Immediately following Christmas, we headed north to Portland to spend some time in the PNW for my birthday.

We scored an awesome AirBnB in the Alberta Arts District in Portland, walking distance to great food and beer. We arrived in Portland during a serious cold snap, with a Christmas snow storm freezing throughout the city and leaving the roads very icy. Because of that, we didn’t venture too far out of the city our first couple of days in Portland.

Once the roads thawed out, we spent a day hiking and exploring Silver Falls State Park and the trail of ten waterfalls. Silver Falls State Park was incredibly lush and green, with the year round rain and moisture making the place look more like a rain forest than the typical pine tree forest. It was an easy hike that led to great water fall views, at one point the trail looped behind one of the falls for a really cool view looking out over the river with the water rushing right in front of you.

Later in the week, we took a day trip to the coastal town of Cannon Beach. It’s a sleepy, sea side community with wide open beaches and the famous Haystack Rock. The wind and rain slowly crept in as we explored the beach and we ran back to town to warm up with some clam chowder at Driftwood Restaurant and Lodge. Life changing stuff.

Other spots I would recommend in Portland:

• Great Notion Brewing
• Happy Hour at Bamboo sushi
• Ecliptic Brewing
• Afuri Ramen
• Poler Flagship Store

The last couple of years we have used Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend to #OptOutside and this year we hit the road to Arizona.

Sedona was our main destination, but we took a slight detour on the way out to stop by the Grand Canyon. No matter how many photos you see of the Grand Caynon, they can never do justice to the massive scale of this place. It’s as if your eyes almost have a difficult time processing what they are seeing and the whole canyon has a bit of a haze as you overlook it.

It was unsurprisingly a crowded day to visit the national park, but we hiked a few miles down along the South Kaibab Trail and the crowds started to thin out.

We spent the rest of the weekend in beautiful Arizona, taking in all the healing crystals and great food we could find.

We hiked out to The Devil’s Bridge for the photo-op and caught sunset in Fay Canyon which was a gem.

The Eastern Sierras have become my de-facto home whenever I get a weekend away and want to do something outdoors within driving distance. There are so many incredible spots along the 395, with a ton of diverse scenery, especially in the Inyo National Forest and Mammoth Lakes basin. For this trip myself, Corey, David, Jeff and Aaron setup camp at Convict Lake, with a day hike destination of Lake Dorothy, as our weekend goal.

Fall colors were peaking in the Eastern Sierras that weekend, and we were treated to some seriously chilly Fall weather when the sun dropped behind the ridge. We woke up on Saturday for our hike to Lake Dorothy with all of our water frozen at camp. We warmed up by the fire, layered up and got ready for the journey ahead.

The hike to Lake Dorothy is about 14 miles and 3,000 feet of elevation gain. We added to that difficulty by unknowingly losing the trail for about two hours. After a river crossing, we couldn’t find where to pickup the trail, so instead we just followed the rocky shores of Convict Creek. It was easy at first, but became increasingly difficult. After a couple more sketchy river crossings, we reached a point where the rocks were too icy to pass. We headed up a ridge for a better view, and discovered the official trail had been above us the entire time.

Boots back off. Across the river one more time. Up a very steep ridge and we were finally back on the official trail. Another hour or so passed and we descended in to a valley and got our first look at the tranquil Mildred Lake. We headed up one more set of ball breaking switchbacks and we reached the rocky shores of Dorothy Lake. Beers were cracked (canned wine for Aaron), David and Aaron took a dip in the freezing water and I took a quick nap, dreaming of never hiking up a switchback again.

I had my eye on bagging Thousand Island Lake for over a year. After crossing off Duck Lake and the glacier lakes out of North Pine Creek the previous summer, Thousand Island Lake was one of the great day hikes I had yet to concur in the Mammoth Basin.

Corey and I set up camp at Sherwin Creek campground just outside of Mammoth the last week of August. Early Saturday morning, we hit the road to Agnew Meadows and started the 16 mile, 4,500+ foot elevation gain hike to Thousand Island Lake.

We took the river trail on our approach out to Thousand Island Lake which had positives and negatives. Positives were it was relatively shady and interesting terrain to hike through as we followed the San Joaquin river. Negatives were the relentless mosquitoes that love hanging near the river. Bug spray helped, but we still got feasted on.

There aren’t a ton of huge switchback sections on this hike. There are gradual climbs, as well as decents throughout (more on that in a minute).

We made it out to gorgeous Thousand Island Lake with the sun shining bright through cloudy skies. We saw quite a few backpackers along the way, but we were one of only a few groups of people spread out in the massive area to enjoy the views when we arrived. We put our beers in the lake to cool down, found a rock to post up on and enjoyed lunch.

The lake was so calm and reflective when we got there, it was almost disorienting. A mirror image of the sky and Banner Peak could be seen the on the surface of the lake. But just like that it was gone. A storm rolled in and rain began to fall.

Corey and I decided to switch up the scenery and take the high trail back as opposed to trudging through the mosquitoes again. It was mosquito free, but the high trail gains significant elevation from the surface of the lake and it’s scenery was a bit less diverse than the river trail. As I said earlier, this hike isn’t one long switchback to the lake, you gain and lose elevation often on the hike, meaning the way home had just as much uphill as the way there. This isn’t the type of hike you can just run back downhill to your car.

But 16 miles later we made it back to Agnew Meadows, having conquered one of the best day hikes in the Mammoth Lakes Basin.

 

I don’t remember the first time I saw photos of the incredible glacier fed water of Alberta’s lakes, but in my head I had been planning a trip there ever since that day. It finally all came together in the summer of 2017, eight days on the road with my girlfriend Ashley exploring Canada.

I lost track, but I estimate we visited at least 30 lakes, hiked over 70 miles, had the worst mosquito bites of my life and saw one gigantic bear (from a too far away distance to shoot on my wide angle lens). It was the trip of a lifetime. Banff in the summer can be extremely crowded, especially the easily accessible spots like Lake Louie, but what I loved about this trip was that any time we put the work in to get off the beaten path and take the trail less traveled, we were immediately greeted by solidarity and what felt like an endless wilderness all to ourselves. We spent time in Banff, Jasper and Yoho National Park, with a one day side trip to British Columbia and the very beautiful Mt. Robson Provincial Park.