Looking back towards Bariloche with view of the Nahuel Huapi Lake from Cerro La Mona.
Between Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes is the Seven Lakes Road section of Ruta 40 that really encapsulates so much of the Lakes District reputation of beauty. Every twenty minutes in this 100 mile stretch of road there is another beautiful view and another short side-road to explore a valley, lake, river, town. I said “wow” so many times on this section of my trip and each peak > 7,500 ft offered incredible views of glaciated volcanos, peaks, lakes and the Chilean-Argentinian Andes.
My favorite sculpture of a female backcountry skier
El Bolsón is described as a hippy town and that is kind of true with a large artist market and many wood sculptures at the center and nearby Lago Puelo. That said, it is kinda a commercialized artistic center with large breweries and a fair number of tourists. However, I did have a great time there with my primary goal of visiting the ultra unique live wood sculpture exhibit of El Bosque Tallado on a mountain side. Along with some hiking / running of peaks and a popular blue river. The sculpture art installation was of a like I’ve not encountered outside of Burning Man which meaningfully incorporated the landscape.
New to Reno in 2023, I attempted this hiking route up the Long Valley Creek river canyon towards the Lagomarisino Petroglyph site at 39.44359, -119.57045 at the end of November. From the hiking stats (10mi, 600ft), I thought it would be a straightforward thing but was turned back by underestimating how long navigating the terrain would take and how filled in the canyon could be with brush and trees. Armed with that knowledge and more scratch-resistant clothing in 2024 we did a successful hike up this very wilderness-feel river canyon with loads of cool natural features and many pieces of rock art.
With just a recommendation and a track from a friend who used to live in the area, I went to check out “Peekaboo Slot Canyon” / “Red Canyon” near Kanab, UT on a solo Kanab road trip. It was a great example of a no expectation side trip to a not-frequently visited destination that I just got to simply take in and be surprised at every turn.
I spent July 2023 in Montana for work, for a wedding and for fun. One of the opportunities I had was to attend a talk from Jon Sommer head of Colorado mycological society and then go on a short foraging hike with them. This launched me into an experience I’d always wanted to try: eating mushrooms I had foraged from nature!
On our honeymoon trip to Norway, Sadie and I spent eight days in the a Lofoten Islands. Along the way we climbed in the rain, hiked mountains, hung out on white sandy beaches and sailed in a fjord. However the main thing we did was a six day bicycle tour from Svolvær down to the end of the road in Å (90mi 5.5k).
On our trip to the 300 days of rain, fishing village of a city that is Bergen we decided to take a trek out to an alpine hut. I chose the longest hut from trailhead in the area (Nansenbu) which also turned out to be the most easily accessible by train. The trip was 9 mi and 4200 ft from the train station in Voss to the hut. It featured an unexpected plethora of snow fields, a foot soaking amount of steep muddy trail and a picturesque alpine hut all to ourselves.
I have looked at Mt. Morrison’s grand 12,240 ft summit for many years. We had a Spring summit attempt in 2017, when we said “who cares, let’s ski” at the Morrison Couloir. In 2020 Sadie and I climbed Laurel and the view of Morrison again called to me. Now on fun-employment I took the day to bag it (basically this route) through brush, across post holing snow and up some 4th class rock that I got myself into (the route goes Class 3 if you aren’t messing around like me).
Sadly, Thanksgiving 2020 (like everything in 2020) didn’t go as expected. I canceled our amazing Turkey-Holiday in the San Rafael Swell desert wilderness and instead I slept 12 hours a day with the flu (luckily not COVID-19). However, Sadie “Alpine Babe” Skiles and I did get out to explore around Death Valley in some unmarked mines…
Volcanic coast off the shore of a snack-break island while kayaking
While in the previous capital of Russian-America (Sitka, AK), we took two full days to kayak 14 miles through pristine SE Alaskan islands, backpack 14 miles (3000 ft) up the Mt. Edgecombe volcano and explore the new minted (10-15,000 years old) volcanic shore with rock still frozen in pillowing lava flow.
