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starting North Coast Trail Sunday

by site editor Rick McCharles

The North Coast Trail is a 43.1 km wilderness hiking trail in Cape Scott Provincial Park on northern Vancouver Island …

With essential sidetrips my distance will be at least 61km. …

The NCT is new, official grand opening held on May 10th, 2008.

Itinerary:

Bus Saturday to Port Hardy. I’ll stay at the North Coast Trail Backpacker’s Hostel.

Sunday morning 8am the North Coast Trail Shuttle water taxi departs for Shushartie Bay.

I’ll hike East to West.

Wild Coast Magazine has the best maps.

I’ll finish at Cape Scott Provincial Park, San Josef River trailhead. Returning to Port Hardy over 64km of logging roads by North Coast Trail Shuttle van.

… This is a very challenging route and is not recommended for inexperienced hikers. Many sections require hikers to climb over or along fallen trees, to cross through deep mud, and to use fixed ropes to climb up and over steep sections. It is not recommended for those with a fear of heights. …

… a wilderness area with minimal supplies or equipment of any kind. It is not regularly patrolled, so hikers should be completely self sufficient. …

Wish me luck. 🙂

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The Way – Randall St. Germain

The Way of St. James … (Spanish: El Camino de Santiago) … is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried. …

… existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned …

.. many pilgrims continue from Santiago de Compostela to the Atlantic coast of Galicia, to finish their journeys at Spain’s westernmost point, Cape Finisterre. …

… pilgrim’s hostels with beds in dormitories dot the common routes, providing overnight accommodation …

Staying at hostels usually cost between five and ten euros per night per bed in a dormitory, although a few hostels … operate on voluntary donations. Pilgrims are usually limited to one night’s accommodation and are expected to leave by eight in the morning to continue their pilgrimage. …

Canadian Randall St. Germain did the 500mi (800km) French Way averaging 26mi (40km) a day.

Camino de Santiago in 20 Days: My Way on the Way of St. James is essential reading for anyone foolish enough to fancy the French Way.

Randall is not a professional writer. Unlike more poetic pilgrimage reports, Randall details the awful weather, dog bites, exhaustion, bed bugs, … 😦

It’s unvarnished.

Randall:

Never to be included on the final list of Pulitzer Prize nominees, or in Oprah’s Book Club, Camino de Santiago in 20 Days is not your granddaddy’s Camino book, either.

I wanted to maintain the integrity of my Camino from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. My writing had to be honest and based on events which actually happened. I know some of it may be dry, but I wanted to keep my journey intact and not make up anything, including dialogue. Believe me, if I made sh*t up, this book would be far more entertaining.

Randall carried a tent the entire Way — and never slept in it. Yet he hates the hostels. Hates smokers, snorers and farters. … In fact he’s not all that fond of people.

Randall’s foot problems alone are enough to turn away most pilgrims. Not to mention the lack of toilets.

Still interested? …

Check his website – Camino My Way

Or friend him on Facebook. As you might have guessed, Randall went back to the Camino …

Me? … I’m still leaning towards mountain biking The Way. Inspired and informed by Randall, I’ll be tenting it every night.

Mine was a review copy. Thanks Randall!

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The Way – the film

The Way is a 2010 American drama film. It is a collaboration between Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez to honour the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) and promote the traditional pilgrimage. …

Plot

Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist who goes to France following the death of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino …

Tom’s purpose is initially to retrieve his son’s body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died. …

He reluctantly falls in with three other pilgrims …. Joost is an overweight man from Amsterdam who says he is walking the route to lose weight … Sarah … is fleeing an abusive husband, who says she is walking the pilgrimage to quit smoking. Jack is an Irish travel writer who when younger had desires to be great author like Yeats or Joyce but never wrote the novel he dreamed of. …

The film has been well received. It has garnered a “Certified Fresh” rating of 82% on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes …

The consensus description is: “It may be a little too deliberately paced for more impatient viewers, but The Way is a worthy effort from writer/director Emilio Estevez, balancing heartfelt emotion with clear-eyed drama that resists cheap sentiment.”

It is pretty good. I’m still leaning towards mountain biking The Way, however, rather than walking it.

I joined Netflix.ca in order to FINALLY watch this film. 🙂

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Desolation Wilderness – Bayview to Echo

trip report by site editor Rick McCharles

In 2008 I linked to John Fedac’s Tahoe Rim trip report:

… Hands down the best TRT leg is the 35 miles between Barker Pass to Echo Lake in the Desolation Wilderness over Dicks Pass. (With a side trip to summit Mt Tallac for its unparalleled Tahoe view) …

This summer I finally got the chance to walk a couple of days out of Tahoe myself.

Desolation Wilderness is a 63,690-acre (257.7 km2) federally protected wilderness area located along the crest of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, just southwest of Lake Tahoe …

… a popular backpacking destination, with much barren rocky terrain at the edge of the tree line: it has extensive areas of bare granite. …

Fedak and I dropped my vehicle at the Echo Lakes Trailhead. Then he drove me to pay for my overnight Wilderness Permit.

Finally, after some consideration of how much time I had, he recommended I start at Bayview trailhead.

climbing up out of Bayview

The weather was terrific, so, the day I was there, everyone was scrambling Dick’s Peak as a side trip.

Rick on Dicks

I left a Summit Stone.

The view was terrific. But I spent most of my time trying to capture photos of the dozens of butterflies blown up top.

I camped that night at Gilmore Lake campground for easy access to Mt Tallac. The lake is only 1400ft (427m) below the summit.

I sprinted that ascent, in any case, early next morning … pursued by hordes of mosquitoes.

vista over Lake Tahoe from Tallac

Mosquitoes are bad here. At some lakes. Some times. I got a bit unlucky. These were the first mosquitoes I’ve ever seen during many hiking trips in California.

Fedak had warned me. So I had a head net.

The highlight of my trip was the section passing Lake Aloha, a stunning glacier carved granite basin.

Here’s Pyramid Peak, the highest point in Desolation.

I finished here at Echo Lakes Trailhead.

A superb day hike is catching the boat. Romping around Aloha. And returning same day, either catching the boat back to your vehicle … Or walking the last bit, time and energy allowing.

See the rest of my photos from this 2 day hike.

Thanks John Fedak. 🙂

Check his annotated photo trip reports at Fedak.net.

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bear mauling death in Denali

A hiker in Alaska’s Denali National Park photographed a grizzly bear for at least eight minutes before the bear mauled and killed him in the first fatal attack in the park’s history, officials said Saturday.

Investigators have recovered the camera and looked at the photographs, which show the bear grazing and not acting aggressively before the Friday attack …

A state trooper shot and killed the male bear on Saturday.

The hiker was identified late Saturday as Richard White, 49, of San Diego. He was backpacking alone along the Toklat River on Friday afternoon when he came within 50 yards (50 metres) of the bear, far closer than the quarter-mile (0.4 kilometres) of separation required by park rules, officials said.

Calgary Herald

This is another bear in the same area 2008. … That photographer survived.

more details on National Parks Traveler

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snorkeling off La Paz, Baja

After kayaking marvelous Isla Espiritu Santo off La Paz, Baja in 2006 … I created a website promoting the kayak/hiking adventure.

For fun.

This kid had an even better time than I did. 🙂

Check out Diego as he snorkels with amazing sea life at Espiritu Santo, an island in the Sea of Cortez. While diving or snorkeling there you can see whale sharks, mobula rays, groupers, snappers, turtles, sea lions and numerous species of fishes and crustaceans.

Many people are now calling for increased protections at Espiritu Santo from harmful fishing practices such as gill nets. In this short film, Diego shares his love for the sea life at Espiritu Santo and his desire to help protect it for future generations.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Click through to islaespiritusanto.org if you’d be willing to support a campaign to ban gill nets around those rich reefs:

CONANP Letter in English

Dear. Mr Bermudez.

On behalf of present and future generations of Pacenos and visitors to Baja Sur, I am requesting the government ban use of gill nets on inshore reefs around Isla Espiritu Santo in the new management plan.

The plan documents a decline of fisheries, due in large part to the ongoing use of gill nets, yet allows those same gill nets to remain on inshore reefs around the island. In fact, this plan offers no substantive decrease in fishing effort, gear types used, nor areas fished and is not consistent with the plan’s vision to protect and restore the marine ecosystem.

As a result, this plan guarantees further fisheries degradation and will do further damage to the recreation and tourism economy of La Paz.

Thank you for protecting the ecological integrity of the marine environment around Isla Espiritu Santo with the sustainable use of the fisheries resource.

islaespiritusanto.org

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no evidence bear attacks related to menstruation

Huckleberry Hiker:

Ever since the night of August 13, 1967, when two women were attacked and killed by grizzly bears in two separate incidents in Glacier National Park (which was later chronicled in Night of the Grizzlies), a myth has persisted that women may be more prone to bear attacks as a result of odors associated with menstruation.

However, according to a paper recently published by the National Park Service, “there is no statistical evidence that known bear attacks have been related to menstruation”. …

Myth Busted: Women are more prone to bear attacks due to menstruation odors

More detail on that research.

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building a ‘living bridge’

… The root bridges, some of which are over a hundred feet long, take ten to fifteen years to become fully functional, but they’re extraordinarily strong – strong enough that some of them can support the weight of fifty or more people at a time.

In fact, because they are alive and still growing, the bridges actually gain strength over time – and some of the ancient root bridges used daily by the people of the villages around Cherrapunji may be well over 500 years old. …

atlas obscura – THE ROOT BRIDGES OF CHERRAPUNJI

I saw that linked from The Long Now Foundation. That page has a good video describing how local people build these living bridges.

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a new Kloofing video

Kloofing is an adventure activity that typically involves the descent of a deep ravine or watercourse that may be dry or wet. The defining factor is usually that the ravine is several times deeper than it is wide. All manner of walking, scrambling, climbing, swimming, plunging, jumping, bumslides or abseiling (rappelling) could be involved.

A kloofing trip usually combines hiking with the descent of a watercourse. Some of the more “interesting” kloofing involves long abseils or high jumps into pools from varying heights, up to as high as 20 or more metres (for example the popular ‘Suicide Gorge‘ in South Africa). …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.