When tourists come to Whistler in the summer, a ride up the mountains in a gondola is a must do activity. There are two main gondolas from the village, the Whistler Mountain and the Blackcomb Mountain. Once one is at the top, one can ride another gondola between the tops of the mountains called the Peak to Peak ride. This ride is world record breaking as it traverses 2.7 miles between the two mountains at 1427 feet above the valley…
Articles with hiking
Surviving a Challenging Hike to Lake Ingalls
In June my brother contacted me and asked me if I wanted to go on a nine mile hike with him to Lake Ingalls. That seemed a very long hike for me, but I know I can easily walk five miles on the trails around here so I thought I would probably be able to manage a nine mile hike although I knew it would be a challenge. My brother David is almost exactly a year older than I am.…
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Forts and Nature converge in North Whidbey Island
Friday turned out to be a beautiful day on Whidbey Island. It was a great day for hiking which is what we spent most of the day doing. After getting ready in the morning, we headed back down to Fort Ebey State Park. While yesterday we spent time there on the beach, today we would spend most of our time in the woods. Fort Ebey was built in 1942 to help protect the Puget Sound region. Its purpose was to…
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Dripping Springs: Discovering Stories of the Past
Monday morning dawned cold. I think it was colder in Las Cruces than it was back home in Seattle that day. However the sun was out, and it looked to be a beautiful day. After a nice breakfast at our hotel, we drove out to Dripping Springs Natural Area for a hike. Dripping Springs is in the Organ Mountains. The mountains are part of the Desert Peaks National Monument. President Obama established the monument in 2014 which includes five mountain…
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From Sunset to Winds at White Sands National Park
White Sands National Park is one of the newest National Parks in the US. Originally a National Monument, Congress changed it to a National Park is 2019. However, as we drove up to the park, some of the signs still said White Sands National Monument. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s start back at the beginning of Saturday. White Sands had been one of my prime destination for this trip. However, getting there turned out to be more…
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A Spring Hike in Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park was never on my bucket list. In fact it wasn’t even on my radar. When I began to do planning for our trip to White Sands National Park, I saw a dot on the map indicating a National Park. I was surprised as I didn’t know of one there. That’s how I discovered Guadalupe Mountains National Park. It fit perfectly into our travel itinerary so I added it to our list of things to do. The…
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More Than Just Redwood Trees
Redwood National and State Parks is more than just the redwood trees in its names. While the trees are often the star, the parks covers a lot of territory so a visit will allow you to see more than just trees. On our second day in the park we saw trees, but we saw more as well. During our first stop of the day, we saw no redwoods. We would take a fairly short hike around the Yurok Loop. The…
Unique Crescent City Forest and Beach Hikes
Redwood National Park is an interesting connection of both state and national parks. In fact the official name is Redwood National and State Parks. We traveled to the northern most section of the parks, Crescent City, and continued our exploration of the redwood area from there. After a hearty breakfast on Tuesday, we were ready to hit the forest. Our first park was Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. We were headed to a popular trail called the Boy Scout Trail.…
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Exciting Sights at Channel Islands National Park
Over Thanksgiving week my daughter and I had the opportunity to visit Channel Islands National park off the coast of California. Our family traveled to Santa Barbara to be with my wife’s family for Thanksgiving. We went down there two years ago, but a fire forced us to evacuate. It was time to try again. My daughter, Andrea, lived in Santa Barbara for five years for school. She graduated from Cal. State Channel Islands. I have been down to Santa…
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Olympic Peninsula: Quinault, More than just a Lodge
Early in our marriage my wife and I spent a night at the Quinault Lodge. What I remember most about our time was dinner. During dinner we were suddenly told that we needed to evacuate the dining room because of a fire in the kitchen. We all went out onto the back lawn standing around until the staff finally instructed us to return to our tables. Now over 40 years later we would return to the area to see what…
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