Planning a trip for late fall can be tricky as the weather is completely unpredictable in most locations. In late November the Grand Canyon can see snow and ice or it can see warm, sunny days that call for shorts and a t-shirt.
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In early October Alex and I decided to go larch hunting. Every fall I have seen posts about "larch madness" on social media but I had never had the pleasure of seeing these vividly yellow trees myself. With the weather forecast to be absolutely perfect, we set off to hike the 18 mile trail that connects the Colchuck/Stuart Lake Trailhead to the Snowy Lake Trailhead and traverses the Core zone of The Enchantments.
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Earlier this month the RV company, AdventureKT, gave Alex and I the opportunity to take one of their RV's for a spin through Southern California. We have never traveled in an RV before and AdventureKT's fleet is beautiful, so we immediately said "yes!" We flew down to LA, picked up our home for the weekend, and headed for the desert.
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I stared up at the ceiling of my tent and watched as a single water drop fell onto my sleeping bag. I immediately brushed it off but knew more drops were inevitable. It was the sixth day of my eight day trek through the wilderness of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Alaska's notorious weather finally caught up to us.
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Finally we were there: Lago di Braies. It was the starting point of our 120km trek through the Dolomites in northern Italy. 6 months of anticipation, 4 months of Italian lessons on Duo Lingo, 2 lengthy plane rides, and 3 bus rides lead up to this point and everything suddenly felt surreal.
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At midnight on Friday, June 9th I awoke from a fitful bout of rest to the distinct sound of my alarm ringing. Instinctively, I reached to snooze it, but when my blurry gaze fell upon the dial that read 12:00am my reality hit me. Snoozing my alarm didn't mean that I wouldn't have time to shower before work it meant that I would delay my attempt to summit the highest peak in the contiguous US: Mount Whitney. Suddenly sleep was the furthest thing from my mind.
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The highlight of Alex's and my trip to Kenai Fjords National Park in early May was the 3 day/2 night kayaking trip we went on with Miller's Landing. While there are a few trails to hike in the park the best way to see and experience Kenai Fjords is by boat and we didn't want to take just a short day cruise, we wanted to really immerse ourselves in the park.
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The summer backpacking season is just around the corner and I'm in the process of finalizing almost all of my trips. Since you may be as well I thought it would be a great time to finally put together a review for my guided backpacking trip to the Arrigetch Peaks in Gates of the Arctic National Park last summer, in case you want to add it to your itinerary!
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The past two years Alex and I have taken the long Thanksgiving weekend to #optoutside and spend some quality time in the national parks. Finding places to go in November that aren't too cold or too snowy can be a challenge but we've found that Utah is a pretty good bet. Last year we hiked in Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks, but this year I wanted something a little more remote.
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On my trip through Gates of the Arctic I had the opportunity to try packrafting for the first time. In fact, one of the reasons I went with this Gates of the Arctic guided trip over others was because of the two day packrafting extension.
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