Random Hikes from 2013

Mt. Monadnock and PumpkinFest

Lumpy Ridge to Gem Lake

The Best Place I've Ever Camped

America's National Parks: Closed until further notice

The Sunrise, and Hallett Peak

Football Season Blues

Hit the Ground Running

WANTED: Bannack, Montana

Hey Bear! You're a Bear!

Glacier National Park - Iceberg Lake

Buffaloes and Pronghorn and Wolf! Oh Shit!

Seek The Peak 2013

Mt. Washburn and the Geysers

Cascade Canyon

Stabbing Westward

M.I.A.

I know, I know, I've been missing for a wile now. Life and shit. There has been a little bit of activity here and there, nothing significant. I had a hiking setback when my trip to Baxter State Park got canceled earlier this month due to weather. And truth be told I've had a lot of other things on my mind lately so hiking has taken a bit of a backseat as of late. But all that is going to change starting tomorrow at precisely 5:35pm when I get on a plane to Salt Lake City to beast some National Parks. Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and Glacier, to be precise. Needless to say there will be tons of miles and plenty to write about in the coming weeks so stay tuned. Cheers!

Texas......with a dollar sign.

 

Traveling in America's Hat.

What is it about Canada? How come no one really goes there? The truth, for most New Englanders at least, is that Canada is no more than a 4 or 5 hour drive away from us at most. Yet for some reason, generally speaking, no one really ever goes there. Yes you can give the passport excuse, and while valid, it doesn't exactly account for why you didn't go there before you needed one. And honestly it's really not that hard to get a passport nowadays. If you've got $100 and an hour you can get one, and you probably should. But I'm not quite sure why no one thinks to go to Canada. It's a whole different country, in fact Quebec which is directly north of us, speaks French as a national language. It's the closest you're going to get to Europe without actually going, to well, Europe. Most of us either know someone, or have ourselves been to Montreal before. After all the drinking age is 18 which is reason enough to have taken a trip there to spend $18 on a pitcher of Bud Light because you didn't know any better. But there are a lot of other places within a reasonable driving distance worth traveling to in Canada, and last weekend I had the opportunity to visit one such place, Quebec City. I'll admit it was one of the hardest times I've had convincing anyone to come on a trip before, mostly because no one had ever herd of the place and partially because I didn't really have much of a plan going into it, and "just trust me" wasn't cutting it.
I don't know if any of you follow Red Bull, but they are a pretty amazing company. Not only do they give you wings but they also sponsor some of the coolest events on the planet. I'm sure most of you are familiar with last years Red Bull Stratos, which broke the world record for the longest freefall, BUT they also host a multitude of other extreme and downright badass events including cliff diving, Skiing, BMX, Stunt Plane, and an almost never ending list of other competitions. It just so happened that one of these, Red Bull Crashed Ice, was taking place in Quebec City this month, so the opportunity to knock off a bucket list item (attend a Red Bull event) and explore a new city, was too good to pass up. And luckily once again I've got some kick-ass friends who helped turn this idea into a reality (Patrick and Mark). So we rocketed 6 1/2 hours up to Quebec on a Friday morning to begin what was to be quite an interesting trip.
Everyone really does speak French there and it wasn't long before our twenty-something male brains were in an immature paradise filled with comical french accents and hilarious words. But to be fair, a country who's most popular gas station store is called Couche-Tard, is asking for it.
Canada largely isn't exactly known for their food and beer superiority, but if you take the time to do some research before you go, you can find some pretty decent places. Yelp and Trip Adviser are great resources for any trip and you should be able to get some good suggestions just by typing in your destination. Its quite challenging to find good places when everything is in French but we were able to find some good breweries in the area and a few decent spots to eat, Mainly La Korrigane, La Pape Georges, and Pub Le Mitan.
Along with the Crashed Ice event, which if I can sum it up into one sentence would be: A gigantic party filled with boose, neon lights, Dubstep, 100,000 people, and one awesome downhill Ice Skating track full of dudes cruising at no-tomorrowish speeds though a glorified castle town. The short version: It. Was. Awesome. I also got the opportunity to put the boots to good use and went on a frozen hike to Montmorency Falls, an 84 meter (or for us normal people 275ft) tall waterfall. That's roughly 100ft taller than Niagara Falls. It was a great hike that culminated with us sitting a few feet away from the base on a dome formed by the freezing of mist crashing off of the falls. Quite a spectacular view in which we were completely dwarfed by the falling water.
All and all a great trip, and Canada has yet again surprised me. Go visit. Besides being our hat, Canada has a lot to offer. Enough so that I might even be able to forgive them for Justin Bieber.

I also did another moderate hike at Ravenswood Park, in Gloucester MA. Pretty standard hike, nothing much to report. Cheers!

Milage: 8 Miles

Just a little guy.

Crashed Ice!

Bad Dudes.

Obligatory photo of Myself.

Over the Falls.

Illuminated Tree.

Waterfall Bridge.

The Gang.

Some Chap.

Hybernation

So why is it that once it starts to get cold out we all tend to stop doing any and all things outside? The mere thought of being cold or having a single snowflake touch us is enough to make most people bundle up and watch TV for 4 months. Now don't get me wrong, I've also been a habitual offender of this in the past. Hell up until last year I hadn't hiked once during the winter since I was in Boy Scouts, it wasn't even something that crossed my mind. "Oh it's cold out? Well it's been fun outside, cya in April." But that's completely and totally dead wrong, and the few people who have realized this will tell you the same thing. Winter is awesome. Remember that sweet waterfall you saw in summer? Yeah there's people Ice Climbing it right now. Remember that place you go swimming every July? There's people walking across it right now like wintertime Jesuses. And remember that mountain you hiked last year? It's still there, only in winter you can sit on your ass and slide all the way down it, cackling like a maniac. I know it's cold, but if you just wear a few layers and move around you'll be fine, I promise. It is completely possible to do most, if not all hikes in New England during the winter, weather permitting, and this season makes even the most familiar areas to you look totally different and surreal. So get out there and hike, just steer clear of any Yeti's.
On the topic of winter hiking, I had the chance to head up to the White mountains this past weekend with Patrick and Emily to enjoy some winter activities before the end of the season. We drove up to Lincoln, NH on Saturday morning with some loose plans and a room at a spectacular one star hotel. Room service never showed up but we were too full from the Woodstock Inn (Shameless plug) to even notice. Upon arriving in the cloud covered, lightly snowing Mountain atmosphere, we headed to the Flume Gorge to get a idea of what waterfalls looked like in winter. The answer, fortunately, was awesome, totally awesome. The waterfalls had frozen over and were covered in people ice climbing, it was a pretty great sight. Now if only I could have picked up an Ice Axe off of SteepandCheap I would have been good to go.
After checking out the gorge we headed over to Loon Mountain to partake in some zip lining. Fun stuff, it's only $26 and they let you go upside down. You should go. This weekend.
The "Death by Sandwich" I had for dinner caused me to slip into a food induced coma before midnight, and when I woke up on Sunday we packed up the car and headed to the Lonesome Lake trail head for a moderate hike up to Lonesome Lake, which at this point was completely hidden in thick cloud cover. After the mile and change hike up the side of the mountain we arrived at a side trail that went for about 50 feet before opening up into a white abyss before us. I honestly didn't even realize for a good 30 seconds that what I was staring at wasn't the edge of the world but actually Lonesome lake. Due to the cloud cover and snow squalls it was impossible to see farther than 75 feet, and the opposite side of the lake. We watched a Man? Woman? Or something cross the frozen lake before setting out and attempting it ourselves. After a brutal but epic trek across the lake we arrived at Lonesome Lake Hut, took our gear off, and belligerently ate some lunch in the crowded mess hall. After the break and warmth, we headed back out across the lake and down the mountain to the parking lot. After a second trip to the Woodstock Inn, we waddled out to the car and drove home. In two words: "Perfect Weekend" pretty much sums up the experience. With one days notice we set out on a trip and ended up accomplish everything we wanted to. Can't much complain about that. What are you doing this weekend? Have no plans and thinking about doing the same thing? I bet you could do it and keep it under $100. In fact I think you should, and let me know if you need any pointers. Thanks for reading guys, I really do appreciate it. Cheers!


Mileage: 5 Miles

Ice Climbers at the Flume Gorge.

Frosty Peaks

The Sheer Power of It!

Average Joe Mountain Man.

White Out.

BAMFs.

Contemplation.

Solo Trekker.

Making our way back across Lonesome Lake.

Lonesome Lake Hut.

Man Bear Pig.

Shoreline.

Community Site: Initiated

Hey guys! The community page is up, go check it out. So far I have three brave souls, forcefully, I mean willingly sending me their hikes. Go follow their progress Here, or via the link on the right-hand side of the page above the sweet outdated picture of my boots. And more importantly, join in. Just hike a mile, or two, or go across the country 5 times like Forest Gump. Either way get out and do it, and maybe you'll get a sweet sweet pair of free boots out of it. And who knows, if enough people get involved I might even sweeten the pot.
In other news, I entered a contest to go on a dream backpacking trip courtesy of the cool dudes over at Backpacker magazine. If you really want to watch me humiliate myself in front of the camera, the video is located here, but I'm sure no one in interested in that. Wish me luck. Oh and if I were to end up winning, I would be going back to Zion N. P. and hiking the Trans-Zion Trek, which would be completely awesome, but that goes without saying. I would also get to bring someone from the Wanderlust community along with me. Now who have I suckered into hiking the most with me over the past 2 years.........?
And finally some trip updates: It's confirmed, so far, that this year the boots will be hiking in Texas, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. Thanks for following along and cheers!

Ducks, stolen strait from my Instagram.

Plum Island during a snow storm.

Built to Roam

I wish I could explain to you the sheer ridiculous amount of travel ideas and plans that pop into my head every day. It easily breaks the single digits, in fact just today I decided I was going to Quebec City, Utah, Colorado, and San Francisco, and that was just before lunch. I can't stop thinking about going new places, I feel as though every day I'm missing out on something, like there is somewhere I'm suppose to be, some plan I have forgot about. It drives me crazy sometimes, and watching 2 hours of GoPro videos doesn't help much. How do those people do it?! How do three dudes with rockin' beards buy a van for $800 and run that shit into the ground traveling cross country doing every single awesome activity you could possibly imagine?! My sensible side thinks, did they register that van and make sure it had the proper insurances and did they plan this trip out first? But my Wanderlust side is like, fuck yeah! I want that van, and a goddamn beard just like that, lets go to New Mexico TONIGHT! WHOOO! So why can't we? Oh yeah that's right, life. Bills, and Cleaning the bathroom, and fiscal years and shit. Bummer. But there is hope for us. While we can't just gallivant around the country 24/7 like our parents own Google, we can go on vacations. That word just brings all the thoughts of Utah and Colorado and Quebec and San Fransisco back into my head, and I'm excited all over again. I can do all these things, and have a permanent address AND my hair won't smell like old fish sticks from living out of a van. So I guess what I'm getting at is, vacations are the key, they are completely, totally, and utterly awesome. So don't waste them. Seriously. Work is always going to be busy, and you're always going to owe money to something. Just plan ahead, and go, wherever it is you wanna go. Wanna see the largest ball of twine and the biggest bouncy ball? GO! Wanna go to Denali National Park and sleep next to huge grizzly bears and glaciers? Go dammit! Because I guarantee in 40 years you're not going to remember what project you worked on or who you had to make a sales call to in 2013, but you will remember when you watched a solar eclipse in Zion National Park or climbed a cliff face in a rain storm. So this year go wherever it is you've been thinking about going, book the plane tickets, cause then you have to go. And oh yeah, take me with you. I know stuff and I'll probably do something stupid at one point and you'll laugh, it will be worth it.
Also, I have gone on a few trips lately and there has been some mileage. I went up to the White Mountains a few weeks ago with my Dad and Brother for some male bonding. We went cross country skiing and explored the Kangamangus highway a bit. It was a lot of fun. I also got a chance to go on a hike on Super Bowl Sunday to Agassiz Rock. It was relatively short but absolutely worth checking out if you have a bit of free time one day. The loop is only roughly one mile but has a few glacial erratics and a semi-view of Gloucester to see. It was during this hike that I thought of attaching the GoPro a tree and then tipping it over.....needs perfecting but footage is sure to follow. Also it was snowing which made this place even better, usually the truth for hiking in New England in the winter.
Don't forget to send me your mileage when you guys go hiking! I really do have a free pair of boots to give out and I want to know where you all have hiked.  Do it!
Finally, there is going to be some changes here at Wanderlust in the next few months, adding some new features so stay tuned. Cheers!

Mileage: 1.5 miles

Fish Eye Guys.

Cross country Skiing.

Not all of it was this flat. It's fun, seriously.

Human Dead Fall trap.

2013? 2013!!

So 2012 is over. We did it. Good job team. I know most of you probably made resolutions for the past year and I can also assume that the majority of you probably didn't keep them, which is fine, I completely understand, you'll get em next year champ. So the problem with resolutions is we try to cut out things that we really like, stuff that come January 10th we are making every excuse in the book to help convince ourselves that it's OK if we cheat a bit and by February 10th we've used one of those Men in Black memory eraser things to forget we ever made the resolution in the first place. Last year my resolution, for the blog, and for life, was to hike 100 miles. Which as many of you already know by following the blog, I successfully did. In fact I ended the year with 114.5 miles. Grunt birthday party sound effect noises inserted here. So it comes time yet again to set a new goal for 2013. Should I keep it the same? Should I go crazy and double, triple, sextuple the number? Well in 2012 I would like to believe I did a lot of hiking, but if there is one thing I would change it would be the length of some of the hikes. Many of the hikes I did had low mileage, some just enough to be considered a hike. I have plenty of excuses for these hikes; the people I was with didn't want to hike that far, there wasn't enough time, I started to late in the day, chaffage. These are all valid excuses but I think in 2013 its time to ramp it up. So that being said and without going too crazy, my goal for 2013 is to hike 150 miles. But I would like to add something new this year to spice it up, and since my ultimate goal is to get more people interested in hiking, I'm adding an additional goal of 300 community miles. So having said that, I need volunteers. If you're interested I would need you to keep track of the hikes you went on, they can be with me or on your own, tally up the mileage from each hike and send it to me through email oconnorcorey85@gmail.com along with a brief (3-4 sentence) description of the hike.
Rules:

1. Hikes only count if they are on a trail. No walks on the road near your house or through the mall while shopping for UGGs.
2. Use your hiking boots! this is a blog where I track the miles put on my boots, you should too!
3. The Hike must be done in 2013. No past hikes can be used.
4. The hike must be at least one mile, and you have to give an accurate (within reason) tally of the distance traveled.
5. Take a picture, tag yourself on Facebook, Instagram it. Something to prove you were there, not just for me but for yourself. And if you don't have a smartphone that's ok, you'll be doing a lot of hiking anyways since cars haven't been invented in your time period.
6. You have to have fun. No excuses.

My goal is to reach 300 total miles from everyone's combined hiking, but since I have no limit on the amount of people who can participate that goal could be met and crushed, and I hope it will be. Along with the above requirements (which I may add a couple rules onto in the next few days) anyone who participates will be listed on the site with their brief descriptions and accumulated miles provided to me. And finally, to raise the stakes, the person who hikes the most (75 mile minimum) will get a new pair of hiking boots for 2014 ( up to $75). So please please participate and help me reach my goals this year, and spread a passion for hiking like pink eye through a public school. Do it, you know you want to.

End of 2012 stats:

• 32 Posts
• 1,819 page views
• 114.5 total miles (140.5 miles on the boots so far)
• Most popular post: Acadia National Park - Precipice Trail

Stay tuned for news about upcoming trips in 2013. Cheers!