The Southern Cone

West Coast Trail

2008-06-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Last week I hiked the world-famous West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island, Canada. Here are some pictures from my trip.

I took the ferry from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, BC. I was blessed with a clear day for the crossing, so I was treated to awesome views of the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

Victoria is a beautiful city.

I spent the night in Victoria, then headed out to the trail the next morning. Heading from north to south, the first 6 miles (10 km) are deceptively easy, along a flat, well maintained, dry trail.

Parks Canada was nice enough to put kilometer markers along the entire route. The sign for 1 km was missing.

There were two lighthouses along the trail - a small taste of civilization in the wilds of Vancouver Island.

Much of the hike is (as the name "West Coast Trail" might suggest) along the beach. I spent my first afternoon and evening hiking along this wonderful stretch of sand. This is the view from my tent that first night. Awesome!

There were lots of small creeks and waterfalls along the trail, providing beauty and cold drinking water.

I spent most of my second day hiking along the beach as well. Here is the famous "Hole in the Wall". I hiked through it since the tide was quite low.

This is Nitinat Narrows, a river that is obviously a little too big to hike across. A ferryman picks up hikers and takes them across the river from 10 am to 4 pm. I hiked very quickly all afternoon to make sure I didn't miss the boat - I arrived at 3:45!

The ferryman also goes crabbing...

And will cook one up for you (accompanied by an ice-cold microbrew) for a small fee.

I camped on this beach my second night. Imagine mile after mile of these pristine, wild beaches, with virtually no other people around. The pictures don't even come close to showing how amazing the WCT was.

My third morning was probably my favorite time on the hike. I walked along the beach for hours, stopping to investigate all the tidepools along the way. I saw lots of cool sea life, including this little guy who appeared ready for a fight. Maybe he was mad at me for eating his big brother the day before.

There were a few starfish, too. In addition to the tidepool critters, I saw humpback whales, sea lions, deer, mice, pine martens, bald eagles, and lots of sea birds. Thankfully, I didn't bump into any bears, cougars, or wolves!

That same morning (when I was already in a good mood from the beautiful beach walk), I stopped for breakfast at Chez Monique, a small cafe on the beach along the trail. Prices were much higher than you'd find in the outside world, but I was more than willing to spend some of my Canadian dollars to get some real food in me.

The best $20 I've ever spent: bacon, eggs, toast, hash browns, an orange, and a Coke. Seriously, I felt like Superman after breakfast.

In many ways, the West Coast Trail is a sort of obstacle course. The trail is well known for its cable cars, used to cross rivers that are too deep to walk across. Riding the cable cars was great fun - it's a quick ride to the middle of the line, but then it's a lot of work to pull the car from there to the other end.

The trail also has over 100 bridges of varying types and sizes. This was my favorite - a one-foot wide suspension bridge swinging over the river below.

The trail is also justifiably well known for its endless ladders, particulary on the stretch between Walbran and Camper Creeks. Here's a fellow hiker descending one of the longer ones.

Some sets of ladders looked pretty imposing from the bottom.

Most of the last 15 miles (25 km) of the hike went through a muddy bog. By the time I finished, I was coated in mud up to my knees. In some places, park management had installed a series of boardwalks to help hikers through the challenging terrain. This one was in very good condition...

...but this one wasn't! Sometimes the boardwalk was in such disrepair that it was easier not to walk on it! Actually, there were some stretches far worse than this - they were just so muddy that I didn't want to put my pack down to take my camera out. I just wanted to get through as quickly as possible!

The End! When you reach the end of the trek, a sign instructs you to raise the buoy to notify the ferry that you are ready to be picked up and brought back to civilization. After a two hour bus ride back to Victoria (with a stop for a bagel and ice cream), another two hour ferry ride back to the USA, and a four hour drive to Portland, I was home!

Weekend at the Coast

2008-05-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I took a couple much needed days away from work to enjoy some unseasonably hot weather on the northern Oregon Coast. I knocked out five hikes from the "60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Portland" book - over 30 miles in two days - and camped for the night at Cape Lookout State Park. Below are some shots of the weekend. It's hard to believe that all these pictures were taken less than two hours from downtown Portland.

Early morning on the Coast.

A lighthouse perched on a rock, off the coast. I think I would've liked to be the lighthouse keeper here, if only for a couple weeks.

Awesome bridge on the Drift Creek Falls trail.

View from below the bridge (check the upper right corner of the picture), with very cool (literally, the spray was welcome relief from the heat) Drift Creek Falls in the foreground.

Belize and Guatemala

2008-05-15T17:43:00.000-07:00

Over Christmas break 2007, I took a quick two week run down to Belize and Guatemala to escape the chilly Oregon winter. My thoughts on both countries:

Belize: if you like the beach and want a short, cheap, and somewhat exotic trip from the USA, I can't recommend Belize enough. The country has an awesome mix of jungles, beaches, and spectacular underwater scenery - I spent about half my trip on, in, or right next to the water, much of that with a snorkel in my mouth. The diving wasn't quite as good as in Egypt, but it's a whole lot closer and easier to get to. Belize generally has good food, as long as you like rice and beans (and cheap lobster!), and it's not too expensive although definitely it's a lot pricer than Guatemala. I probably won't go back, as I discovered that I'm not much of a beach person, but it was fun nonetheless.

Guatemala: I only spent three days in Guatemala, all at the Mayan historic site Tikal and the nearby city of Flores, so I can't really comment on the country as a whole. But, what I saw was fantastic. It had long been a dream of mine to climb a Mayan pyramid - I got chills sitting atop Templo IV at Tikal all alone watching the sunset, with monkeys and birds rustling in the canopy all around. That one hour was worth the whole trip. Plus, Guatemala was cheap, had great food, and it was really fun to use my Spanish again (I definitely got a sense of nostalgia for South America...). I'll be going back someday to Guatemala to see the rest of this beautiful country.

My New Home

2008-05-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

After returning from Iceland in September 2007, I moved from California, where I had lived for the previous five years, to take a new job in Portland, Oregon. I desperately needed a change of scenery... and, even more desperately, a full time job after two years of piecing together a part-time living between trips.

I've been in Portland for nearly a year now, and I've never felt so "at home" anywhere before, a bold statement considering all the places I've lived. Yes, the weather stinks sometimes, but the outdoors opportunities within two hours of my apartment are virtually endless. I've been devoting a lot of my time to getting to know my new home, and have no international travel plans for the immediate future, although the direct Portland-to-Tokyo flight is tempting.

Here's a shot of Mt. Hood, my local peak, that I took on my first Oregon hike after moving up here.

Iceland

2008-05-15T16:56:00.001-07:00

Nearly a year since my last post, I'm getting around to blogging again. My first task is to update the site for my trip to Iceland last summer, August 2007. I spent three weeks on the island.

I enjoyed my Iceland trip, but not as much as I thought I would. It was beautiful on sunny days, and misery on rainy days (it didn't help that the high costs of the country necessitated that I sleep in a tent every night of the trip). And, in a way, it felt like "wilderness lite", after visiting Patagonia, Canada, and even parts of the USA. I can see how it is so attractive for Europeans, though, since the choices for true wilderness travel are much more limited on their continent.

Highlights of the trip included: the drive across the interior of the island along the Kjoler Route, puffin watching on the beautiful Westmann Islands, and the two sunny days of hiking I got in at Skaftafell National Park.

Lowlights of the trip included: whale watching in Husavik (paled in comparison to whale watching I've done in other places), extraordinarily high food prices, and the weather.

I'm so glad I went to see Iceland but I don't think I'll go back, mainly due to expense of getting there and the fact that the raw nature in North and South America is more spectacular.

Adventure Sports in Moab, Utah

2007-06-12T13:17:00.000-07:00

My drive ended in Moab, Utah, where I spent a few days hiking in Arches National Park and rafting on the Colorado River.

My kayak-raft

The armada of rafts, kayaks, and canoes on the Colorado River

The only way to travel

Money shots of Delicate Arch, Arches National Park

Hiking to Sand Dune Arch, Arches National Park

Sand Dune Arch, Arches National Park

These little guys were everywhere

I saw a few little bunnies while out hiking in the more secluded sections. I also saw an enormous jackrabbit but it ran away before I could get a picture.

View of Canyonlands National Park

Hiking in the Fiery Furnace, Arches National Park

Utah Road Trippin'

2007-06-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

After Zion, I drove across Utah, with a stop at snowy Bryce Canyon National Park.

Bryce Canyon

Proof that I was there

More Bryce Canyon

The snow stopped and the clounds parted long enough for me to take this

And this (both at Bryce Canyon still)

Road trippin' in Southern Utah (the last one reminds me so much of Patagonia!)

Zion National Park

2007-06-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

I took a "quick" two week vacation to Utah in early June 2007 between spring and summer semesters. My first stop was Zion National Park for four days of great hiking.

View of Zion Canyon from a shuttle stop

A typical drop off the side of the terrifying Angels' Landing Trail

View from the top of Angels' Landing Trail - worth every step

This is a good view of Angels' Landing - the trail went right up the spine of that mountain in the center of the picture

Paradise in the Zion Canyon Narrows

A fellow hiker works his way down the Narrows

One of the complaints I get is that I don't post pictures of myself. Well here's one, hiking down the Narrows.

View from Observation Point - Angels' Landing is in the front right, 500 feet below

My boots

Europe Part II

2006-11-01T14:36:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures from my trip to Germany, Austria, and Slovenia in September/October of 2006. I only spent two weeks in Europe (on the way home from Egypt), but managed to pack in some awesome Alpine hiking in Innsbruck, caving and road tripping in Slovenia, and a visit to the world's biggest party in Munich.

A regularly-sizd beer at Oktoberfest.

Laura, a German girl I met in South America and my wonderful host in Munich

Hiking near Innsbruck

Above Innsbruck

Spelunking in Slovenia

Beautiful Lake Bled, Slovenia

Amazingly green water, Slovenia

Trigav National Park, Slovenia

Egypt

2006-10-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from my three week Egyptian adventure in September 2006. I started in Aswan with a visit to the ruins of Abu Simbel, took a felucca (traditional sailboat) down the Nile, toured the Valley of the Kings and other ruins in Luxor, snorkeled and climbed Mt. Sinai in Dahab, and got assailed by touts at the pyramids and went museum-hopping in Cairo.

Ruins at Abu Simbel, near Aswan (stunning)

More Abu Simbel

Felucca sunset (best travel experience ever?)

Lunch on the felucca (the lentil soup was delicious and got me started on my lentils addiction)

Swimming in the Nile

Team Felucca - an unwashed, motley crrew of Americans, Aussies, French (not pictured), and a Swede

Sunset at Luxor Temple

Me with an obelisk growing out of my neck (nice photography, Tami)

Descending into a tomb, Valley of the Kings (no photos allowed inside!)

View from our $2 per night hotel room, Dahab (unfortunately I didn't have underwater capabilities for my camera, so you can't imagine what was under that lovely blue sea. Let me assure you that it was amazing).

No camels on the beach!

Feeling like Moses: sunrise on Mt. Sinai.

The Pyramids - a bit disappointing in person, and overrun with hustlers, touts, and other unsavory characters.