Gear Review - Trekking Poles

So the next piece of gear I want to review is the Cascade Mountain Tech Carbon Fiber Cork Trekking Pole. I bought these trekking poles near the start of the season in 2018, around April, and used them for the entire summer. It took me until the end of April to buy the trekking poles because I was pretty skeptical that they would actually help. However, Roslyn bought a set and I tried them out, finding I quite liked them.

Usability

I found these trekking poles pretty versatile. They have quick-lock clamps for sizing, which makes it fairly painless to lengthen or shorten them when ever you need to. There is also a long choke handle below the cork handle that makes it comfortable to quickly shorten you grip by about 6 inches. I found this very helpful on the up hills because I could just shift my hand position down without removing them from the wrist straps and they remained comfortable and effective.

Durability

These trekking poles have been used is the snow, rain, and heat, for both cruising over flat terrain and for helping with rocky climbs. I've leaned on them both with the direction of the shaft and side on, and they never creak or seem like they are going to break. I've also gotten them stuck in cracks between rocks and yanked on them pretty hard by accident and they survived. The tungsten carbide tip is still in create shape as well, even though I've been slamming it into bedrock all summer. I would say that these are very durable and will last you for a long time as long as they're used for their intended purpose.

The only part of the trekking pole that I think might wear out is the cork handle. It shrinks a bit as it dries out, especially in high heat environments, and your hands will slowly chafe away at the cork material causing it to fall off. There is an option for an EVA grip which would last longer, but I went with the more comfortable option.

Comfort

The cork gripped handle is amazing. After using it for a few weeks it completely conformed to my hand, kept them from getting too sweaty, and stayed tight in my grasp the entire time. The extra handle is made out of EVA foam, which is comfortable as well, but I prefer the cork as the main handle material.

While in use, the poles also generate very little vibration that your hand feels. This helps reduce fatigue in your hands and forearms, making extended use more comfortable and less taxing.

The quick-locks also provide a lot of comfort in my eyes. They easily snap in and out of the tight position, and are much nicer to use than the twist-locks.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a light weight, sturdy, comfortable trekking pole then these will work perfectly. There are aluminum options as well which are a bit heavier but less expensive, and a more durable 3K version of the carbon fiber pole which is more expensive. I think the regular carbon fiber is a nice balance between all the options.

Epinnette Trail - Day 1

Date: September 15, 2018

Length: 23.4 km

Elevation: 161 m

Time: 7 hours 10 minutes

The Epinnette Trail heads east from the highway in Sprucewoods Provincial Park and winds along the top of the valley. Roslyn, myself and our friend Joel headed out on it to see what it had to offer. This was Joel's first long distance trip, and he was pretty sore by the end of it carrying all the backpacking gear. Overall though, he said he enjoyed himself and were planning another trip with him this summer!

We spent most of the day walking the trail, as per usual. The weather was overcast with a breeze, which was nice when we were moving, but a bit chilly when we stopped for a break. We made pretty good time on the trail as its about 3 to 6 people wide and well kept. We made it to the third campsite it good time, setup the tents and enjoyed supper and hanging out at the picnic table.

Overall, the hike was okay. Roslyn and I enjoyed being out in nature and hiking with Joel, but the trail left something to be desired. There were no spectacular views or entrancing wild life sightings, which was expected given were we were travelling. The trail was also fairly easy (sorry Joel!) and didn't offer the challenge that we normally enjoy. All in all, the Epinnette Trail system is perfect for people looking for a leisurely hiking for the purpose of getting out into the woods, but lacks the extra punch of a challenge or spectacular views for the more experienced hiker.

Cedar Bog - First Hike of 2019!

Date: Febraury 11, 2019

Length: 2.6 km

Elevation: 37 m

Time : 42 minutes

Yay! First hike of 2019 complete! Roslyn and I went out for a night hike yesterday when it warmed up to -12C, we needed to get out side pretty badly after all the cold weather. Cedar Bog trail was a nice little loop, about three people wide and pretty level. About 300 m in there was a tree decked out in Christmas decorations, which was pretty interesting to stumble across in the dark.

The hike was short, but a good outlet for some energy we had built up. It was snowing the entire time, which turned my beard into block of ice. Other than that, there's not much to say about this short but sweet trail.

Gear Review - Salomon Quest 4D 3 GTX Hiking Boots

Last summer I used the Salomon Quest 4D 3 GTX Hiking Boots. I bought them early in the year and broke them in when the snow was still on the ground before wearing them all summer. So far, the boots have seen snow, rain, high and low temperatures, and 400+ km of use. They are an all around sturdy boot that I would recommend to anyone wanting a heavier backpacking boot. Here's a more in depth review.

The Break In Period

The break in period with these boots was quick and painless. I started wearing them and was worried they would be stiff at first, but after about 5 km of walking in them they started to conform to my foot and by the end of 10 km they were happily broken in. Since then they haven't changed much and are holding up well.

Support and Protection

These boots have kept my feet in one piece through some rocky and hill trails in the Canadian Shield. When laced properly they provide excellent support for both the arch of your foot and your ankle, and have helped prevent numerous rolled ankles. They are also rugged enough that I haven't hurt my feet yet by accidentally kicking a rock or step while doing a climb.

Temperature Control

Like all waterproof foot wear, these boots run a little warm. I was concerned about how they would perform heat control wise last July when we were hiking in temperatures of 30 degrees celcius, but they were still relatively comfortable and I wasn't really suffering from warm feet more than I expected. I also found that there were no hot spots in the boots where they were causing and sores to appear on my feet or heat rashes, so all in all I'd say they did quite well.

I have also been using these boots as my winter foot wear for the last few months in Winnipeg, Canada. With a decently warm sock they are good at keeping my feet warm down to about -20 degrees celcius. Any colder than that and my feet tend to start getting colder after about 25 to 30 minutes. They've been serving me pretty well during the polar vortex were experiencing (temperatures of -40 degrees celcius before the wind chill) as my commuting foot wear.

Water Proofing

The water proofing on these boots works very well. I've used them to walk through low streams and pools of water, stood in pools of water with them for 5 to 10 minutes, walked through dew soaked grass and bushes, and taken them out in a down pour. In all cases, the only time the boots were wet was because of operator error (I forgot to wear water proof pants once in a rain storm).

With that being said, the boots take forever to dry out if they do get wet. On a good day your looking at 4 to 5 hours to get them to dry out if its warm and you can get a good breeze blowing in to them. If its cooler, say around 15 degrees celcius, and there's either no breeze or its humid out, your looking at 10+ hours to get them to dry. When these boots were soaked on our hike of the Pisew-Kwasitchewan Falls trail I had them off and tried to dry them out for about 15 hours but the humidity and temperature meant they were still soaked the next morning. This is a pretty common problem with water proof boots that I new about before hand, but it still sucks to put wet boots on.

General Wear and Tear

These boots have been used pretty well and so far are holding up very well. All the eyelets are still in good condition, the arch support is functioning properly, the tongue is in good shape, the treads aren't deteriorating too quickly, and the laces are working well. Not much else to say here except that they are pretty sturdy.

Conclusion

I would recommend these to boots to people that are expecting to be putting in some miles in rugged terrain or with a moderate or greater amount of weight. For day hiking these boots are probably a bit more than you need, but on multi-day hikes like the Mantario trail with lots of elevation changes you would benefit from using these.

Status Update

Hello Everyone!

So first off, if anyone's noticed out YoutTube channel hasn't been getting posted on Wednesdays, we have been busier than usual and its hitting the video editing time the hardest. We are still going to post a video a week, it just might not be on Wednesdays for the next while.

Also, we have out passes for the West Coast Trail! We're going to have posts and videos about the actual trail next fall, but we are going to be showing off some of our planning here to help everyone try and get started on their own hikes.

As for what else is coming up, I will be doing some gear reviews of our boots, trekking poles, sleeping bags, etc in the next few months once a week and a hiking post once a week. That's the plan anyway. We haven't been able to get out to try snow shoeing or do any winter hiking this month because of the cold (its been -30C or worse for about a week now). Hopefully February will let us get out of the house and back onto a trail or two to get some winter stories to share.

Other than that, thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out our YouTube Videos and Instagram posts!

Germany 2018 - Munich Day 2

Our second day in Munich started earlier in the morning than Day 1 because Roslyn and I were heading off alone to explore while Candace and Jamie went elsewhere. Omi planned to stay in the apartment because she was feeling ill and didn't want to travel. Roslyn and I ate at the apartment and then headed out to the Munich Residence, the former Bavarian Royalty apartments in Munich.

We spent about two hours walking around the Residence. One of the first rooms is a fountain area, where the entire area has shells mortared into the wall, which would have shone iridescent when they were new.There was also a large variety of rooms filled with musical instruments, bedrooms, and extra parlor rooms.

There were five rooms that stood out to us the most, three of which we have pictures for. The first was a statue/bust room that was further converted into a giant dining area with a few hundred busts of prominent people. The second was the King's throne room, which had walls of red with gold inlays every where. The third room was the Queen's throne room, which was covered in gold everywhere. The fourth was a set of dining room displays, which one in blue and white, and one was entirely jade coloured. The fifth room was a portrait hallway that had well over a hundred portraits of the royal family.

After the Munich Residence, we also toured the Munich Treasury. It was quite interesting to see all of the priceless jewelry, furniture, and art work inside. I would recommend going to both if you are visiting Munich for any length of time.

After the Treasury, we took a quick trip back to the apartment to change into something better suited for a lot of walking and went back to the English Gardens. This time we started at the south end and walked north. There were dozens of ducks, geese, and other birds walking around and the streams were full of fish. One of the streams gets large enough to swim in and there were easily a thousand people hanging around in the park lounging near the water. At the mid point of the park we rented a pedal boat and hit the water to cruise around one of the lakes.

With evening setting in, Roslyn and I went back to Marienplatz and found a small sushi restaurant tucked away on a side street for supper. After we walked through the streets for a bit after nightfall before going back to the apartment. A wonderful last night to our vacation.

Germany 2018 - Munich, Day 1

Our first full day in Munich! We slept in for a bit before eating breakfast and heading out to explore the city. Unlike Berlin, we didn't have anything planned to we looked up some cool land marks, jumped on the transit system and headed out.

The first thing we did was go to to the English Garden's north end and then start walking south. We spent about two hours doing that, much to mine and Roslyn's enjoyment. Part way during the walk we ran into one of the two Hofbrauhaus run beer gardens in the park where we stopped for lunch. It was pretty cool sitting down for a snack and a beer and watching a few hundred other people pour into the garden to do the same thing on their lunch break. Walking through the gardens was wonderful, full of trees, small streams and small animals. We enjoyed ourselves so much we forgot take any pictures unfortunately.

After getting to the half way point in the English Garden, we jumped on a bus and a subway train and went to Marienplatz. We wandered around the market in the area and eventually climbed to the top of St. Peter's church to get a good view out over the city.

After the church climb, we headed across the square to go to the top of the tower in the town center. We ended up wandering around the halls for a it as well and saw some amazing stained glass windows.

After spending some time at the top of the town center and walking around again, we stayed in Marienplatz to watch the life sized Cuckoo clock that is in the main tower of the town center. It was pretty cool to watch but was about 15 minutes long, which started to drag after a while. There was a huge crowd there for it though, which quite a few different buskers playing instruments giving the entire square a light-hearted party atmosphere. After the show we went back to the apartment for a bit before going out for supper.

Going out to supper meant heading back to the north end of Marienplatz and wandering the streets until we could find the Hofbrauhaus, a massive beer house form the 16th century. We had been told we needed to visit by pretty much everyone that new we were going to Munich. On the way we saw a completely ivy covered building, which is more common than we were expecting in Germany. The ivy covered building ended up being about a block away from the Hofbrauhaus, so it was a good land mark for getting around.

Once in the Hofbrauhaus we settle in with some of their mugs of ale and figure out what supper was going to be. All of us had a pretty good day in Munich roaming around and were looking forward to another entire day of it tomorrow!

Mantario Trail - September Long Thru Hike, Day 4

Date: September 3, 2018

Length: 10.5 km

Elevation: 378 m

Time: 4 hours 10 minutes

Day number 4 of our Mantario trail hike. We were up pretty early, early enough that going out side was really, really cold. We woke up early enough to get some pictures of the sunrise over Hemenway Lake and manage to take some pictures of it and the surrounding area as the sun rose.

Interestingly, getting up early has been one of my favorite parts of the hike. The early morning air, the stillness, and the smell all combine to make it a very peaceful time of day. It's also really nice to get up and moving well before the temperature starts to rise, and getting 10 to 12 km in before lunch makes you feel pretty accomplished.

The trail out from Hemenway quickly made it to Big Whiteshell Lake, and flirted with the shore line on and off for the last 7 km until a small climb up to the parking lot. There were a couple of nice beach walks and the morning sun coming over the lake was pleasant. Around the 7 km mark we ran into cool landmark and the trail started following a quad trail.

While walking on the quad trail we saw a lot of animal tracks, including some decent sided black bear prints. We were going in the opposite direction so we weren't too worried about it. What we did end up needing to worry about was wasps again though! After a beach walk we were jumping back on the trail and Roslyn stepped over a long and stepped on another nest. Another sprint and we were well along the trail and away from the nest, but Roslyn was stung 5-6 times on her legs, which made the last kilometer of the trail a bit less enjoyable.

We arrived at the parking lot a bit before noon and Roslyn started soaking the wasp stings to make the swelling go down while we packed everything into Tyler's truck. Then it was back to the south parking lot to get our car and into Winnipeg to shower and go eat a victory supper!

All in all the hike was one of the best experiences we've ever had and we are looking forward to doing many more in the years to come.

Where We Roam

Hey Everyone!

Just a quick heads up, Roslyn and I have been talking it over for a few weeks now and decided to change the name of the blog/youtube channel/instagram page. We weren't feeling the last name after using for over half a year and this one has a better ring to it we think.

Thanks for following us!

Mantario Trail - September Long Thru Hike, Day 3

Date: September 2, 2018

Length: 15.2 km

Elevation: 450 m

Time: 7 hours 36 minutes

The second last day of hour hike was easily the longest, mentally if not actually. Since our travel plans had been to push hard on days one and two and then take it easy on days 3 and 4 we got off to a late start. It was a bit before 10 am when we hit the trail, breakfast already eaten and muscles pretty sore from the previous two days. We took some time before we got going to limber up a bit but it didn't matter, we were in for a long day of leg and foot soreness.

As we started out from the Mantario lake camp site, we were treated to a nice view form the ridge line down on the north west end of the lake. Much of the distance between Moosehead lake (from day 2) and Ritchie lake (still ahead) is on a ridge line looking out over the surrounding area. We were also treated to  some leaves turned orange, yellow, and brown, a solid reminder that it gets cold at night and fall was appraoching.

We stopped at Ritchie lake around 1 pm roughly for lunch, a foot soak, and to filter more water for the rest of the trip to Hemenway lake. The side trip added about 800m of distance to the day, but the toilet and picnic table were more than worth it. We spent about an hour stretching, soaking our feet and eating lunch. Roslyn had decided that we were going to have soy nut butter with wraps for lunch. As you can see from the face she's making below it wasn't the greatest of choices (she actually didn't finish lunch!).

After lunch, it probably took us another hour for our legs to loosen up again, and our feet were getting progressively more sore. It was part of the hike that was a bit more of a grind than an enjoyment at the time, but looking back on it it was still pretty great. We even managed to shake our funk off for a bit to score some great pictures.

By the time we arrive at the camp site a bit after 5 pm, we had already moved past grumpy and back into a 'well everything hurts so lets try to be happy' kind of mood. There were probably 20-30 people at Hemenway already, many of whom had come out for a weekend trip from the north trail head. We had a few short conversations as we looked around for a campsite and privy, and it was nice to hear everyone telling us that the 10 km from Hemenway to the trail head was flat and easy going.

After a bit of searching, we managed to find a pretty awesome campsite set back from where everyone else was in a little glade. All the other flat spots were solid bed rock so it was nice to find a soft spot to sleep on.

West Coast Trail Sign Up

In previous post, Where to Start, Where to Start, I went over some stuff on how to narrow down start dates for a hike. We looked at the effect of how long the hike would take, will the weather allow it, required travel arrangements, what happens if you need to extend time on trail, and what happens if you don't get your ideal day. Now that we have gotten our permits here's how it went.

Sign up for permits opened up at 10 am out time. We were hoping to jump onto the portal right at 10 am, but Roslyn had a meeting. So at about 10:20 am Roslyn went online and tried to get our preferred start date. And then tried to get our secondary dates. And then tried to get our tertiary dates. Then Roslyn and I texted back and forth for a bit on dates.

We ended up selecting a start date about 1 month after our preferred date.

Here's some follow up tips we've learned:

1 - Be on time for permit sign ups

We had heard the trail was popular, but were kind of surprised that all the dates between April 1 and the end of August were taken by 10:20ish am on opening day. If the date is really really important to you, make sure to book on a time slot so you can get in to get a permit.

2 - Be flexible

For us, sliding the hike back a month wasn't too big of a deal. We preferred our August start date due to temperature and rainfall, but the September start date we ended up with will still suit our needs. There is traditionally more rainfall so we may have a wetter and muddier experience, but it gives us an extra month to prepare and condition.

3 - Buy as a group

If you are going to go as a group make sure you buy your permits together and then reimburse people. There is pretty much to way two separate people will be able to get in, pick a date, and confirm the other people also registered for the same date. On that note, everyone may want to be together to do the registration so that its easier to get opinions on what dates are acceptable if your in a group of 4+.

With all that in mind, remember that preparing for the trip is supposed to remain part of the fun. Try to have a flexible plan, know what your limits on dates are, and accept the possibility that you may have to wait until the next year if you need a very specific set of dates. Also, make sure you prepare for all types of weather that could show up during your hike. The best way to do this is to plan out your hikes for the summer and then do them regardless of conditions. 

With all that said, have fun planning for the up coming hiking season!

Germany 2018 - Zugspitze

After Neuschwanstein, we spent the night in a hotel and then headed out to Zugspitze. Zugspitze is the tallest mountain in Germany at a little over 10,000 feet tall. After finding some parking we headed over and picked up our gondola ride tickets. The gondola goes pretty much to the top of the mountain, and since we were planning on exploring with Roslyn's Omi we couldn't hike to the top.

After the gondola ride we walked around the top look out area, just enjoying the view. At the base of Zugspitze it was about 30C, but it was only about 12C at the top. It was great. After the walk around the platform we were drawn to the mountains peak in the image below.

We probably looked at it for about five minutes before we got going towards it. Roslyn's Omi and her sister Candace stayed behind, but Roslyn, Jamie, and I climbed down the access stairs and up the spur to the peak.

It was pretty crowded, with the path being only about as wide as a person, but people trying to go both directions. It took us about 20 minutes to make our way to the peak and we stayed up there for a bit taking pictures and just looking around. One of the coolest parts was that there is a pretty well traveled hiking path that goes up the north face of Zugspitze to the peak and then down the south face. We hope to go back and complete it someday.

After coming down from the peak, we headed down from the viewing platform to the mountain bowl in a different gondola to walk around and explore some. There were some cool views, plants and artfully stacked rocks to look at. We probably walked around for about an hour before rejoining Omi and heading down. The last picture is on one of the paths down from the peak to the bottom of the bowl. We didn't have proper hiking boots so we couldn't do it.

All in all it was another awesome day. We ended it by driving from Zugspitze into Munich, which was a fun drive and my last time out on the auto-bahn in the mountains!