Over the last 6ish years, I’ve been semi-consistently doing this exercise of looking back at the year just past.
It’s a great way to relive some key moments – including moments that don’t feel that key until some time has passed, see how far you’ve come, and celebrate the little wins.
To keep things on theme for my blog, this post will be all my outdoorsy highlights.
- January, February & March: Lumping them all together for peak ski season fun. Mainly at the resort with friends, but also a few times in the backcountry. A moment that stands out from this period of time is when I fell quite sick and had to sit out a ski trip with friends. I had been really looking forward to the trip, so that was a bit of a blow.
- April: Participating in a running event after more than a decade! It was only a 10K, but the main thing was that I felt really great even right after the run and did not want to give up on running forever.
- May: Snuck in a quick little bike-packing trip to Gabriola Island.
- June: My mum was visiting me and I took her backpacking for the very first time. We chose Garibaldi Lake for a combination of great views and a well-trod route. We encountered quite a bit of snow and one tricky creek crossing, but I was so proud of my mum for managing those unexpected challenges!
- July: There were two big hiking highlights this month – a personal challenge to hike the Baden Powell trail (51 km) in one day, and a camping trip with a big bunch of friends to the 5040 peak on Vancouver Island. As I grow older, I really cherish these active/outdoorsy trips with friends, because it’s such a good way to spend quality time with them.
- August: Went on a road trip to the Okanagan, with a goal of checking off some hikes from my tattered copy of 103 Hikes of SWBC. We did four across two weekends! It was also the month that I wrapped up yet another season of Mountain Mentors.
- September: I was in Germany, so we decided to head out to Zugspitze on a lark. We did not make it to the summit because the weather conditions weren’t great, but we got to spend the night at Reintalanger Hut, with its delicious three-course vegan dinner and super cosy vibes. Honestly, the huts are the main reason I enjoy hiking in the Alps so much.
- October & November: Continued chipping away at hikes from the book, but eventually switched to bagging low lying urban “peaks” as the days got shorter.
- December: I was back in Oaxaca after 6 years, and of course had to go on a hike! We headed out on a self-guided trip to the Pueblos Mancomunados, a group of self-governed villages with a network of trails and fantastic eco-tourism facilities. Trip report for this is incoming!
I somehow missed doing this for 2024, but you can also check out my highlights from 2023.