Dear Reader, As you know, I visited Scotland a few years ago, and I’ve been struggling to write about it ever since. Nobody, I said to myself, wants to read a long panegyric where I keep lyrically saying over and over how beautiful it was, how nice the people were, and how well everything was […]
Travel
- Backpacking
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A Complicated Relationship: your backpack and you
What is the difference between hiking, and back-country backpacking? The backpack of course! Now, I’m not qualified to tell you how to physically train to survive your backpack: each body is different, and has different needs. You should go to a professional. Also, I’m barely qualified to tell you how to eat with a spork, […]
- Backpacking
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What was the Big Brown Creature?
Update You asked for it, yes you did, remember? Now behold the Monster and tremble!!! Illustrated by Maxime, I give you the Big Brown Creature, aka Hundreds of Squirrels Wearing the Skin of a Grizzly Bear. And yes, if you look carefully, they are pooping in the bushes.We will never again look at squirrels, or […]
- Backpacking
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Kananaskis Highlands
Here, dear Reader, is the story of my Kananaskis Highlands trek (still in the Canadian Rockies) in August 2018 with Yamnuska, guided by Marc. Everything went splendidly well: I was in better shape (thanks, InspireA+ 😉 I didn’t even feel my backpack! ) I slept every night, warm and cosy, like a particularly comfortable log, […]
- Backpacking
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How to choose your Thermarest mattress
I’m in no way a seasoned traveller, but it so happened that, in the course of my small adventures, I slept on a great number of different mattresses. It gave me a rare insight into Thermarest different products (they are indubitably the Kings of inflatable camping Mattresses, and no, I am in no way sponsored […]
- Backpacking
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Three ways to cross a creek
When hiking in the mountains, you will come along quite a number of streams, streamlets, brooks, brooklets, creeks, runnels, and such like. Sometimes, they are small enough that you can just jump them. We are not talking about those. Sometimes, they are so big that you’ll need either to find a bridge, or to walk […]
- Backpacking
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Alternative Banff Highline
I vividly remember that moment, where, in Yamnuska’s headquarter, Alison told us: “It’s going to be rather cold, up there. Snow, and -10.” My blue gear was scattered on the ground as I looked confidently at it. “Are you sure you’ll be ok?” asked Alison, looking doubtfully at my small layers and my very light […]
Long Beach
Another beautiful day of walking on a beautiful beach…. This time, the other side of Long Beach. There was more people than on Wickaninnish, which mean that there was 30 people on the whole 5km beach, so, still not St Tropez. The White Owl was, again, very happy. She even took some water from the […]
Wickaninnish
The weather was abnormally beautiful, but we weren’t about to complain. The drought was starting to have its effects in British Columbia, but for us, the sky was blue, the temperature was around 20 Celsius, and we just enjoyed it enormously. We spent the day walking on the south part of the famous Long Beach, […]
Ucluelet
Our clothes situation was to be addressed. There was no avoiding it. It was an uttermost pressing matter. We were indeed at this moment in our trip where it was essential that we find a way of washing our clothes, and were facing the tough choice of either walking naked or give off a rather […]