this little guy, calmly trudging along in a gully between the road and some park buildings.

We got into our car and pulled up in a mini-convoy of cars to get a better look – everyone slowly rolling down along the shoulder in order to keep the bear in the line of camera lenses.

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Yosemite

Next stop was Yosemite.

We drove in from the east, which turned out to be the wrong decision for pictures – all the pullouts/vista parking lots were on the wrong side of the highway, so we barely got to stop for any valley/mountains/river views.

The main campsites were full, so we kept driving west until we found one that had some empty spots. After setting up camp, we had just enough time for a quick jaunt up an easy trail near the Tuolomne Meadows.

The light was absolutely gorgeous.

We also had our first two encounters with deer, which around here seem to be completely tame. We tread softly trying to get as close as possible for pictures, but the deer barely batted an ear. I got as close as maybe 10-15 feet to one, and only then did it calmly start moving away.

On the way back to camp, at sunset, we were treated to picture-perfect views of Half Dome.

At two nights, this was the longest we’d stayed anywhere since the wedding. On the second night, we discovered that the dad and son at the next campsite over were originally from Ottawa – this was discovered through a hilarious Kanata/Canada (this will only be funny to people who actually know Ottawa, I think) conversation which I overheard Dan having with the dad.

The following day, we headed to the valley to see a number of different waterfalls.

Rest of the pictures are here.

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White Mountain Peak

After the desert it was on to White Mountain Peak.

Having been denied a permit for Mount Whitney back in April (because permits for the hike are allocated on a lottery basis, not because they decided that Canadians are too crazy to be allowed on the mountain), I set about trying to find another worthy baggable peak. Mount Whitney distinguishes itself by being the highest peak in the contiguous United States – but afterwards, I found out that it’s actually not that great of a hike. White Mountain Peak, on the other hand, is the third-highest peak in California, is only 250 ft shy of Mt. Whitney, is supposed to be a much better hike (I can’t compare, but it was a lovely hike in its own right) – and it doesn’t require a permit.

That day (Tuesday?) we ended up driving all the way from Death Valley to a campground in the National Forest adjacent to the peak. We got to our campsite near dusk, and had fun trying to set up a tent under some creepy scraggly trees.

The next morning, we started on the long car approach to the trailhead. Both Dan and I agreed that at somewhere around 16 miles, this was probably the longest access road we’ve been on for a hike.

Given the state of the road, it took us over an hour to get to the start of the trail.

The trail itself is actually an old road that goes quite literally to the top of White Mountain Peak. Granted, for about the last 1/3 of it you would need a heavy-duty 4×4 with a good driver, but even so the grading and clearing of such a wide patch along length of the trail definitely made the hike more bearable.

The air at 14,000 ft, however, did nothing to make the hike more bearable. By the time we reached the top, this is the best attempt at an over/under that Dan could muster up.

We also saw lots and lots of marmots and chippies.

Some of them were even sporting man-made jewellery!

Head here for more pictures of adorable critters and stunning mountains.

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The Rockies – Bridges and Rain Edition

On Sunday morning, we got up early and skipped brunch plans so we could get to the trailhead early and start our overnight hike.

Or, at least, that was the plan. What actually happened was we got to the turn-off for the road we were supposed to take, and then spent the next hour and a half driving up and down a logging road looking for the start of the hike.

Turns out that the logging road had been reactivated since the book we had was published, and so various turnoffs had been added. When we did finally find what was supposed to be the start, we got all of 10 minutes into the hike before we came upon a collapsed bridge across a mountain stream slightly larger than that in Men in Tights. We hummed and hawed for a while, Dan explored.  We even went down to the railroad to see if we could use that bridge to cross, but this route would involve a good half-kilometer of uphill bushwhacking to get back to the trail. But eventually we decided against it and turned back (since this wasn’t the only bridge we’d have to cross, and this one was quite sketchy as it was).

Driving back to Revelstoke, completely dejected, we perked up a bit when we managed to find a good-priced suite (With a jacuzzi!) in a nice hotel.

Oh, the advantages of visiting ski resort towns in the off season. Although, their hallways were filled with pictures of heliskiing on pristine powder which took my breath away and made me quite jealous.

Our choices for dinner, in downtown Revelstoke on a Sunday night, were between Chinese, Chinese, or Chinese. The other options were two pubs (of which I was sick of by then) and a very expensive-looking restaurant in the hotel. We settled for the second Chinese option, and returned to our hotel room to nurse a bottle of local honey ale (Atilla the Honey, tee hee) while sitting in the jacuzzi. Now that’s what I call a vacation!

The next morning dawned cloudy, but we decided to persevere and took to the Parks office for guidance.

We settled on going to the Glaciers National Park, a 45-minute drive away, to do a promising hike. The weather got only worse as we drove there, and a light drizzle had started by the time we left the car.

We bought our pass and chatted with the friendly ranger, who told us this was a very nice hike. Imagine our surprise when, a few minutes into a hike, we see a sign telling us that the bridges had been removed for the winter halfway through the hike. Oh-kay. Thanks, Mr. Not Helpful Ranger. We thought we’d try it anyway, since the parks often put bridges in places where they are not necessary by the end of the season.

The first half of the hike was actually very nice. It started in old-growth forest along wonderfully large trees.

We soon got more into the open, hiking through rock fields deposited by the receding glaciers and (probably) landslides. Through the clouds, we got views of the rocky river valley below and above us, with glimpses of what may have been our destination. When we got to the first bridge, it was as we expected, crossing the stream without TOO much effort.

Of course, then we had to get to the second bridge, which posed much bigger problems. This little river had carved a mini-gorge, with 10-15 foot dropoffs on each side, followed by a small waterfall downstream – definitely not a safe place to cross.

We tried going a bit downstream, but this was a fuller and faster river than the previous once, with no easy place to cross – and then we’d have to scramble up a slippery rock slope overgrown with brush. Oh, and did I mention it was really starting to rain by this point? Yeah, it didn’t sound like much fun to us, either. So we beat a retreat yet again. Stupid bridges foiling our plans!

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Hiking pictures!

I keep forgetting to mention this, but I’ve finally edited and uploaded the pictures from our White Mountains hiking trip.

Go take a look!

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White Mountains – Touristy Day 3

On Monday morning, I let us sleep in just a tiny bit before waking up Dan so we had time to explore the area just a bit more as non-hikers.

Our morning started at Moonbeam Cafe with a delicious egg and gourmet-bread filled breakfast. We bought a loaf of bread to take home with us, and Dan claimed those were among the best sandwiches I’ve ever made. Hmm… I’m all for good sandwiches, but that’s a bit far to go for bread! They also had the cutest (not so) little flowerpot in the window.

We ambled over to the train museum – unfortunately it was closed, but fortunately most of their exhibits were sitting on the tracks outside.

This little vignette almost sold me on the place – I mean, c’mon, a library with a reading area on the porch?! How awesome is that?

We drove to North Conway with the intention of sightseeing a bit and maybe hitting up the Outlet mall I had been told about. We stopped at Moat, one of the local breweries, and decided to linger for a while.

I’m glad I skipped the shopping, since it left us time for adventures such as these.

Driving back, we had possibly the shortest border crossing ever – with no car in front of us and a bored border guard who listened to my yammering on about the bread and beer we were bringing back for all of 30 seconds before passing back the passports and waving us through. Of course, this was balanced out by being stuck in Montreal traffic for over an hour. Never again, Montreal – you are dead to us as a road-trip pass-through point.

For a getaway weekend planned about two weeks previously, I’m very happy with how this turned out. New Hampshire is absolutely gorgeous, and I would love to come back in the fall. The peaks in the White Mountains are nothing to scoff at, and there are still plenty of them left for us to explore. Even the food was above and beyond any of our expectations! Now, if only all this wasn’t a 7-hour drive away…

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White Mountains – Hiking Day 2

Sunday morning, we got up early, and following my little warm-up excursion, took the ridge trail back up to the hut. Ideally, we would have continued on with our route after hitting Mt. Adams, but because you’re not allowed to camp in the alpine, and the rest of the trail is ALL alpine until Mt. Washington, we had to descend to spend the night.

Burdened with all our gear, Sunday’s hike was much slower, but we still made decent progress. I’ll admit that I don’t want to always hike around with 40 lbs on my back, but I’m glad to have done it once, just to know that I can do it. Also, it really reinforced why I never want to gain that much weight – hiking around, even on a flat, with an extra 40 lbs on you is HARD, especially on the knees.

The Gulfside trail took us pretty much directly over the remaining summits on our route, including Jefferson, Mt. Clay, and finally Mt. Washington, possibly the most tackily touristy mountain in the vicinity, with a $29 bus tour and a $70 railroad leading right to the top. Now the tourists become the attraction?

The hike down had a fairly unpleasant section, which made us question just how this could be on arguably the most popular trail in the park. We saw plenty of day hikers, including people with dogs and kids, while the unpleasant section rivalled some of the stuff I’ve seen on our truly back-country scrambles. My conspiracy theory is that this section is intentionally kept in such a poor state so that after trying it once, people decide to pony up for the bus tour next time.

Even with extra un-budgeted-for time spent navigating the Tuckerman’s Ravine Trail down (really, avoid it), we had time to enjoy the hot tub and pool at our hotel before heading out for dinner. Here, we were pleasantly surprised to find a somewhat boho pub in the middle of our sleepy host town of about 1700. Perfectly grilled crabcakes, golden samosas, perfectly spiced lamb burgers on flatbread buns (of which I of course forgot to take a picture because I was too busy gobbling it all down) – and a selection of local craft beers made for a wonderful evening. If you ever find yourself in Gorham, NH, definitely stop by Saalt Pub and try Chef Kenny’s food and the welcoming hospitality of everyone else in this lovely joint.

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White Mountains – Hiking Day 1

For the August long weekend this year, I was finally able to convince Dan to try hiking in the Appalachians. And by “convince”, I mostly mean “plan and book everything, and then tell Dan that we’re going”. You see, after Vancouver, he’s been under this impression that there are no mountains worth climbing out here. I think he was pleasantly surprised!

We started our drive on Friday afternoon, choosing to avoid Montreal and go along quiet country roads and through Cornwall instead. The views from the scary bridge at Cornwall were fantastic, but try not to look at the road too closely. Shortly after crossing the border, we had our first Amish sightings, including two buggies and a few roadside vegetable stands.

In addition to the Amish, New York seems to be a patriotic

and environmentally-conscious state.

What I didn’t know when I mapped out the drive was that our route involved a cute little ferry between NY and Vermont. A lovely evening made for smooth sailing, and we were on our way in under 15 minutes.

Our plans to have dinner at a small-town restaurant on the way were thwarted by the fact that that’s what EVERYONE in those small towns does on a Friday night, so everything was packed. We gave up after two attempts.

Hiking trips are usually much more interesting if you don’t have to double back to return, so we caught a convenient (but expensive) hiker shuttle to our starting point. We’d be hiking up and across the Presidential Range, and then back down to our car.

Saturday involved a 2-hour hike up to the tent platforms where we’d be spending the night. After a quick lunch and tent setup, we left our main packs with the tent, and set off to summit Mt. Madison and Mt. Adams. Both are conveniently accessible from the Madison Hut (which will gladly cater to your unheated bunk-bed, dinner and breakfast needs for an un-thrifty $108 usd/night/person). Both peaks are within 30 minutes to an hour from the hut, making for a lovely afternoon hike with our little day packs. The trails are all well-maintained and, while you sometimes feel like they maybe overdid it on the cairns, there’s definitely no danger of losing the path.

On the way back to the tents, we took the ridge trail, which both of us found much more interesting than the forest trail we took up to the hut. Guess which trail we took the next morning?

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Mountains around La Paz

Our last few days in La Paz were filled with shopping and mountains. We decided to do things in order of increasing complexity, so first we did the Chacaltaya trip and then the Pico Austria trip.

On the first day, when we were picked up in the morning, we drove for about 2 hours to end up at Chacaltaya, once the world´s highest ski resort at 5,300 m. Along the way we had great views of Huayana Potosi, as well as Lake Titicaca, and the mountain ranges surrounding La Paz. A little bit cloudy, so we didn´t see everything, but still very impressive. It should be noted that we drove up to 5,300 m. Yup, them hills (and roads) around here are pretty high. From there, where the view was already pretty spectacular, we hiked for almost an hour (hey, hiking actually take effort at this altitude) to get to the 5,421 summit. The second most stunning part about the tour (after the views, of course), was finding out that 50 years ago, the areas where we walked had been covered by a glacier 50 m deep. Now, occasional small patches are the only thing that´s left, remnants of snowfall a few days ago.

From there, we drove back to, and through, La Paz, to end up at the Valley of the Moon, a very interestingly eroded area. The erosion happens during the rainy season as the clay soil gets washed out. After tens of thousands of years, we´re left with what looks like a desert filled with stalagmites, a very interesting and intricate network of walls and spires, reminiscent in places of organ pipes. In others, narrow openings plunge 15 m below, serving as a drainage during the rainy season. Some spires, where there is some rock material present, in addition to the clay, end up with these cute little hats made of small rocks.

The second day, our last full day in Bolivia, was devoted to a scramble of Pico Austria (5,300 m). This was a hike that actually involved work, as we started around 4,500 m. What didn´t we have on this day! – oh yeah, that´s right: sun. We had all forms of precipitation (rain, hail, snow), but no sun and few moments when clouds parted enough to see. Up at 5,000 m, this means that parts of the hike, as well as the summit, were spent in a milky-white haze.

Breakfast at the hostel officially started at 7:30, but we headed down around 7:29 and were lucky enough to find some pancakes already out. Our pick-up time was 7:30-7:45, so we figured we had a good 20 minutes to eat. Imagine our surprise when, at 7:25, our guide shows up! Amazing, given all our previous complaints about the timeliness of things around here. Luckily, we were the only people in the tour, so he graciously waited for us to finish out breakfast.

The hike began easy enough, with a pleasant little stroll past pastures and a few small lakes to the base camp. This one is used for climbing Condoriri, as well as a half a dozen nearby peaks whose names I can´t remember. We kept getting teasing glimpses of a few of the closer peaks, as well as the glaciers, but never enough of an opening to see everything at once. Here, too, the effects of global warning are apparent – our guide said that he first started coming here in 1985, and back then there were two glacial lakes which are now thawed into regular lakes, and the glacier was at least 100 m farther, as can be seen from the distance between the moraine and the current glacier.

From here, the trail started to get more difficult. Much more steep with sections of loose rock. To the lake took an hour. The rise and a bit of plateau-walking took another hour and a bit. Eventually we got to an area with dozens of the little long-tailed rabbits we had first seen in Uyuni (so adorable!). Nearly impossible to spot when sitting still, as soon as you made a sudden noise they started in a flurry of hopping and springing, taking a few bounding leaps and then freezing again.

Now began nearly an hour of slogging up to the first pass, up a path on crumbly loose scree. Not too exciting, but becoming hard. As soon as we got to the pass, though, fantastic views of the glaciers, mountains, and a lake around the back side of Pico Austria opened up. The rest of the path lay along the back side of the peak, much less steep and more manageable than the front. The summit looked within reach from here, but was still over an hour away. When we got there, four and a bit hours after starting out, there was absolutely no view – just white clouds all around. Boo. For the last hour, the guide´s pace, which had seemed on the slow side up till then, was just about all I could manage.

On the way down, we stopped at the pass to have some sandwiches made by our guide on the spot, and they were the best sandwiches ever. But then again, I think that at the altitude and after that much exertion, I would´ve eaten anything with equal gusto. As we kept descending, the hail, and then rain, picked up. However, on looking back once we got to the lake, we discovered that our peak looked much more like a ¨real¨ mountain, with a fine dusting of snow along its upper third.

Once we got to the car, we found that in addition to the driver, there were 3 girls and their dog, from the nearby settlement, waiting for us to return. All 4 were almost equally as wild – it would be sad if it wasn´t so comical. They circled us in curiousity, but shied away when we made any sudden movement. Dan shared some wafers with them, and after hesitating each grabbed one, and then ran off a bit to nibble. So very odd to be so cautious of.

Overall, I would say two spectacular (and very tall) days. One of these days, Dan and I will

a) make it up a peak together, where
b) the weather will cooperate enough that you´ll be able to see that we´re actually on a summit.

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Lake Titicaca

After leaving Arequipa, we spent a fantastic few days along the shores of Lake Titicaca. Our drive there (6 hours) was also fantastic, since we ended up in the sleeper compartment (i.e. first class) of the bus. Holy legroom, batman!

Our lakeside visit started in Puno. What a cute little town! The first afternoon we just wandered down to the harbour, and shared a beer while watching the locals paddle around in a small pond on family-sized paddle boats. What fun! Dan even convinced me to talk to the ladies manning the souvenir stalls about yarn, which resulted in me walking away with 3 different colours of alpaca yarn. Score! Will have to keep an eye out for this in Bolivia.

The next day we had a half-day tour to the floating islands of Uros. What an amazing experience! These “islands” are literally floating, built out of the reeds for which the lake is famous, and anchored in a preferred spot. Before the rainy season, the anchors are removed and the islands are moved to a shallower spot to avoid flooding. Each island has 10-20 families living on it – if conflict arises, an island can literally be cut in half and the dissenting group can start their own island or go join another existing island.

In the afternoon, we had bought tickets for a bus ride onwards to Copacabana, just over the Bolivian border. The “bus” ended up being a little bitty micro-bus, with all of our backpacks piled on top and held in by a net. Good stuff! The crew on the trip turned out to be a great mix, with 4 australians, 2 kiwis, and a swiss guy along for the ride. Good times were had, including 3 trips across the (physical) Peru-Bolivia border since we didn´t know we had to go to two different offices to get the correct stamps in our passports. The bus driver dropped us off on the peruvian side, told us to go get our passports sorted out, and that he would meet us at the other end so we could transfer our stuff onto the bolivian minibus. No instructions were given, of course.

That evening, we ended up going to the same hotel as the whole crew, and also going out for dinner with everyone. What fun! – it´s been a while since Dan and I had been that social.

The following day, in a perverse twist on the scenario a few days previous, it was Dan who was not feeling well, so I went off on my own to explore the Isla del Sol, one of the larger island in Lake Titicaca. I ended up spending the day with the swiss and kiwi guys, and also a kiwi girl the swiss guy had met previously and whom we bumped into on the boat ride there (talk about random connections). In all, given that Dan wasn´t there, this was about the best day I could have had.

The kiwi girl was staying overnight on the island and so had hired a guide to take her along to the ruins, etc., so the 4 of us tagged along with promises to tip the guide well. Score! Just off Isla del Sol is an old ceremonial temple, currently buried under 5-10 m of water, given that the lake had risen almost 100 m since the site was originally built (glacial melting). We also saw the site where, according to Inca legend, the Sun was born (a rock in the shape of a condor, use of imagination is a must), as well as the ruins of a temple and sacrificial stone.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hiking along the ridge of the island from the north end to the south. The views were absolutely spectacular, with the startlingly blue lake on all sides, and the snowcapped mountain range (including a few 6000+m peaks) in the distance on one shore. I would almost call the scenery reminiscent of the mediterranean, at least until you remember that the lake is a balmy 10 degrees. I really felt sorry all day that Dan wasn´t able to make it, since this is something he would have absolutely loved. But I brought him back a rock and lots of pictures.

Later on that evening we ended up going to a little bar which had advertised live music. Wow, were we in for a treat! First of all, we ordered our drinks when we got there (had dinner earlier at another place), and were very surprised when the server came back not with 2, but 4 glasses. “Happy hour”, he told us happily! The grand total for the evening, with 6 delicious drinks between the two of us and a piece of cake, came out to about $13. Where else? The music was also absolutely wonderful – a peruvian band on tour, with slightly pop-y sounding south american music. I don´t know what it is about the south american music, but most of it sounds so inherently happy, that it just makes you want to get up and dance. We even bought a CD of theirs, so we have a musical reminder of our honeymoon. What a great deal.

Dan has just reminded me that it´s Thanksgiving back home today. So… happy Thanksgiving everyone! I guess we pre-celebrated by having BFC (bolivian fried chicken) yesterday!

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