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Picnic Princess posted:We have the Canadian Avalanche Association. They're most well known for running Avalanche Canada, which focuses on forecasts and public education/information through their website. The majority of training is through private companies affiliated with them as well as the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides and the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations. The top training company, who I went with, is Yamnuska Mountain Adventures. I took this course mostly as a requisite for my degree as I need an "advanced certificate in an applicable field" but also decided that I would probably spend more time snowshoeing in the mountains than anything else I could choose, and just wanted it for my own personal knowledge and comfort. I don't do much snow travel right now due to school and work, but I will be graduating soon and the mountains are my drug. I can't stay away. That is cool. Snowmobilers are statistically at the most risk of causing an avalanche followed closely by skiers. I spend a good amount of time in the backcountry. I picked up an ABS float air bag from BCA this year. Always nice to see people think about safety and make the right approach. Not exactly photos but a short video from Sunday: https://youtu.be/2F1vF2pC6SQ
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Mar 24, 2016 00:07
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Went hiking up around Mt Tam yesterday, pretty nice time of year with everything being green.  Saw a lot of turkey's too  
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Mar 28, 2016 18:10
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Did a hike along a stretch of the PCT near Vasquez Rocks. Everything was so green! And some of the formations out there look like they belong in Utah rather than Southern California.      
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Mar 28, 2016 18:55
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I guess I never really finished my park photo essay thing, and I should! Welcome to Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park! Not accessible by road. You have to walk, ski, horse, or heli in. I'ts in British Columbia and the shares a border with Banff National Park to the east, which is also the provincial boundary between BC and Alberta.  Golden Valley  There's a cool nearly kilometer long side alpine meadow slope that can get fairly steep at times. Thankfully I've never run into anyone coming the opposite way. If you're really bored and need 15 minutes to kill, I filmed the entire portion of the trail and stuck in on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMHTipWGK2s I stop a couple of times in it to take panorama shots.  At the bottom of the valley is a backcountry campground that's half-way inbetween the trailhead at Sunshine Meadows and Mt. Assiniboine, which is the main draw of the park. Most people skip the sideslope hike to stay at the campground. But look how far down it is. You have to climb back up to keep going. I've never stayed there. The next campground is 5km away so we always kept going and took the scenic route.  The park is home to what is thought to be the largest known non-volcanic landslide in North America, and the area is called Valley of the Rocks. It's 4.3km wide and it's estimated 1.3 billion cubic meters of rock fell after a mountain collapsed. According to lichen growth it happened about 1000 years ago.  The southeast section of the valley is not far from Mt. Assiniboine. If you split the Rockies into three regions (north, central, south), Assiniboine is the tallest peak in the southern region. You can see it from pretty much every summit within a 100km radius. It's a typical horn peak and was initially called the Matterhorn of Canada.   Some of the tent pads at Assiniboine campground have incredible views.  Lake Magog is a nice short dayhike if you're too tired or lazy to do a summit once you arrive.  Among the piles of glacial till at the base of Assiniboine.  People like to build inukshuks and cairns along the shoreline.  I've seen some really interesting rocks around here. This is a purple conglomerate comprised of large river rocks. I'm not sure the conditions it would have formed but it's definitely a place for geology nerds.  There's an historic backcountry lodge here still in operation, and this is the view that they have.  The equestrian camp is at a place called O'Brien Meadows. Horses are restricted to only one route in and out.  The first time I visited the park, we hiked out in this and had no idea we were missing that view behind us.  I'm pretty sure there are at least 1 billion Columbian ground squirrels living in the park. It was also the park where we had a grizzly approach our tent in the middle of the night. Assiniboine is not a very big park, but it's certainly worthy of existence. One of the must-sees of our Rockies.
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Apr 4, 2016 08:01
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 I'm in Arcata, California, and I took a hike in Arcata Community Forest yesterday. This is really just a local tract of land, and its pretty small, and doesn't have the towering redwoods of some of the nearby areas. But even with that, its hard to explain what these forests are like until you've been in them. They also don't photograph well. Its hard to really capture the scale of the trees, and often its bad lighting (and sometimes with a brighter sky above, which makes the photo blurry). But here is an attempt at capturing the area.
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Apr 11, 2016 02:17
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A few pics from the walks around my place (Walloon Brabant):     
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Apr 12, 2016 10:07
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   Different areas of Olympic national park this weekend
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Apr 12, 2016 17:28
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Springtime is best time
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Apr 12, 2016 20:20
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SpaceGoatFarts posted:A few pics from the walks around my place (Walloon Brabant): Gorgeous
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Apr 14, 2016 00:51
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Have some photos of springtime in Los Angeles taken at Eaton Canyon.      
HarryPurvis fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Apr 16, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 23:58
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so today I went out hikeing in the Northern Rockies in northern BC close to the Yukon border since the weather was great. Here's some pics: starting out:  gradually climbing:  climbing higher:  some views downward. You can see the Alaska highway in the distance:   mountains and stuff:  Lots of rock:  Cool view: 
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Apr 18, 2016 05:12
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Some scenes from a local secret: Highway 40/Kananaskis Trail. It's a popular biker's daytrip and lots of great scrambling opportunities. In June I plan on doing a timelapse of the best section going both directions.    Funny thing is, all these are basically the same mountain. Mt. Kidd is a crown jewel in this area. Two huge peaks, and then that little knife-edge ridge in the foreground of the third photo is the little mountain on the left of the first photo.
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Apr 18, 2016 06:43
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You Canadians, wow. I'm dying of envy about the beautiful remoteness you live right next to/in and yet I can't smell even a hint of smug. I love how raw your pictures are, Picnic. Not conventionally ideal weather, just as it is, and it is good. I think my favorite is solo winter camping on Barrier Lake. What to you do if it's ok to ask? Measuring glaciers is only a part of it?
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Apr 19, 2016 18:21
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I study ecotourism and outdoor leadership as a major in a health and physical education degree. I also have a minor in physical geography. Most of these pics are just day trips and backpacks I do for fun though. We are extremely lucky to live where we do. It's super cool to live in a city of over 1 million people and then an hour later be in wilderness that's been protected since the late 1800s. Those Mt. Kidd pics were less than an hour driving from my house. So while places like Lake Louise or Moraine Lake are once in a lifetime journeys for some people, for us it's a typical Saturday. I wouldn't move for the life of me, although I do hope I can do international contract work in ecotourism and conservation with my degree. But Calgary will always be my "basecamp". How could I ever leave this? It's about an hour on foot from the biggest highway in the country. I sincerely hope lots of people get to experience it at least once. These mountains are so humbling and grandiose that photos honestly do not do them justice.
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Apr 19, 2016 18:50
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Nice, very good to do something you really like  . Thanks for sharing as usual!
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Apr 19, 2016 21:33
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Hi, I dunno if this thread wants yet another Canadian hiker posting (Vancouver area hikes) but I made this gif today at Mount Seymour and thought it was cool enough to share!!
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Apr 25, 2016 07:03
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That's p cool. Looks beautiful and I can feel the perfect hiking weather through the screen.
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Apr 25, 2016 18:31
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I think that's amazing! You can really see the cloud formation from orographic lift!
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Apr 25, 2016 19:28
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It was a bit of a snowy day yesterday but I did get out hiking. didn't want to do anything with much elevation but did explore some of the boreal valley bottoms and such and it looked p.nice i did check out this thing tho which i thought was neat. a big erosion pillar thing standing by itself on the hillside:  There were smaller ones kinda dotting the area as well. anyway, neat stuff 
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Apr 25, 2016 19:49
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Picnic Princess posted:I think that's amazing! You can really see the cloud formation from orographic lift! buddhanc posted:That's p cool. Looks beautiful and I can feel the perfect hiking weather through the screen. Thank you!!! There was a lot of snow still up there so it was a slightly treacherous hike.   Now that I know about this thread I should post more pictures, I hike every couple of weeks in the Vancouver area, we have some ridiculously awesome trails and nature so close to the city. Just a couple weeks ago during a heat wave I took this one 
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Apr 25, 2016 20:21
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CLAM DOWN posted:Hi, I dunno if this thread wants yet another Canadian hiker posting (Vancouver area hikes) yes, and bring your friends. Thanks for the great pictures
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Apr 26, 2016 00:34
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b0ner of doom posted:It was a bit of a snowy day yesterday but I did get out hiking. didn't want to do anything with much elevation but did explore some of the boreal valley bottoms and such and it looked p.nice We have those in the Rockies too, they're glacial till under a capstone of some type that kept them from being eroded. They're a good indicator the valley you are in was carved by glaciers!
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Apr 26, 2016 01:40
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I went to tunnel falls on the Eagle Creek trail in Oregon.  Pretty cool.
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Apr 29, 2016 06:38
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Moon Potato posted:God drat, we have some talented landscape photographers in here. That is some good photography. 
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Apr 30, 2016 17:43
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 Had the pleasure of hiking in an impeccably maintained park in a small town west of Nashville. Over 17 miles of mixed-use trails (horses, bikes, hikers), but thanks to a light rain I had the place to myself!
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May 3, 2016 05:19
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I took the day off work today to hit up Golden Ears Provincial Park just outside Vancouver, I hadn't been there before and heard it was mega gorgeous and it did not disappoint. I did a little over half of the main backcountry trail, because there was snow on the 2nd half!   and there has to be a geology goon in an outdoors thread...there's a ton of granite boulders in this area, apparently dumped here by glaciers during the last ice age, and a good portion of them are covered in little rock/crystal zits, what do you think these are? The rest are smooth/zit-less so it was kinda weird how some were like this and some weren't. I know a decent bit about trees/plants/animals but rocks are something funky to me. 
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May 10, 2016 01:27
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I'm no geology nerd but it's probably just quartz?
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May 10, 2016 01:30
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Levitate posted:I'm no geology nerd but it's probably just quartz? Oh yeah maybe, I know poo poo all about rocks. It was just weird how some boulders had the crystal zits and some did not! Seemed to be random.
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May 10, 2016 01:32
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i took another hike so here's some lovely pics I did a hike that takes you to a nice alpine area where in the summer there would be flowers and stuff but at this time of year its still dead and w/e It starts near a lake shore and heads up into boreal spruce forest so you don't get many views at first  then you come to road you follow for a bit that goes to a radio tower in the area  eventually you veer off the road and hike for some kms through a nice alpine area  as you get closer to where it ends this is the view  and this is where this one ends at a nice alpine lake that's still frozen over  it was a fun day out
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May 10, 2016 04:34
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Quartz/quartzite precipitates and crsytals are super common in all rocks everywhere as those are some of the most common elements found on Earth. Here in the Rockies where everything is sedimentary CaCO3 with a bit of SiO2, all the old cracks from deep within the earth are filled with white SiO2 precipiates which sometimes crystalize and sometimes stay massive. Depends on the conditions, but it was always under high pressure and heat underground before the mountains raised into the sky. Now when cracks form they fill with water, which expands when it freezes and just pushed the rocks apart, accelerating erosion and makes our mountains crumble rather than gluing them back together. In the case of granite, those rocks are formed in slow cooling conditions. Certain minerals form at different temperatures, and when the temperature cool slowly, you get large crystals forming from certain elements at different times depending on the temperature. Rocks that cool super fast tend to turn into things like obsidian; there's no time to form crystals at all. The larger and more varied the different crystals in granite are, the longer it took to cool. That usually means it cooled below the Earth's surface and was then pushed up above by plate tectonics, as opposed to obsidian which tends to be formed by volcanoes and cooled above the surface on exposure to the atmosphere. Basalt is also formed that way but is highly porous due to gases forming air bubbles but the rock solidifies right away and leaves the holes in tact.
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May 10, 2016 08:02
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Picnic Princess posted:Quartz/quartzite precipitates and crsytals are super common in all rocks everywhere as those are some of the most common elements found on Earth. Here in the Rockies where everything is sedimentary CaCO3 with a bit of SiO2, all the old cracks from deep within the earth are filled with white SiO2 precipiates which sometimes crystalize and sometimes stay massive. Depends on the conditions, but it was always under high pressure and heat underground before the mountains raised into the sky. Now when cracks form they fill with water, which expands when it freezes and just pushed the rocks apart, accelerating erosion and makes our mountains crumble rather than gluing them back together. This is so awesome, thank you for this! Are you a geologist by trade/education? I've learned a ton about all the trees and plants and ecology/biomes of the forests and mountains here, but the geology part I don't know much. So likely these boulders would have been pushed up from forming underground, then deposited by the glaciers like tens of thousands of years ago? That's fuckin badass. I saw from your pics that you're in AB! Have you ever been to Vancouver? I'm completely in love with the mountains here. Between like 1880 and 1920 the forests were mostly logged or burned down, so you have these enormous old growth stumps everywhere surrounded by super thick/dense new growth (~100 year old) cedar and Douglas Fir that looks like this:  or this:  or this:  I'm so lucky to live here, forests are my favourite thing.
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May 10, 2016 18:18
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I took a few geology courses in university, but I keep learning because I just like it. I consider it a hobby. It's fun being able to point at big limestone cliffs in Banff and know it's called the Palliser formation. I've never really hiked the coast sadly. We have a few pockets of that same rainforest in the Rockies though, around really big peaks that form their own weather like Robson or the Presidential group in Yoho.
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May 10, 2016 20:51
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CLAM DOWN posted:This is so awesome, thank you for this! Are you a geologist by trade/education? I've learned a ton about all the trees and plants and ecology/biomes of the forests and mountains here, but the geology part I don't know much. So likely these boulders would have been pushed up from forming underground, then deposited by the glaciers like tens of thousands of years ago? That's fuckin badass. I like forests too, because I cut down trees for firewood in the fall.
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May 10, 2016 21:04
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We had some sunshine in Scotland so I decided to enjoy it while it lasts, I climbed Meall Fuar-mhonaidh because I thought it would have a great view of the whole of loch ness but it turns out there's a smaller hill blocking a big chunk of it. Anyway, I took a picture:  And the moors on the other side: 
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May 10, 2016 22:03
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So Canada, it's kind of nice, right? I took these photos from my front yard on May 7/8.        Granted it was a pretty major geomagnetic storm, the likes of which we see maybe once a year, but still. Middle of a city of 1 million people, and I got shots like that.
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May 13, 2016 04:49
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The aurora was incredible this time, I didn't take this as I don't have the gear for night pics, but someone else took this of them above Vancouver It's really rare to see them this visible in the city lights, always beautiful
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May 13, 2016 08:01
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We had an incredible event, this was a G3 level storm, on a scale of 0-5. The scale basically means where the aurora is centered on in degrees of latitude. G3 is at roughly 50 degrees. My house is 51 degrees north. We had a really high solar wind speed from a direct hit of a coronal mass ejection, it was between 500 and 700 km/second. It actually arrived 2 days earlier than expected because the wind speed was so fast. So we had the particles of the solar wind entering the atmosphere directly above my house while moving at such a high rate of speed it made it extra bright. When you get at speeds over 600km/s you can actually see the winds moving through the aurora ribbons like wind gusts through grassy meadows, if that makes sense. The ribbons are thousands of kilometers long and hundreds of kilometers high, and to see the winds dash through them in flashes is one of the most humbling experiences you can possibly imagine.
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May 13, 2016 09:22
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Wow!
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May 13, 2016 21:19
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Yeah, it was unbelievable. I've seen the northern lights quite a few times in my life, but I can only remember 1 time in recent memory that they were so visible within a city the size of Vancouver. I used to work on ships, and I remember one incredible experience in the middle of the night, pitch black everywhere, and these incredible flowing patterns glowing overhead, literally a magical moment.
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May 13, 2016 21:24
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Went up to the Rocky Mountain National Park today for a quick hike to one of my favorite little lakes Really, really enjoying the hammock  There were hundreds of elk around today, some more fashionable than others 
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May 15, 2016 02:41
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