2005 was a record season for snow in the Sierra Nevada. Not only did the snow exceed averages by 150%, it fell mostly in the spring after a relatively dry winter. This created exceptional conditions for early season backpacking above 3000 meters, and fortunately Jeff, Brian and I chose the perfect weekend to go! Now here we were in mid-June 2006 going to the same place. I expected it to be patches of snow and clear skies. What greeted us though was dense snow drifts that turned into 4 feet of snow at the lakes. It was spectacular, as the snow evaporates and melts, the clouds formed and winds swept it all away. It was sunny, warm and dry during the day- yet freezing and moist just after sunset with crystal clear skies. We only had ... read more

Day 1- Wellington to Picton over the Ferry. Drive to St. Arnaud Day 2- Alpine Hiking in Nelson Lakes National Park Day 3- River Rafting the Buller River, Maruia Hot Springs Day 4- Driving West Coast from Pancake Rocks to Fox Glacier Day 1- Wellington felt strikingly like San Francisco. If I knew nothing about its long history of earthquakes, maritime climate or its lively arts scene- I would still feel the same way. The people I saw were either young professionals or students. Everyone was trendy and lots of people were on the streets, giving the feeling of being downtown in NYC or SF. The skyscrapers of Central Wellington are crammed in between steep hills and the ocean. The surrounding geography lends itself to this layout as well, causing Wellington to have the highest property ... read more

A road trip to the White Mountains is something to be remembered. Its a long drive to a worthy destination, and no matter which direction you come from the scenery is like nothing else in the country. 4000 meter peaks, sagebrush desert, Ponderosa Pine and Juniper forests, rivers and canyons, lakes, lava and glaciers. My friend and I stopped at Hot Creek, a pleasant reminder that a boiling chamber of magma sits below the Long Valley Caldera waiting to erupt again. Convict Lake is another mandatory stop, carved out by glaciers and surrounded by impossibly steep peaks. In fact the peaks around Convict Lake contain the oldest fossils in the Sierra Nevada, lithified marine organisms over 400 million years old that somehow escaped the intrusion of rocks and explosions of volcano's. We also hiked around Mono ... read more

I rented a car in Santiago and drove over 3000 kilometers through the country. At my furthest point in the city of Castro on Chiloe Island, I was further south than anywhere in Australia, Africa and most of New Zealand. Why Chile? It is said: "When God created the world he had a handful of everything left: mountains, rainforests, deserts, oceans, cactus, lakes, glaciers, volcanoes-and he put it all in his pocket. But there was a hole in this pocket, and as God walked across heaven it all trickled out, and the long trail it made on the earth was Chile." -- Anonymous Along the way to the south, my first stop was in Chillan to meet with my friend Noelia. She's a high school teacher and speaks great English. When I met her for the ... read more

Flickr Set: Arizona / New Mexico I suppose I should write about my most favorite place in the Southwest, how I was enchanted by the spirits of Native Americans who once lived in New Mexico or all the adventure I found. But Im going to let the pictures do the talking, because trying to explain a solo road trip where I saw few people is best left unexplained!... read more