Category: video

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hiking Willmore Wilderness in Canada

If you are looking for wilderness, consider hiking the Willmore Wilderness north of Jasper, Alberta.

You can get “into the wild”.

One of our contributors, George Novak, will be there in about 10 days. He plans to cycle as far as possible, then bushwhack further towards the mountains.

There are very few developed hiking trails in Willmore. But it’s gorgeous:

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To get a feel for the region, check an excellent trip report jammed with video clips and photos: Willmore Wilderness Park « the electronic experiment

Willmore Wilderness – Wikipedia

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new movie – Into The Wild

I’m organizing for a trip to Alaska. This post jumped out at me:

… a movie trailer for John Krakauer’s Into The Wild. Apparently the movie is set to be released this September, and is being directed by Sean Penn.

For those that haven’t read the book, and I recommend it highly, it’s about a young man named Christopher McCandless who graduates college, gives away his possessions, and donates his life savings to charity.

Then, he moves to Alaska, where he wandered off into the wilderness to live. Four months later he was found dead.

Several notes and letters, along with a diary, were later discovered at his campsite, and they tell the desperate tale of him trying to survive. Great book. I hope the movie is worthy of the title, but since Krakauer is one of the screen writers, I’m thinking it should be worth watching.

The Adventure Blog: Into The Wild Movie Trailer!

Into the Wild is my favourite Krakauer book (and that’s saying something) and I am very much looking forward to this film.

Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.

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check out BackpackingVideos.com

Jason Klass put up a beta version of a site dedicated to video.

His most recent video is one of great interest to me personally.

A great slide show of the trip Ben2World, Dusty Boots, and Jason Klass took to Canyonlands National Park. Witness Jason’s dirty Jeep and his heroic leap across an eight-foot canyon! This was a great trip and we saw lots of geological and archaeological wonders.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Salt Creek Canyon, Utah – BackpackingVideos.com

(via Two-Heel Drive)

This is a good start. No doubt hiking videos and photo slideshows will become increasingly popular in the future.

But the best site I know is Outdoor Video Magazine out of Canada. I linked to their Mt. Robson / Berg Lake video.

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Berg Lake, Canadian Rockies, early season hike

Outdoor Video Magazine have posted their best video to date. (That’s one nasty avalanche caught on film.)

A stunning trail featuring close-up glacier action, the Canadian Rockies Highest Peak (a staggering 2.5 vertical kilometres above the trail), blue-blue lakes, and more than one fantastic waterfall.

Berg Lake Trail – Mt Robson Provincial Park (with Video) · Outdoor Video Magazine

Though the trail was officially closed in May, these hikers braved a night walk, a glacier creek water ford in Crocs and snow storm. Snowshoes were needed for some sections.

We’d never recommend this to anyone … but I wish I’d been with them.

Our information page details how to organize a hike to this area in summer. Highlights: Valley of a Thousand Falls, Emperor Falls, Snowbird Pass, Toboggan Falls and the mass of Mt. Robson. One of the best hikes in the world.

 

Mount Robson: Berg Lake Trail – flickr photo set – Fotos de Canada

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video – surviving freezing water

This clip is from a show called Man vs Wild.

Bear Grylls is surviving in the French Alps with only a water bottle, flint, and knife. In this excerpt he jumps into a frozen lake and shows how to deal with it. Hopefully this won’t ever come in handy.

This actually happened to Andrew Skurka during his 7700 mile hike across North America. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with no change of clothes, Skurka stripped down and ran to keep his body heat up.

Think or Thwim

Click PLAY or watch Man vs Wild – Episode 3 European Alps Highlights on YouTube.

This is very much like Les Stroud’s Canadian reality TV show Survivorman.

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why you should you take condoms on the trail

So you’re out in the woods hiking alone, and you want to cook some Ramen.

Dang, you forgot your matches. And your lighter. But you’ve got a condom and some water. Think you can start a fire?

This guy can.

Use A Condom to Make Fire? – Gadling

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Scott Williamson Yo-Yo-ing the PCT, twice

Recommended – A great audio podcast was posted by BackpackingLight.com.

Scott Williamson is best known for his thru-hikes of the Pacific Crest Trail. He has walked the trail nine times in its entirety, including a Yo-Yo from Mexico to Canada and back – twice.

… topics from his 191-day Yo-Yo of the PCT in 2006, including the psychological challenge of touching the Canadian border and having to turn around and go back; on-trail surgery for septic blood poisoning; the use of ultralight footwear (by Inov8) for long-distance hiking; and more.

Scott is featured in an upcoming film about long distance hiking on the PCT entitled Tell It On the Mountain.

Podcast: Scott Williamson and Yo-Yo-ing the Pacific Crest Trail @ Backpacking Light

That same page hosts a trailer of the soon-to-be-released film.

movie – Tell It On The Mountain (official website)

Scott Williamson – official website

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Scott and his new bride will be doing the PCT the summer of 2007. Congratulations and good luck!

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documentary – Ken Burns – The National Parks

Do you have any old home movies of National Parks in the USA?

Ken Burns wants to talk to you.

In the fall of 2009 PBS will air The National Parks, a major documentary film series produced and directed by Ken Burns and written and produced by Dayton Duncan.

But now they are asking for your help. Their film series is not a travelogue or a “nature” film; it will tell the very powerful, human story of how the parks came into being and what they have meant to Americans for more than a hundred years. It will be filled with major historical figures — from John Muir to Theodore Roosevelt to Ansel Adams — but it will also tell the stories of many lesser-known Americans, from cowboys to immigrant artists, wealthy philanthropists to dirt-poor farmers who turned their passion for a part of the American landscape into crusades for their permanent protection. …

To help them tell this story, they would like to collect home movies of visits to National Parks by families and individuals for possible use in the film. They are looking for home movies from the time period of the 1920s through the 1980s and are most interested in footage of families and tourists in the parks.

National Parks Traveler: Help Ken Burns Chronicle the Parks