If you are like me, you enjoy scouring the atlas for random islands in the middle of the ocean. That pastime, along with the fact that my cousin just moved there, recently took me to the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago smack in the centre of the Atlantic. These islands sprung up at the junction of the Eurasian, African and North American tectonic plates, and you know what that means: volcanoes!
I was on Terceira Island, which is made up of 4 major volcanoes that make up the rhythm of the landscape.
Bubbling magma created a series of caves and caverns inside the island that provide non-claustrophobic tourists with many magnificent stalactite and stalagmite viewing opportunities. Here I was heading down into one such cave. Although this picture reminds me of the movie The Descent, it wasn’t actually scary, and I did not run into any bloodthirsty creatures.
As much as I love sharing stories of the outdoors and travelling and other things that help make up an adventure, sometimes we need to live our own. So I'm off on vacation. The blog will be taking a nice little rest in the meantime. See you August 13th!
It’s Friday June 18 and it’s a beautiful day, maybe a little late in the year for my first real hike but always better late than never. The goal for the day, Mount Mansfield, 4,393 feet, the highest peak in Vermont and a jewel in the crown of the New England “four thousand’ers.” In the past I’ve summited the peak from three of the four cardinal points. Today would see the fourth side tackled with my approach coming from Underhill State Park lying on the west flank of the mountain face. “Face” is the apt term since Mount Mansfield is said to resemble a lying down face in profile, however, I have always thought this a stretch. Nonetheless, the summit ridge is described using this image with the Chin being the high point, the Forehead at the South flank standing at 3,940’, the Nose at 4,062’, the Chin at 4,393’ and then the Adams Apple along the Northern decent at 4,060’.
From the Laura Cowles Trail looking North West
The drive to Underhill, as with most drives in Vermont, is quite picturesque. Passing through the “Notch” from Stowe to Smugglers Notch is always nice and on such a beautiful spring day there were plenty of people about, hiking to Sterling Pond, bouldering and just stretching their legs. Read on about the Underhill Approach
Waaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy back in spring, I decided to make a few outdoor plans for the summer. The only problem was that I wrote them in French and have not bothered to share them in English. UNTIL NOW! So here ya go, without further ado, my summer checklist:
Montreal as seen from the Jacques-Cartier Bridge
1. Ride the entire circumference of the Island of Montreal. In one shot. Distance: about 160km.
Welcome to Smithers B.C., where the grizzly bears and moose roam in your back yard and you are encompassed by the beauty of the Bulkley Valley with a wonderful ski hill and glaciers right outside your back window. What more could you ask for? Well a The North Face tent delivered by an Altitude-Sports.com staff of course!
At last, I have finally arrived! For those of you who enjoy the great outdoors and have never had the chance to visit, I highly recommend the trip. The Bulkley Valley has everything to offer; rafting, kayaking, incredible river fishing, hiking, back country skiing, camping. You name it, they've got it.
I feel quite close to Mr. Coldwell's tent now that I've traveled across Canada with it, so I feel the obligation to show it around a little. Read on about Very Special Delivery: Smithers
Nine and half long hours later, including a lay over and delay in Vancouver International Airport and 2 tired children, we finally arrive in Prince George B.C. As I walk out of the plane, I instantly know where I am thanks to the unmistakeable smell of the pulp and paper mills! If you don't know what it smells like try to remember the last time you a took a bath with your child and they farted. Because adults don't do that sort of thing... I can’t believe I'm almost back in my old stomping grounds!
Too tired to even take a photo with the famous tent upon arrival in PG, we head to a hotel and call it a night.
After a difficult night’s sleep due to the anticipation of getting my feet on ground in the place I will always call home, Smithers B.C., we head out and say a quick hello to Mr. PG! Read more Very Special Delivery: Prince George
What's the craziest delivery story you've heard? Imagine yourself having placed an order on our website thinking that your package will be delivered by a busy UPS driver 5 days later. That's the way it usualy goes right? Now imagine that UPS driver actually being one of our great staff at Altitude-Sports.com delivering that very same package directly on your door-step! That could never happen...or could it? Well, my wonderful friends, that is exactly what you are about to witness!
Mont-Tremblant recently closed its proverbial doors for the season. It is cold. What isn’t still frozen is muddy. Skiing is over, but those -2 degree mornings keep the bike in the garage. The age old of conundrum: what to do in-between seasons. Up here in Tremblant there are many options when not partaking in outdoor activities. A movie theatre on the mountain provides amusement, a delicious micro-brewery provides libations and succulent chicken burgers, Les Promenades Tremblant (that’s where we are located if you have no heard yet) provides shopping of all kinds, just to name a few. But what is a man (sic) to do athletically speaking? The beautiful shop and its beautiful Icebreaker, Arcteryx and North Face products can only keep me busy five days a week.
Then it struck me. I sell warm clothes. Maybe if I combined my two passions: cycling and outdoor technology, I could get out my bike and start riding on those chilly days. Straight to my wardrobe I went. Icebreaker 150 merino wool base layer (I like the Atlas longsleeve), Arcteryx synthetic midlayer (definitely the Atom LT) and a North Face softshell (my favourite Nimble Jacket) combine to make one warm, highly breathable happy camper (that’s me). Throw in some merino socks and beanie and I’m roaring to go. Now I just need to find 2 other people stupid enough to enjoy riding at zero degrees and I will be out the door.
Hiking up a hill on a day walk in New Zealand, turn a corner, and there it is… a sight that is oddly familiar or maybe just out of place. With all the magnificent scenery, New Zealand is a popular choice for film locations. Here are a couple I came across:
I came upon this site after walking up a private hill (I wasn’t technically allowed to be there so let’s say it was in the Queenstown area… shhhhh). Is it an homage to Mao? A Buddhist temple? No, actually it’s a Korean prison from a 1984 Disney movie called The Rescue. Quite surreal, especially after being followed up by overly curious llamas.
Can you imagine a land without mammals? That was New Zealand before humans got there and brought their fuzzy friends. Just a few hundred years ago the land was covered in different bird species that took up all the niches held by mammals on the continents. I unfortunately never saw the ellusive kiwi bird but these ones are quite unique as well. PS. There were actually three species of bats and marine mammals but let’s pretend my first statement was true, just for the dramatic effect.
No, this is not a Kiwi… it is a Weka, also flightless, endemic and endangered. With no mammals around as predators many birds lost their ability to fly because they didn’t need to without threats. This became a problem when all the fuzzies were introduced. Is it me or does this guy look like a cross between a chicken and a dinosaur?
Kea bird, one of the world’s only alpine parrots… who knew..?
With all this talk of Jean-Yves's adventures and outdoor professionals, I was beginning to get a little too envious. I had to get out and do something. So what I decided was to visit and critique one of Montreal’s major parks.
The idea came to me just recently. I was out having a picnic, bottle of rosé, baguette and double-crème cheese in hand. Not to mention that I was in good company. Experts would already agree on that being the perfect recipe for enjoying life. But there was more… we had Lafontaine Park as a backdrop. It was the wonderful setting for a beautiful day.
Glaciers designed the landscape of much New Zealand’s South Island. As in many polar or high altitude regions, the movement of a mass of ice carves out a path wherever it passes.
Fox Glacier in all its massive glory. Acting on the landscape in the present.
Some other glaciers have come and gone during colder times. The landscape they left behind depended on what kind of terrain was underneath. Here are some of my favorite creations: Read more Glacial Architect - Alexandra in New Zealand
Remember all that hype in the 80’s and 90’s that vilified hairspray? In two words, it went here: New Zealand. That is where the hole went (or, close enough). This makes the temperature in the sunlight retina-frying hot and the altitude and variable ocean currents make it cool to cold in the shade or at night. So if you are planning a trip to the land of the kiwis and are imagining the tropical south Pacific (as I was) you may want to rethink that.
Icebreaker makes merino products for outdoor pursuits, and they know what they are talking about, these sheep are raised in the New Zealand Southern Alps, with intense temperature variations. The sheep are perfectly adapted for the hot-cold-hot-cold and therefore so is the fabric.
Here I am somewhere in the Otago region pretending to pose for an Icebreaker ad, minus the horns.
One evening last fall, I got a text message from Becks, an English friend I met snowboarding in New Zealand and an irreplaceable travelling companion:
"We are recruiting for a ski trip to St. Anton Austria, last week of January. Are you in?"
For a moment, the weak Canadian dollar took the upper hand over how intensely excited I get whenever there’s the promise of powder. Slow as molasses, I started to write back the letter N… I clenched my teeth, got ready to text the O… and then said… What the heck, we only have one life to live! I erased the horrid N and replaced it with a YES full of sparkling joy. On January 27, I found myself spread across three empty seats flying with Air Canada (the new 3-for-1 economy class), well on my way to a guaranteed great time.
I feel so small!
Innsbruck was my first stop since my English friends wouldn’t arrive in St. Anton for another two days. Two days of peace. Why not take advantage of the time alone and try to fly over the Alps to better understand where I am on the map? Read more about St-Anton a snow haven
I won’t bore you with the boring details of a 15 hour boring bus ride from London to the French Alps, but know that it was boring. What you need to know is that it was snowing when we arrived at the UCPA lodging in Val D’Isere. I had a week of guided skiing, hot meals and knee pain ahead of me.
Sunday:
Get our ski kit out of the bags and roll up to the mountain with generous grins on our faces. What have we gotten ourselves into: a Scotsman who has skied once in his life 10 years ago, my brother the ex-pat who now lives in Bristol and skis once every three years, and me the wannabe failed blog writer turned wannabe ski bum? Who cares, it is snowing and we want to carve up this mountain(s). We hit the slopes, none of which seem to look any easier than a black diamond, but nonetheless get warmed up. We quickly tire from the warm up and decide to call it a day. Finish the day with two valleys well skied. I say something stupid about how the terrain is not as immense as told. It will be skied out after two days… It has started to snow.
On my return to Chisasibi, I set out to find someone who would take me for a day trip on James Bay with one of those boats by the shore. I spoke to Sherman, who kindly invited me to join him on his hunting trip with his son and grandsons the next morning.
Morning apparently comes at 2pm in Chisasibi, because that’s when Sherman’s son finally came to pick me up, long after I had given up hope for our hunting trip. We launched his boat and headed for his father’s cabin, in a bay a few kilometres away. There, tucked in the middle of the wilderness, lay a barebones cabin, a tepee (of course), stands for drying fish and the ATV Sherman had used to get there. Several rifles and shotguns were scattered about his cabin. Sherman grabbed a humongous backpack, a large kettle and instructed his grandson, approximately 12 years old, to grab certain guns, and we headed back to the boat.
I must admit, I didn’t know what to expect when I stepped out of the canoe in Chisasibi. I was pleasantly surprised to find a nice and clean town that looked relatively affluent. With over 2000 Cree, Chisasibi is much larger than Radisson, and Hydro Québec workers from Radisson drive the 120km dirt road here to buy supplies at the town hardware store. This village was like nothing like the native reservation I’ve seen near Montreal, here, there were only nice houses (not prefabricated, like in Radisson) and clean streets.
But it soon became clear that this is no ordinary village. Life here, as I discovered is completely different from even the urbanized towns closer to Montreal.
My first surprise was to learn that 98% of the people here speak Cree as a first language. Some only speak a little bit of English (the main second language). Everything here is spelled out in Cree, from street signs to store names, and this is clearly not for the rare tourists who occasionally make it this far North.
The ski season was open a month and a half before I could get out on the slopes in search of that exhilarating sense of freedom. Whether you are snowboarding, skiing or telemarking, all three sports are but an excuse to spend time with friends in the fresh air on the snowy runs of Québec’s ski resorts.
Solo on the slopes
We all have our favourite mountains, but have you ever been to Massif in Petite Rivière Saint François? It’s my personal favourite and seems to be so for many people. All it takes is a ride down one of the 48 runs or a trip through the back country to understand what I mean. Distracted by the magnificent horizon of the St. Laurence River, it’s almost impossible to keep your eyes on the hill to look where you’re going. Read more about Janick's Snowboard Adventure at Massif
When I wrote this, it was the first day of winter. It’s odd really, I always have the impression that our seasons are conflicting. Winter starts when the days are the shortest, but from then on, each day gets longer and longer until June 21. But even if there’s going to be more sun, we still have to survive the intensity of winter!
No matter how we define this season, in order to survive it, you've got to savour it. At the beginning of winter, Magalie and I took advantage of the change in season and treated ourselves to a little hike, the snow not yet deep enough to need snowshoes.
The Chic-Chocs. Lac aux Américains. Roselin Refuge. 28 of December. 8 AM.
The first morning we woke up in the heart of the Chic-Choc mountains, all bundled up in our sleeping bags, we finally had the chance to take in the magical winter wonderland that surrounded us. After those few hours of well-deserved sleep and a good hearty breakfast, we carefully planned out the unforgettable week ahead. Our daily strategy was simple: Carpe Diem. Having reserved the same refuge for three nights, we had a lot of time to explore our surroundings, with respect to the unpredictable spirit of Mother Nature, of course.
