After many a switchback, the trail led us to our campground. Floe Lake may just be one of my most favourite campgrounds to date. The turquoise lake glittered in the afternoon sun, a tantalising invitation to jump into its icy waters after a hot day of hiking. Here are my favourite moments from three days in the Rockwall, Kootenay National Park.

Here lies a lengthy post from our backcountry camping trip to Skoki Valley. A trip planned since the end of January with our friends Brit & Sam, we ended up going without them on account of the fact Brit got accepted into a grad program at a university in Toronto. I wrote more about that here.

Better late than never—I finally got around to editing photos from me, Britt, Sam & Hobbit’s backcountry camping trip to Laughing Falls in the summer. Despite the intense smoke that plagued the area from the British Columbia wildfires, I welcomed those days off to spend in nature with friends.

A few weeks ago, J, Freya & I spent a weekend off-the-grid at Mt. Engadine. We left the laptops at home, bringing only our books, my camera and our phones. The last time we were here was about a week before the pandemic really “started"—before life in lockdown, in March 2020. Freya was just 6 months old.

Get yourself friends who will say yes to hiking 80+ kilometres and 2,000+ metres of elevation gain over 4 days with you. In mid-August, Brittany, Sam, Justin & I hiked to Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park, a world-renowned mountain destination and home to the second tallest peak in the Canadian Rockies.

A weekend away to mark our first year together; a year that challenged us individually and also as a couple, but brought great joy and growth with it.

Our favourite part of the trip, hands down, was the day we hiked up to Snowbird Pass. It was a 9 hour, 27km (16.7mi) day, all to walk to a spot where you could see an enormous icefield thousands of years old. We stood and imagined how the rest of the valley would have looked centuries ago—the lush green valleys, bright wildflowers & flowing streams we had just passed being nothing but ice. The world was quiet here, and I longed to sit in its stillness for far longer than our little lunch break.

Our second day at Berg Lake was a little more leisurely. I had every intention of letting my body rest, but for me, sleeping in was impossible when the world came alive. I woke up a little after 5:30am, gently unzipping the tent to peel away our “door” and peek at the outside world, gingerly facing the cold.

“Do you guys do this for fun?”

These were the words uttered by a group of girls we passed on our way down from Berg Lake. By that point, we were already a quarter of the way into our 20km descent, having already spent 4 days living at the foot of Mount Robson, the Canadian Rockies’ tallest peak (3,954m above sea level).

This summer was fleeting, in a vastly different way to that of last year’s. This year felt a lot like treading water, taking things one day, one step at a time. Before I knew it, it was mid-July, and my backcountry trip to Berg Lake was fast approaching. All the glamorous ideas I had about training for the trip went out the window while I focused on working and applying for permanent residency.

A memorable day for many a reason, although I find myself wishing that one of those reasons was not that my bear spray accidentally went off as I was putting my pack on. Thankfully, it only mostly affected my hands and we carried on.