Category: photos

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

I’ve always seen northern Portugal on lists of the best hikes in Europe.

Yet I knew nothing about it.

Miserable after a couple of weeks in rainy Netherlands, I booked a next day flight to sunny Lisbon, Portugal, my first visit.

How did that work out for me?

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Record rainfall, I was told.

Unflapped, I headed north to Peneda-Gerês National Park (PGN), the only National Park in the nation. … Certainly this squall would blow itself out quickly.

… An important feature of the landscape is the constant presence of water. Brooks and waterfalls are common at every mountain slope and the park is crossed by several rivers, namely Cávado, Lima, Homem, Rabagão, Castro Laboreiro, and Arado. There are dams across most of these …

My first day I took 2 day hikes, learning by the second to bring along an umbrella. This was my only photo in perhaps 7hrs walking. (I didn’t want to get the camera wet.)

Stashing a Summit Stone atop the boulder at this reservoir lookout:

I wanted to take photos like this of the famous stone granaries, protecting the corn harvest. They look like tombs.

It rained all night and continued next morning. Here are a couple of pics of my day hike up to the top of one of the ridges. A group of photographers had driven up, attracted by the weird light.

Could the weather finally be clearing?

This long trip might have been a complete wash out, … except that I was rescued by a couple of students from Canada, one now living in Portugal.

Suddenly life improved. The rain stopped. And we enjoyed a terrific hike and scramble, finally able to see the entire vista.

more of my photos

We could easily claim we were in the U.K.

My memories now are of PGN are of a wonderful chance encounter with new friends, rather than of wet, mildewed clothes.

photos tagged peneda-geres hiking

Peneda-Gerês National Park photo group on flickr

I’ve updated our besthike flickr collection.

Click through to see the best of our best, over 750 in total. All have a Creative Commons license and can be reused by anyone, so long as they credit besthike.com.

best besthike photos

This is not a best hike.

But no hiker should skip a quick trot up to this historic vantage.

The Alaska Highway was dedicated here November 20, 1942 at Soldiers Summit.

The vista over Kluane Lake:

… The attack on Pearl Harbor and beginning of the Pacific Theatre in World War II, coupled with Japanese threats to the west coast of North America and the Aleutian Islands, changed the priorities for both nations.

On February 6, 1942 the construction of the Alaska Highway was approved by the United States Army and the project received the authorization from the U.S. Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proceed five days later. Canada agreed to allow construction as long as the United States bore the full cost, and that the road and other facilities in Canada be turned over to Canadian authority after the war ended.

The official start of construction took place on March 8, 1942 after hundreds of pieces of construction equipment were moved on priority trains by the Northern Alberta Railways to the northeastern part of British Columbia near Mile 0 at Dawson Creek.

Construction accelerated through the spring as the winter weather faded away and crews were able to work from both the northern and southern ends; they were spurred on after reports of the Japanese invasion of Kiska Island and Attu Island in the Aleutians. …

The amazing story is documented in historic photos like this one:

Highly recommended.