The High Falls hike was my first with the Vancouver branch of the Alpine Club of Canada . Distance 10.67 km Time Elapsed: 4h 22m Elevation 📈 722.0 m ℹ️ Click for profile This hike starts north of Squamish, up the Paradise Valley road. The hike up takes you by a stream and it waterfalls as tumbles down the mountain. There's a nice bit or two by the waterfalls, but not a huge amount of views. This…
These are six photos from May. We were still in Australia at this point so the pictures still have a focus on the amazing Australian birds we saw. Locations: Uluru Daintree Bundaberg Agnes Water Brisbane Uluru sandstone Canon EOS R7 • RF200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM ISO: 2000 • Aperture: 7.1 • Shutter speed: 1/800 Welcome Swallow Canon EOS R7 • RF200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM ISO: 4000…
Here's a collection of some of best photos from April while we were in Australia. It's an amazing place to be with so much variation in landscape. I'm stick to the principle of just choosing six pictures to show this month, although I took about 4,000 pictures 😀 The first picture is most interesting to me. This is a picture of Sydney Habour Bridge reflected in the windows of the Sydney Opera…
When you start to get into photography, you'll get into management and editing of the photographs after taking them. Post editing of photos is an important part of the process these days and can really enhance your photos. However, when I started on this hobby I noticed that two names always came up as the default: Photoshop and Lightroom , both by Adobe. These peices of software are used by most…
When we originally planned our trip around Australia I looked for half marathons that matched where we'd be. We didn't find too many, Rockhampton was just an accident. But I booked the Noosa 10km before we left Canada, even then the Noosa 21km race was full. That meant 6 days after getting a personal best at Rockhampton I had a 10km race. To prepare, I spent the day before taking surf lessons and…
For my May Half Marathon, I ran the Rocky River Run in Rockhampton. This kept me streak of running a half marathon every month in 2026. Following on from the Northburn 100 , in April I did a long training run in Melbourne on Anzac day . We were in Rockhampton a couple of days before and I noticed the race, so signed up. No training or planning, just go for it. Distance 21.23 km Time Elapsed: 1h…
Wilsons Promontory is a park at the southern tip of the Australia. Well it's the southern most part of what people in Tasmania call 'the mainland', because Tasmania is the southern most tip. It's a beautiful park, but when we visited was buffeted by strong, strong winds, whipped with rain and generally just pretty rough. It's like the wind and rain was coming straight from Antarctica. The result…
Here's a collection of some of photos from March. We were in New Zealand in March and headed over to Australia at the end. Notable is that were present for the Blood Moon and golly do I wish I'd had a tripod for that. Holding a camera with 2kg 200-800mm lens up at the right angle to capture the moon and keep it steady for a slow shutter speed... is hard. Most of my pictures of it are blurry.…
What do you do after you've completed the Kepler and Routeburn Tracks? You do a half marathon up the side of a big hill. Well at least that's what I did. In 2026 I decided to set myself the goal of doing a half marathon every month as a way to set a better base level of fitness. Sometimes it's a training run by myself or sometimes it's a race. In February I did the First Half and had some heart…
The Kepler Track is one of the Great Walks in New Zealand, maintained by the Department of Conservation. I did this on a three day hike in March of 2026, following on from the Routeburn Track . Again, you need to be staying at a campsite or in a cabin. So the pace is dictated by those stops. I chose to do this one in 3 nights. Some just stop at Iris Burn and Brod Bay, these being the only 2 places…
The Routeburn Track is one of the Great Walks in New Zealand, maintained by the Department of Conservation. I did this on a three day hike in March of 2026. Like other Great Tracks, you need to be staying at a campsite or in a cabin. You can't camp within 500m of the trail, which really restricts the camping choices. As such your pace on the trail is determined by the spacing of the campsites. I…
Over January and February I really got chance to explore the Vancouver area with a new camera and lens that I purchased after Costa Rica . The result is way too many photos, some of which are below. Areas the following photos are from: Deep Cove trails Maplewood Flats Boundary Bay Squamish Tenderfoot hatchery Song Sparrow Canon EOS R7 • RF200-800mm F6.3-9 IS USM ISO: 5000 • Aperture: 7.1…
I've done the First Half a couple of years now, it's a half marathon in Vancouver in February and because of that, for many it's the first half marathon of the year. Hence the name. The nice thing about the race is that it I generally consider October to February prime running season for me. It's cooler in the winter and I spend less time cycling and backpacking. Doing this race every year let's…
As part of the slow, but ongoing, effort to remove US companies out of my life, I've decided to remove Strava out of my life. This was not an easy decision, I've used Strava for 8 years and used it a lot . I'll miss seeing what my friends do on Strava and many other things. However uploading so much personal data about my activities to a US company with data on US servers at this point in 2026 is…
Traditional mapping apps like Apple Maps and Google Maps aren't great for backpacking. The biggest problem is that there is an assumption that you are always online with a valid network connection. Google provides a great download option, but it can be finnicky because Google Maps wants to be online - even if the map is downloaded each and every time you open the app. I've also had difficulty with…
The Wild Bird Trust of BC has a conservation area in North Vancouver, by Dollarton Highway. On a sunny day last week we popped by with our cameras and was able to see more birds than we expected. Turns it out there were some nice, rather common, birds there: Bald Eagle Canon EOS 90D • Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 APO DG OS HSM ISO: 25600 • Aperture: 29.0 • Shutter speed: 1/8000 Bald…
Recently I was in Costa Rica. I had hoped to do a bit of hiking there but that didn't happen for a few reasons. The places I was in didn't really have good hiking, trails were muddy and overgrown or were in the process of being developed. As I was figuring out a plan, I badly pulled a muscle in my left hip running on the beach. I didn't attempt to run or hike after that and spent the rest of the…
🚨 Due to ongoing threats from the US, I'm not going to store personal data anywhere in the US anymore. So I'm deleting my Strava account after 8 years. This post doesn't make quite as much sense as a result, because I will no longer link to Strava. As you may have noticed, I use Strava , a lot. I've been on Strava since 2014 and have saved over 3,300 activities there. A lot of my friends use…
The Rockwall is a hike in Kootenay National Park and is one of the most beautiful hikes I've done. I learned about it from Taryn who said that the Rockwall 'has the best effort to reward ratio of all the backpacking trips in BC' and based on my experience, I have to agree. Rockwall isn't a specific trail, but a collection of a few trails and campsites. You'll need to book with Parks Canada and…
When I started seriously backpacking I got a Spot Gen 4 in 2022 . The Spot was a wonderful device that provided a level of security for me and reassurance for my wife. It allowed me to roam further and with more confidence, knowing that if things go really bad there's a button to press that would send a message for help. It made me more confident and more comfortable hiking on my own. I wouldn't…
Early in the year, we booked the Rockwall, a hike in Kootenay National Park. Since I was heading over towards the Rockies, I thought I'd in another hike. So beforehand I had the opportunity to do the Skyline Trail. I learnt about the trail from Taryn . I booked it from the south towards Jasper, which turns out to be the most popular way. Skyline trail is right on the edge of the forest fires that…
If you go shopping for hiking, running or backpacking gear, you are going to see lots of gear from a wide range of companies. Most (but not all) the things for hiking and backpacking are most likely made in Asia. Anything involving fabric or sewing is like made in Thailand, Cambodia or Vietnam. China for many other things. This is pretty universal these days, with some exceptions. But the company…
For some reason Panorama Ridge has been on my list for a long time, but I haven't gone. Partly it was confusion on my part about how to get up to Panorama Ridge and how long the trail actually is. Turns out it's really easy to get to and well worth it. Unfortunately judging by the numbers of people I saw and the posts on /r/vancouverhiking it looks like it's getting overwhelmed by people, rather…
Last year I bought the Big Agnes UL1 Tent which was a replacement for my Tarptent ProTrail . I liked the Big Agnes tent so much, I sold my Tarptent and then bought another one. This time a 2 person tent to replace our aging 23+ year old MEC tent, which is heavy and in bad shape. 🚨 Big Agnes is a US company 🤦♂, so Canadian 🇨🇦 buyers beware. I bought this in 2024, before the current…