UPDATE — Durability is not all that great. I wore through my first pair quickly.
Still … since I love the shoe I ordered two more pairs from New Balance Canada.
9 1/2 4E and 9 4E. CAD$145 each.
These days I want as much cushioning as I can get. This shoe is good for road and trail running though I mostly wear them inside for coaching Gymnastics.
This area is characterized by thick forests, fjords, glaciers, canals and steep mountains. …
Among the world’s finest road trips, the Carretera Austral – or “Southern Highway” – is a 1240km route through Chile that’s mostly about half unpaved. Winding through millennia-old forests, it visits dusty Andean hamlets and turquoise rivers spawned from landlocked glaciers. …
Cyclists should have the skills and materials to repair their own gear, and should plan on taking a solid month for the entire endeavor. According to Italian cyclist Tomas Balzk, the hardest part was not pedaling the terrain, but ingesting enough calories. …
I’m on the road for a few months — needing all my hiking gear — as well as city duds for Gymnastics events.
Normally I pack heavy, often close to the maximal allowed weight and size allowances for flight. But this time I’m trying to stay close to carry-on weight and size. Sadly I’ve only got away with that twice, so far. I should have gone heavy after all. 🙄
Click this link to see what I’m carrying on this trip (in blue) and what I plan to carry on a longer future trip in 2020:
Bled is a super popular tourist town on a tiny, lovely lake.
I had arrived at the hostel in Ljubljana at 10pm. Next morning by 9am I had joined a group headed for Bled.
It’s an adventure tourism mecca: rafting, canyoning, cycling, rock climbing, mountain climbing. I watched scuba divers climb into the lake first thing in the morning.
We had 2 cars and one motor bike. Fellow travellers from the U.K., California, Belgium, France and Singapore. One reason why I like hostels so much better than hotels.
I paid for my ride in beer. Standard hostel currency.
We circumambulated the lake. Visited the “castle“. Then drove off to hike Vintgar Gorge.
An excellent day was punctuated by this sunset.
Don’t forget your camera.
At dinner we met two guys from Zurich. One hoped to climb Triglav 2864m. With guide that costs about 200€. It’s tough to get an alpine hut booking during high season so he came in October.
Tenby is my favourite tourist destination in Wales, so far.
It’s a perfect little tourist town. Cute. Lots to see and do. Stay 2-3 nights. Be sure to do some hiking on the Pembrokeshire Coast Path while you are there.
But the hike that most intrigued was a ridge walk out of Interlaken, Switzerland. A climber, Brendan Leonard, claimed the Hardergrat, or Brienzergrat (“grat” = ridge) was the best hike in the world. I’d never even heard of it.
But his photos could not be denied. This looked amazing.
So I flew to Zurich, my first trip back since the World Gymnastics Gymnaestrada 1982. It did not look familiar. My memory is terrible.
Trains in Switzerland are super efficient, super expensive. It’s easy and costly to zip around. After a day in Zurich, I hopped the train to Interlaken East.
Interlaken is a tourist trap filled with rich Arab, Asian and Indian suitcase tourists. But it was worth staying just to enjoy one of the best hostels in Europe – Backpackers Villa Sonnenhof. In fact, I can’t recall any hostel with more amenities.
On arrival at the hostel I asked the girl at the desk about Hardergrat. She cursed Brendan Leonard. Told me he’d single handedly popularized a very dangerous route. AND they’d hiked it in the wrong direction. All locals KNOW you should do it starting in Brienz, finishing Interlaken. She gave me some good advice.
A really long, tough day, I made it. Almost 10 hours with only very short breaks.
As I did in 2009 while I was here, I reread the Eiger Sanction by Travanian (1972). It holds up pretty well. Lot’s of violence and murder and politically incorrect sex. Clint Eastwood directed and played the starring role in the 1975 film.
Rick McCharles 