Always take a compass

Sunday 16th September 2012, Boom Lake

Our first full day in Canada saw us heading from Canmore to the picturesque Lake Minnewanka before heading on to our first camp-site, "Castle Mountain".


With 43 pitches for both tents and RV's the site was "self registration" but benefited from flushing toilets and (like all of the camp-sites we stayed at in Canada) was quiet, spacious and well maintained.

We set up camp and got to grips with the kit that we'd hired for the 2 week trip - everything we needed was there including all of the cooking, cleaning and eating kit - even some extras that had been left by people who'd hired before us like tea bags which, for an englishman, are always welcome!  Anthony also added a proper hammer and 8" solid pegs which we would have really struggled without as most Canadian pitches are gravel / hard standing to cope with RV's as well as tents.

Two things of note about the hire kit;


The tent supplied (we opted for the 2-3 ma…

Mt Triglav, Slovenia
The centerpiece of Triglav National Park and standing at an impressive 2864m above sea level it is both the highest mountain in the Julian Alps as well as the highest peak in Slovenia - and it's the mountain that we've settled on as our target for our winter 2013 expedition.

Before I go on with the how's, why's and when's it's only fair to run through the who's; accompanying me on this adventure are "Cptn Street" (James Street) and "JD" (James Davers) who I'd met earlier in the year (April 2012) during my Mountain Leader (ML) course with Hampshire Mountain Centre.
We'd all got on wel during the course and had been looking for an excuse to get out into the hills/mountains for something a bit more challenging than a trip to Ben Nevis or Pen-y-Fan.

So it was during a planning "meeting" for a trip to Scotland that we came up with the idea of doing things properly and planning for a proper expedition.  T…

Two Weeks in the Rockies!

The long awaited trip to Canada was finally upon us and on Saturday 15th September 2012 we left dreary London Heathrow on Air Canada flight 851 headed for Calgary.

The only real plans that we'd made for the stay were for the collection and drop off of the tent as well as the first and last nights' accommodation in Canmore, AB.  Other than that we had some ideas and places we wanted to visit but ultimately the Rockies of Alberta were ours to explore!

I spent most of the trip home planning how I'd put the Canada blog post(s) together as we packed so much in to the two weeks that we spent in the Rockies that trying to cram everything into one post just wouldn't work and would make for pretty dire reading for those poor soles that look at this blog!  

So, I've decided to run though the day-by-day agenda (below) with a general overview of each day that will then link to the detailed post - as and when I get around to writing them, here goes!

Agenda …