As is tradition around this corner of the internet, here are my favourite memories of 2016. (How many years do you have to do something to make it a tradition? I did this in 2014 and 2015, so I think it’s fair to call it a tradition now.) This year when I sat down to sort through photos and write this post, I started out a little disappointed. I thought I hadn’t done that much this year. I thought I should have gotten out more. And while I didn’t keep track of my stats such as kilometers hiked or nights I slept in a tent, it still was a pretty epic year! I mean a year that includes mountain goats, a half-marathon, a viral blog post, a to-the-studs gut kitchen renovation and a trip to Nepal can’t be a boring year. So here’s my month by month recap of 2016.
Table of Contents
January
I rang in the New Year with friends at a cabin on Galiano Island. Since one of my sisters lives over there, I’ve done a fair amount of hiking and biking there. The hike to Mount Galiano is probably my favourite thing to do on the island. You can read about it in my post about outdoor adventures on Galiano (along with some other great hikes and bike rides).

My sister and my dog-niece on Mount Galiano
A few weeks later I spent a wintery weekend in Squamish exploring the backroads and rafting down the Cheakamus river on Sunwolf’s Eagle Float tour.

The Squamish River and its mountains.

Floating down the river, looking for eagles
February
For the last few years we have had a new long weekend in February thanks to Family day. I took full advantage this year and spent the weekend in Tofino with one of my sisters and her surfer friends. I didn’t surf (too cold for me!) but I did enjoy hiking the Big Tree Trail on Meares Island.

Surfers on Chesterman Beach in Tofino

On Meares Island the trees so big they make you feel small
I also ran my first ever half marathon in February. I spent a lot of time training for that race, including lots of fun trail runs, and now I think I can finally call myself a runner.

Trail running with my sister in North Vancouver
At the end of the month I taught a Leave No Trace workshop for the local chapter of the Outdoor Women’s Alliance. If you haven’t seen it yet, my guest post about that experience was just published on their blog.

Taking a hot chocolate break while teaching Leave No Trace
March
In March I made the best of the melting snow by going snowshoeing at the top of the Sea to Sky gondola. It’s so gorgeous in the snow!

Winter views at the Sea to Sky Gondola
Easter was early this year – in March! I always go backpacking for Easter and this year we chose to tackle a low elevation section of the Sunshine Coast Trail.
April
In April I did a new hike for me: Tunnel Bluffs near Lions Bay. This hike is steeeep – Grouse Grind steep! In fact it is so steep that it inspired me to write a whole post about alternative hikes to the Grouse Grind.

A cloudy view from the top of Tunnel Bluff
Later in the month I headed down to Deception Pass State Park for a weekend of camping and hiking with the Alpine Trails book club. I hope to be able to make it to more of their meetings next year. They are based in Seattle but often hike closer to the border.

Hiking at Deception Pass State Park with the Alpine Trails bookclub
May
I thought I knew all the good hikes in Squamish, but in May I discovered a new one: Crooked Falls! It’s a shorter hike, but you reach an awesome waterfall that you can view from multiple vantage points. I wrote a complete trail guide for hiking to Crooked Falls if you need directions.

Looking out from behind Crooked Falls
For me, spring time is about coastal hiking since it’s too early to get into the mountains. For the May long weekend we headed south to the beaches of Olympic National Park for a backpacking trip. It was my third trip in the park (and definitely not my last). There are lots more photos and directions in my trail guide to the Ozette Loop.

Looking across to Ozette Island from near Cape Alava
June
By June I was itching to get into the mountains so I hiked in to Statlu Lake near Mission for a quick overnighter. It was high enough to feel like we were in the mountains but low enough to be snow free. It wasn’t mosquito free though – oh goodness it was not.

Early morning reflections at Statlu Lake
I work with a pretty awesome team and this spring for our team day we canoed Widgeon Slough and then hiked to Widgeon Falls. #joblove
At the end of June I organized my second annual women’s backpacking trip. Just like last year, the weather was terrible and unfortunately that meant that we had a lower turnout and we ended up day hiking instead of backpacking. This year’s destination was Joffre Lakes and despite the grey skies, it was beautiful as always.
July
Just like in Squamish, I also thought I knew about all the good trails in Whistler. But thankfully, I was wrong again. I hiked the new Skywalk Trail up to the alpine on the northeast side of Rainbow Mountain. It was amazing up there, but we were a tad too early. I’ll have to go back next year after the snow has melted more.
At the end of the month I went on a 5 day backpacking trip to the Enchantments in Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness. It is an absolutely stunning area full of beautiful alpine lakes and semi-tame mountain goats. You need to enter a lottery to get an overnight permit, and I feel so lucky to have won!

Prussik Peak reflected in Leprechaun Lake

Waterfall below Sprite Lake

Hungry mountain goat, grazing on alpine flowers
August
With the new reservation system in place for Garibaldi Lake, we were actually able to spend a weekend up there this summer. We hiked Panorama Ridge and even brought up an inflatable boat for floating around the lake.

Black Tusk from Panorama Ridge

Floating around in Garibaldi Lake
Garibaldi Lake is one of my favourite places but it is getting a little loved to death. While we were camping there was an unfortunate incident with a food-habituated bear. It made me so upset that I wrote a little rant about it, and it ended up going a bit viral. In retrospect I would have phrased things a little differently, but I’m happy I got a bit of awareness out there about respecting wildlife. Lots of people don’t know the best way to protect themselves and the bears when they hike or camp. As a follow up, I wrote a post with some bear safety tips.
At the end of August I flew to Nepal. I spent 10 incredible days trekking to Annapurna Base Camp. Trekking in Nepal is amazing. It is so different than hiking in North America: you pass through numerous villages where people have lived and worked for generations, all on the side of a mountain. It is best experienced with a local guide who can help explain the Nepali culture.

Trekking high in the Himalayas

The view of Annapurna from base camp at dawn
September
After our trek we spent a couple days in Kathmandu seeing the sights, including my favourite Swayambhunath, also known as the monkey temple.

Swayambhunath, the Monkey Temple

Monkeys at the Monkey Temple
After Kathmandu we spent a couple days in Hong Kong, including a day trip to Macau. Hong Kong was fascinating: I thought it was kind of like an Asian Vancouver with mountains rising up directly from the ocean. Apparently Hong Kong was fabulous hiking, but with temperatures of 35C, it was too hot to find out.

The view of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak

Selfie Sticks in Senado Square, Macau
October
For years I’ve been wanting to see the larch trees change colour – it is a coniferous tree that is deciduous and loses its needles in the fall. The closest larches to me are in Manning Park, so we spent a weekend up there and hiked to Mount Frosty to see them.
On my first backpacking trip in Garibaldi Park over a decade ago, we spent three days doing a traverse from the Rubble Creek trailhead to the Cheakamus Lake trailhead (with some side trips in between). At the time, it seemed like a pretty tough trip. I’ve hiked a lot more since then, so I wanted to tackle the whole 24km distance in a single day. I teamed up with some friends to do a key-swap style car shuttle. We met up with them for a lunch break in the middle where we discovered that we had accidentally dressed as a rainbow!

Accidental rainbow at Garibaldi Lake
There was also quite a bit of early season snow, and what was supposed to be a fall colours hike turned into a winter wonderland hike.

Black Tusk in the snow from the cinder flats
November
I didn’t get out much in November since I was working hard on renovating my kitchen. We’ve been doing the project as a DIY (mostly) and it’s pretty time consuming. We demolished it down to the studs and removed a wall. For awhile there things looked pretty scary, but now we are almost done.

My kitchen looked like this for a while.
I did manage to get for a quick hike on the North Shore on Remembrance Day, though. I used the opportunity to take some head shots of me with my Source Outdoors hydration reservoir to use in the article I wrote for them about hiking at high altitude.
December
December has mostly been about finishing my kitchen reno, but I did manage to get outside for some snowshoeing at Grouse Mountain for another team day at work. (#joblove Part 2!) We had some real luck with the weather: it was foggy down below but we climbed up above the clouds to discover a beautiful inversion.
So in retrospect, I guess 2016 was a pretty rad year after all! Nepal was definitely the highlight, but in any other year the Enchantments would have gotten top slot. And of course the kitchen will be the highlight of 2017… when I finally get it finished! That and the trip to Iceland I have planned. (So Excited!) What were your highlights from 2016? What are you most looking forward to in 2017?
15 Comments
Danielle
December 23, 2016 at 6:21 pmWow wow wow wow! Stunning. What a year! You are an inspiration 🙂
Taryn Eyton
December 23, 2016 at 10:16 pmThanks Danielle! I’m blushing… I’m just a regular woman with a 9-5 job that goes outside sometimes and then writes about it 🙂
Brittany Thiessen
December 26, 2016 at 5:30 pmIt sure sounds like you had an amazing and adventure-filled year! 2016 was great for me as well. My favourite adventure was exploring Guatemala. I am so excited for what 2017 has in store and am planning on heading back to Banff and Jasper to do some hiking and also to Oaxaca and Chiapas in Mexico. Your Iceland trip sounds incredible! Thanks for sharing your year’s highlights.
Taryn Eyton
December 26, 2016 at 11:38 pmOh Mexico sounds exciting. I haven’t travelled in Latin America at all. I did a little bit of Banff and Jasper last year and I want to go back… so I totally understand you wanting to revisit the Rockies again. Cheers to more travel in 2017!
Jean
December 30, 2016 at 6:14 pmWhat a great year you’ve had. Hikes, bikes, snow and monkeys! Sounds like my kinda adventure. Can’t wait to see what 2017 brings for you
Amanda @ La Vida Viva Travel
December 30, 2016 at 7:57 pmWow!! You’ve an an epic year! Love hearing about all of your adventures and seeing the wonderful photos of your travels. Nepal sounds fantastic so I’m not surprised that it was a major highlight. Also, I love a good kitchen reno so that’s an adventure in itself 😉
Jen Morrow
December 31, 2016 at 6:42 am2016 looks like quite an adventure! I love hiking the Canadian Rockies and spending time outdoors.
Cathy
December 31, 2016 at 9:13 amIncredible photos of great adventures! I need to do all of those hikes!! Wishing you a 2017 full of great hiking and travel!
Jackie
December 31, 2016 at 12:24 pmI’m so inspired by all of your pictures and the things you’ve done this year! It really makes me miss Squamish & Whistler (I used to live in Vancouver and loved to go hiking there). It looks like you’ve had quite an eventful year… Wish you all the best for 2017!
Allison
December 31, 2016 at 10:05 pmWow, you’ve done some amazing hikes this year! Lake Joffres is really gorgeous in particular. And I would love to visit Nepal, you make it sound so lovely! Hope 2017 brings more adventures.
Susanna Kelly
December 31, 2016 at 10:27 pmYou are totally my type of traveler! Let’s be best friends. haha I really enjoy hiking and trekking, so it was awesome to see all your adventures. This is my goal for 2017 is to do more trekking, so this was inspiring. Those trails in Vancouver look amazing and it’s awesome you taught a workshop. I hope you’re just as active in 2017 and have a great new year!
Sonia
December 31, 2016 at 10:54 pmWow!!! What awesome pictures! I loved all the reflections on water …. I want to add some of these places on our Bucketlist! Wish you a super and travel filled 2017!
Cliodhna Ryan
January 1, 2017 at 4:16 amWow you had such an active and fun filled year! My friend visited Squamish and still raves about it. I think they were at a music festival there and on their way back to their cabin a baby bear ran across the road in front of them. I need to get to Canada!
Lisa
January 1, 2017 at 10:07 pmYou’ve had an incredible year! Fantastic photos too. I think that’s one of the best parts about blogging – its a great way to look back and remember all the amazing things you’ve done.
Audrey
February 5, 2017 at 1:19 amWhat an amazing recap!!! Love that you spent so much time in the great outdoors. Looking forward to seeing all of your travels in 2017!