Great Hikes

Ok folks it’s finally time for a post on Kilimanjaro. Let’s just ignore that fact that I am already home, I still want the people who I won’t see for a while to see some photos.
As far as the experience I will say 1. It was not as hard as I thought it would be 2. It was every bit as amazing as I’d hoped it would be and 3. The guide, porters, and cook were WAY better than I thought they would be. We were very lucky and did not experience any altitude sickness. On summit day Dave got a headache on the way down, but since we were already on our way down it was not a big deal. Summit day is very tough, starting at midnight and reaching the summit at around 6 am, then deceding and getting back to Barafu camp at 15,000 feet around 9 am, taking a rest of one or two hours and then going all the way down to a lower camp between 9,000 and 10,000 feet elevation. My knees were pretty tired by the time we reached the lower camp that day but we were pretty elated so it didn’t matter too much. I recommend the Machame route, I don’t know about the others but this way was full of beautiful scenery, cool plants, and interesting geology. Also, they say all the snow and ice will be gone from Kili in 20 years, but I was suprised by how much snow and ice there was on the mountain. If the predictions are correct that is one heck of a lot of melting.
I also wanted to add how pampered we really were on this climb. The second day when we arrived in camp it was raining hard and COLD. Dave and I are used to taking care of ourselves and normally we would have been huddled under a tree with the campstove trying to cook some noodles or something. With those guys taking care of us we got in our tent, into dry clothes and huddled in our sleeping bags. Then the guides brought us hot tea, popcorn, and freshly roasted peanuts. There I was reading a good book, listening to my favorite toons on the MP3 player, muching popcorn and peanuts while the rain beat down outside and we huddled in warm comfort. Maybe to some people it would be roughing it but to us it was pure LUXURY!
Oh, and Brice, as you can see they’ve stood the sign at the summit back up.
Here are the photos:

Ok, really sorry about no blog updates. Bootsnall did some things to their site where we update the blogs, and although it’s all improvements, I didn’t have the password I needed to update my blog. And here we were in Tanzania having some of the best travel experiences yet! But anyway, I’ve got the password now and I think I’m starting to get the hang of the new set-up so be on the lookout for lots of new posts. I guess I’ll start at the beginning and go chronologically even though it’s a bit delayed. So I’ll start with our whirlwind of one day in Paris. It’s actually amazing how much 2 jet-lagged people can see in 12 hours. 🙂 SI’m still figuring out the new blog so if things look weird, sorry!

We have spent the last week hanging out with our families here in Willow Springs. It’s been a nice rest, regroup, reconnect time. We leave from St. Louis next Sunday headed for Tanzania. I will post a few photos of our nice relaxing time here and our packing job for Africa. After our 3 weeks in Africa we will spend a couple of weeks in Europe and then it’s back to work time. I guess that will be the end of this blog, although I hate to give it up because I enjoy it so much.

Ok, I had posted some photos on here and when Bootsnall changed the site they disappeared. So Im putting them back. One difference is now to see the ‘caption’ of the photo you have to click on it.

We stopped by to visit our pal Brice in Mandan, North Dakota again this year. He has a nice place right on the Missouri River.

Brice and his girlfriend Katia ready for trip to the local honky-tonk bar.

Katia, Dave, and Brice down at the fishin’ hole.

Water Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the US border each other and form an international national park. The US side is much bigger, but they are both very nice and for all you hikers out there I highly recommend a trip. We only got to take a couple of hikes while we were there, but I’d love to go back and do more. Lots of wildlife as well, we saw 3 black bears (a mamma and 2 cubs), lots of mountain goats and bighorn sheep, tons of friendly (too friendly?) deer, and the most obese squirrels I’ve ever seen.

One of the over-friendly deer on the Canadian side. When we woke up there was a huge one right outside the RV. Dave almost hit it with the door!

Really cool waterfall on the Canada side. See how it is cutting through the curved bedding planes of the rock?

Here’s a squirrel picture for Lane. This has got to be the fattest ground squirrel I’ve ever seen.

Beautiful scenery along the trails.

Mountain goats.

Hiking along the skyline trail to one of the chalets. There are two chalets in the park you can hike to and spend the night there. We just hiked there and back in one day, though.

Since we’ve been in the Canadian Rockies we’ve hiked well over 100 kilometers. The National Parks up here Jasper, Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay along with a few connected Provincial Parks offer almost unlimited opportunities for day hikes and backpacking. Also, unlike U.S. National Parks they don’t have rules excluding dogs from the trails so Molly has hiked all but the most difficult or bear-infested with us. After 2 weeks in the area I think we’ve started to get jaded, like, that was a great hike, but not as good as such-and-such. Really, we have become picky and want all the hikes to be as great as the best. The other day we returned to the RV after a day of hiking to see 4 grizzlies in the campground. We’d hiked probably 20 k and we were tired, as soon as we drove into the campground we see a mamma grizzly bear and 3 cubs. Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures, my camera was in the backseat of the Jeep and I couldn’t get to it. When we got to the RV we ate dinner and Dave and I both crashed out at 8:00. Maybe we’ve just had too much excitement, but it’s time to head south I think. We’d probably kill ourselves if we lived up here, we need to spend a few days somewhere less exciting so we can rest!

More beautiful mountains.

Big horn sheep

Mountain lake

This is Dolomite Peak. The Dolomite Pass hike in Banff National Park is by far one of the coolest hikes I’ve ever undertaken.

Lake along the Dolomite Pass hike

Glacier in Jasper National Park

Dave on top of Saddleback Peak in Banff National Park

The beautiful Lake Louise in Banff

Finally some Canadian moose in Yoho National Park

This is Tawkakka Falls in Yoho National Park. Apparently ‘tawkakka’ means magnificent in the Cree language. I can see their point!

Another beautiful view

While hiking in Yoho National Park we were doing our typical ‘bear aware’ hike, making lots of noise, we even had Molly with us. We turned a corner and this dear was just in the middle of the trail eating a bush. Boy, was it surprised to see us even with all the noise and the stinky dog. Glad it wasn’t a grizzly.

Waterfall along a hike in Johnston Canyon

Mountains at the end of the Johnston Canyon hike.

Well, we’ve seen so many people traveling wearing just the most inappropriate clothing imagineable. Finally, when we saw this I decided these people should be put up for everyone to appreciate along with us. 🙂 Here is the first addition to our wall of shame:

Please, please, unless you are actually running a marathon, leave the super-short running shorts at home! This guy doesn’t even have the excuse of being European or anything. More importantly, he wasn’t alone: why did his wife and kids let him wear those?

These photos were actually taken before we left BC and came over to where we are now, the Mile 0 is in Dawson Creek and the giant beaver is in, where else, Beaver Creek!

Here is the famous mile 0 of the Alaska Highway. We did drive the whole thing, we just did it backwards since we didn’t start at mile 0.

Dave, with the giant beaver, the main attraction in Beaver Creek.

Speaking of dodgy tourist attractions, here’s another. Me with the giant stuffed moose mounty in Jasper National Park.