Hiker's Blog

3-Day SC Alzheimer’s Ride July 2024

The Hotter’n Hell 100 in Wichita Falls, TX in August has met its match…the 3-day SC Ride to End Alzheimer’s.

Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, June 2024

Brian had some extra spots on his permit for the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne hike to see the spring runoff and invited us to join him. On the way to Yosemite and on the way home I hiked some peaks I had had on my wishlist for a while.

Alta Peak and Mount Dana, June 2024

We had an early season backpacking trip in Yosemite with friends planned and instead of driving straight up and back for the trip, I bookended it with a couple of Sierra Nevada peaks.

Hogback Mountain and Rocky Spur

Finally, a SC peak with a forest road/path. Well at least one anyway.

Peaks of the Balkans – Backpacking through Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo

When I moved to Europe in 2018 I ended up with some unexpected extra time on my hands before starting my job in Belgium. I eventually spent that time hiking around Romania, but not before reading about a trail called the Peaks of the Balkans. A ~190km loop trail through the rural mountains at the intersection of Albania, Montenegro, and Kosovo, it was one of the newer and more remote backpacking trails through Europe and it immediately captured my attention. For the next five years it would live in the back of my mind and I would revisit the idea each summer before delaying it to the next year for an ever shifting list of reasons (excuses). Finally, last year, I roped my cousin Dave into hiking it with me and he gave me the final push that I needed to sit down and plan it all out for real this time.

San Jacinto solitude and backpack field test

Since May 2017 my Osprey Stratos 36 has been my daypack and spent has many hundreds of hours on the trail with me. On the recent Spectre hike one of the loops for the hiking poles broke. Time to send it in for repairs.

El Teide & Christmas 2023 in Tenerife

For Christmas 2023 Bianca and I traveled to the Canary Islands and spent two weeks car camping around Tenerife, with a brief hop over to La Gomera. Dispersed camping is not allowed on the islands, but Tenerife has a great series of free public campgrounds to make up for it. We spent our two weeks there across of a mix of hiking, city visits, and beach days, with plenty of tasty food in the mix. We also went SCUBA diving for the first time which was a really amazing experience for both of us.

We put together a photo album covering our adventures there for these two weeks, and here I’ll write a bit more about the big hike that I did in the middle of our trip – El Teide.