We hiked from sunup to sundown and only felt the warmth of the sun on our faces for a few fleeting seconds. It was the first of November and the Paria Canyon region hadn’t seen rainfall since May. This was our moment. Straddling the Utah/Arizona border, Buckskin Gulch is a 13-mile chasm carved deep…
Hiking
Visiting Bryce Canyon National Park in Winter
Peering out of the hotel window President’s Day morning I saw light flurries blowing horizontally and a good few inches of fresh stuff on my car. I could either hop back into a warm bed for another hour or two or brave the elements and make the 10 minute drive to Sunrise Point in Bryce…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 5 – Isle of Skye, Scotland
While spending a week in Scotland, I kept getting whopped over the head with these eerie senses of deja vu. Either I had spent too much time looking through photos of these places or there is some sort of collective memory stored in my blood. Scotland was like coming home! The day before arrive in…
2017 Euro-Adventure Stop 1 – San Cassiano, Italy
Our 2017 Dolomiti adventure got off to a grand start. We arrived in Venice and beelined it straight to Dolomiti only slightly heartbroken that we didn’t end up with a Fiat 500 at the car rental counter. Starving, we stopped at an Autogrill off the Autostrada where I bit into a focaccia and immediately broke a…
Mansplained in the Desert
“They don’t know where they’re going,” man guide says to 8-10 adoring clients as blood bubbles up into my throat. We were on a route finding adventure in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and having a blast. We had very loose directions on a sneak route into Lower Death Hollow, a spot that typically requires a…
Colorado’s Ice Lake Basin Wildflower Display
Ice Lake Basin and neighboring Island Lake is one of the most incredible places I’ve visited in the United States. This past weekend I hiked up to the basin for the third time in three years hitting it at darned near peak wildflower season. For the second year in a row I found myself in…
Hiking Italy’s Lagazuoi Tunnels
I hate being underground. Technically the Lagazuoi Tunnels are not underground, but under mountain. Regardless I was not stoked to explore trails not under the light of day. But I had to do it for history’s sake! Lagzuoi is a peak in the Dolomites with an altitude of 9,201 feet (2,835 meters) well known for…
Holy Dolomiti! A Crash Course in Hiking the Dolomites
I wasted no time getting to the Dolomites! I arrived in Venice at 5pm, jumped in the rental car and headed north on the Autostrada in a tiny Fiat (first time driving in a foreign country – eek!) arriving in Cortina just in time to watch the full moon rise over the mountains. Then up…