Paddling

Snowshoeing is a fun and easy winter sport. All you need to get started are some snowshoes and some warm clothing. But one of the questions I get asked all the time is: What are the best boots for snowshoeing? What type of boots should you buy? Which features should snowshoeing boots have? What brands …

British Columbia has hundreds of options for gorgeous backpacking trips. Most are free or require a permit, but for a few special trips, you need to make reservations in advance. If you’re planning ahead of time, these are the BC backpacking reservation dates you need to know for 2025 A quick note: Most 2025 reservation …

Getting outfitted for hiking and backpacking can seem overwhelming. When I was first starting out, I felt like there was so much gear on the market and that it was SOOO expensive. Plus I felt like the list of gear you need to buy for hiking and backpacking was never ending. That was two decades …

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love Tasmania’s wilderness. I spent 6 days exploring it on the Overland Track on my first visit, so when I returned to Tasmania the next year, I pretty much went right from the airport directly to Walls of Jerusalem National Park to go backpacking. Unlike the …

Banff National Park’s Egypt Lake area is gorgeous: a scattering of blue glacial lakes below rugged peaks. In between, you’ll find patches of meadows, majestic alpine larch trees, and well-maintained trails. It’s a moderate hike to the Egypt Lake campground, which makes a great base camp for exploring. It’s a tough backcountry camp to reserve, …

I’ve been to Gros Morne National Park twice, and I know I’ll be making another trip someday. When you think of Newfoundland, people picture St. John’s. But while I appreciate the charm of that city’s brightly painted buildings, the rugged and verdant landscapes of Gros Morne have my heart. I planned my first visit to …

You’ve probably seen those news stories: “Search and Rescue finds Unprepared Hikers Lost/Injured in the Woods”. But that’s never going to be you right? Yup, we all think it won’t happen to us. But it definitely could. No one expects to get lost, get stuck hiking in the dark or hurt themselves, but they do. …

With a population of about 30,000, Corner Brook is the largest city in Western Newfoundland and the second largest city in the province. It’s an important regional centre, but before I visited, I didn’t really think of it as a tourist destination. To the people of Corner Brook… I apologize. I was wrong. In a …

If you think of fall hiking, you are probably picturing strolling through a beautiful maple forest with red and gold leaves everywhere. That kind of scene is quintessentially autumn, but it’s kind of an East Coast cliche. We don’t have much of that near Vancouver. What we do have, however, is a pretty unique fall …

For years I sped through Yoho National Park on Highway 1, in a hurry to get to Banff. From the road, the mountains were pretty but they didn’t entice me to stop. Oh how wrong I was! Once I finally got off the highway and saw all the things to do in Yoho National Park, …