On Friday and Saturday, my pal Sue and I (accompanied by Rosie the golden retriever) started our West Coast Trail training by hiking on a few local trails. By “training” I mean a pretty mellow day hike and an opportunity to get a mild sunburn on my nose (as you can tell, my legs […]
Yet another day of slight mayhem (with a bit of bicycle grease thrown in for good measure). I spent the afternoon cursing mildly as I methodically assembled my new car / RV / camel / quarterhorse (otherwise known as a travel bicycle), learning the finer points of V-brakes and seat stems.
Sporting a fire-engine red paint […]
As this picture indicates, I’m living in the midst of chaos. There is stuff everywhere: maps, scraps of paper with scribbled phone numbers and web sites, manuals, guide books, first aid kits, three compasses (???), a tent…it’s as if my closets regurgitated similtaneously, spilling camping gear and notebooks from one end of my apartment to […]
I’d like you to meet my friend Charlie, the gargantuan local spider who comes up my bathtub drain on a regular basis. Positively prehistoric, Charlie is so large and scary-looking that I think he’s partly related to dinosaurs.
Whenever he shows up, I gently pop him into a tupperware container and bring him outside to the […]
Baby birds, baby birds: a bald eagle’s nest (see the white head inside the pink circle?), 13 baby ducklings, and a bush tit’s nest (it looks like a mossy football)…all on my walk to work.
(Did someone say “spring”?)
<>In Tofino, I spent a few hours bouncing around in boats hoping to spot migrating gray whales. In celebration of this experience, here are a few notes:
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It gets REALLY cold on the ocean in the winter
A group of male sea lions hanging out on a rock is a “colony”
Gray whales have two blowholes, […]
Last night I indulged in some armchair athleticism, courtesy of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival’s “Paddle Sports” night. One of my favourites included a segment (see above) about Dubside, a colourful character from Everett, WA, and perhaps the best sea kayak roller I’ve ever seen.
Made by local filmmakers, this video showcased Dubside’s incredible […]
Tonight I experienced one of those mini-miracles that makes life so fabulous…my neighbours knocked on my door at 7:30 p.m. to tell me that the lunar eclipse was visible from our backyard.
The heavy cloud cover had broken and we were able to watch the eclipse for 15 minutes from the deck, passing around binoculars and […]
Despite their grim collective noun (surpassed only by the Ruth Rendell-ish “a murder of crows”) and croaky demeanour, I love ravens. Big, clunky, with a wedge-shaped beak and a throaty croak, Corvus corax principalis are a dominating presence in the woods and mountains of the west and north.
Fabulously smart, I’ve seen them steal eggs […]
If I could grow up to be as cool as Grandma Gatewood, I would consider my life well-lived. Long before the days of “low-impact tourism” and “sustainable travel”, this woman was knocking back one of the toughest trails in North America without a scrap of fancy gear or high-tech equipment.
Emma Gatewood (known as “Grandma”) […]