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Outdoor Tips, Tricks, Inspiration and Activities | MEC Blog

We go outside, initially, because our parents make us.

We protest of course, longing to stay inside and watch TV or build furniture forts, but they point unflinchingly towards the door. And reluctantly, we trudge out.

But soon we discover puddles to jump in, bugs to catch, and trees to climb. Then we are off, pasting maple keys to our noses, blowing dandelion fluff on the winds, holding buttercups to our chins and tasting clover. Notably, we need no instructions or encouragement to engage with the world beyond our walls. If one ever needs proof that we are all, at the core, creatures of the wild, just watch how instinctively children explore a forest or wander a shoreline.



As the years pass, a slow yet undetected metamorphosis occurs, until one day we wake up, and realize we are heading for the door voluntarily, instinctively, even longingly. A fondness for nature is both innate and universal, posits E. O. Wilson. One might even call it an addiction – of the healthiest variety, I’d argue, for both mind and body.

Gradually, as cement walls and daily obligations rise around us, we begin organizing our schedules to include a bike ride in the park, a walk through the forest, or paddle on the lake. We dream of the weekends when we set off, along with a posse of like-minded friends, towards mountains or beach, national parks, secret spots and roadside camps. Leaving our beds and residences behind, we return to another home; to sand between the toes, sun on the shoulders, wind in our hair, and at night, the solid earth beneath us.

We go outside to rinse ourselves of worldly stress, and to taste again that simple life. In our escape, we leave behind Facebook and Twitter for a brief time, choosing instead face-to-face time beside the campfire, and the tweet of the kingfisher along the riverbank.



We go outside to recharge. To sweat. To ingest a healthy dose of dirt. And learn lessons that cannot be taught in any book or website. We go to test ourselves, and our instincts. To enjoy our friends in a different light. To set our imaginations alight. We go to taste freedom.



Amid those cathedral groves, blue waters and high peaks, we glimpse the insignificance – and the ephemeral beauty – of our own precious life. In the process, we unearth a kinder, gentler incarnation of ourselves. It seems an inescapable truth that we are always a better person for having been outdoors.

In an increasingly neurotic, stressed, socially isolated, sedentary and suburbanized world, we go outside to make sense of what’s going on inside. To lose ourselves, and to find ourselves. We go outside for reasons that transcend words.

With time, we begin dragging our own kids outside too. Or our friends’ kids. Or nephews and nieces. To sniff fresh-cut grass, cherry blossoms and budding poplar. To carve sticks, ride bikes and skin knees. To feel the soft belly of a gasping trout, and marvel at a fluttering hummingbird. To light a fire with birch bark. Roast marshmallows. And watch the Milky Way drift across the heavens.



Call us a crew if you like – the outdoorsy ones, the dirtbags and granola munchers, treehuggers, nature lovers, and fitness freaks – but we go outside simply because we love it.

If you’re not already out there, playing around too… well, we’re sure hoping you’ll join us. There is always room for another beside the campfire.



## Related articles
- [Day hiking for beginners](/en/explore/day-hiking-for-beginners)
- [Backpacking basics: How to plan an overnight hiking trip](/en/explore/planning-for-overnight-hikes)
- [How hiking has changed my life](/en/article/how-hiking-has-changed-my-life)



For the outdoorsy ones, the dirtbags, the nature lovers and fitness freaks. MEC Ambassador Bruce Kirkby explores what drives us to get out there.

Why we go outdoors

The task was simple: move from Ottawa to Vancouver in five days. With those instructions, it would have been easy to think of it as nothing more than A to B, and a 5500 km straight shot across the continent. And why not? A new job, a new city, and a new life were waiting out west. It could have been little more than one long ride.

Five days of the driver seat and the fast lane. An endless number of billboards, truck stops, and little white lines, blurred together by the vision of a single destination. But it also could have been a lifetime worth of opportunity, slipping through our fingers with each kilometer traveled. A world of adventure, passing by as fast as the road we traveled over.

See, if there’s one thing I’ve come to believe, it’s that the greatest experiences are not exclusive to the grandest plans. The moments we so deeply long to live are in no way reserved for only the most exotic trips. They are held for those who search for them, who step out of the everyday routine, and who take them. It was this simple belief that made those five days so much more than a long drive. It transformed them into an opportunity to explore, adventure, and connect with a world we then knew nothing about. It turned a car ride into a road trip, and turned the kilometers into opportunities to seek the unknown. The journey became a destination in and of itself.

Because of that simple shift, I don’t have to tell you what I think it could have been. I can show you.

It was taking moments to get back to the things that matter most:



and chance after chance to embrace the unknown.



It was taking time to make new friends:



and learning lessons in history, without stepping into a classroom.



It was places that looked like different planets,



and waking up on the side of a mountain.



knowing full well it would likely lead us astray.



It was landscapes that left us looking at this world differently



and moments we still can’t find the words to describe.



It was a reminder that some of the best things are not on the well-travelled path



and that sometimes you have to go where there is no path at all.



And coffee just about anywhere we could get our hands on it.



It was a reminder that the “little moments” really aren’t so little.



And that we should spend just a little more time kicking back and taking it in.



It was Ottawa, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, Minnesota, Badlands, Rushmore, Black Hills, Big Horn, Yellowstone, Butte, Columbia, Seattle, home and everything in between.



We saw things we didn’t know existed and learned things we didn’t know were there to learn. Felt emotions we didn’t know we could feel and created memories that will change the way we live our lives.

It was anything but A to B.



*This post was submitted by Julian DeSchutter from [Chasing Sunrise](https://www.instagram.com/ChasingSunrise/). You can keep up with Julian on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/deshoots/).*



Vancouver to Ottawa: Finding adventure at every turn | MEC Blog

Vancouver to Ottawa: Finding adventure at every turn

For the past six years, Canada’s current fastest marathoner* and New Balance athlete Reid Coolsaet has spent 4–10 weeks training in the small Kenyan village of Iten. This year, his sights are set clearly on Rio.

Iten, Kenya, is the “Home of Champions.” Runners from all over the world come to train at this rural town 2400m above sea level, and this is where Reid Coolsaet comes to test his limits. He runs with locals who’ve finished a marathon in 2:06 and a half marathon in under 60 minutes, and he regularly runs a half marathon’s worth of kilometers in one day, ranging from 155 to 170km in one week. *Whoa*.

When you have just a few months to go before you race alongside the world’s best athletes in Rio, there’s a necessary predictability built into your daily itinerary: fuel, train, recover.

To give us an idea of what life is like leading up to such a big event, Reid shares an in-depth look at what goes into two days of his training stint in Iten.



## Hours 0–24
##### Fuel
My goal here is to leave fitter than when I arrived – it sounds simple, but because I’ve been doing this for so many years I can tell a lot by listening to my body, and it starts with fueling.

The High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) where I stay caters to Western athletes, and today’s breakfast includes eggs, porridge, bread and pancakes, plus tea and juice. Later I dip into Club Iten, a restaurant where the wifi is good and the mango juice is fresh.

I have lunch at my friend Thomas’s house. He lives with his wife Doris and daughter Grace in a one-room apartment adorned with race medals and posters; Doris has an upcoming marathon in Tanzania. There’s no running water, just a well outside and outhouses. Their small television plays dubbed over Spanish soap operas (very popular amongst Kenyans) as we sip a sweet milky tea with heaps of sugar. We also eat pawpaw fruit, which tastes like cantaloupe, as well as potatoes and beans. It seems crazy to me how simple their life is, and although many people don’t have much here they don’t seem poor in the sense North Americans are used to – they don’t stress about things they don’t have and aren’t in debt for a lifestyle they’re trying to capture but can’t afford.



For dinner at HATC, they serve Kenyan specialties. *Ugali* is close to polenta and made from cornmeal and there’s the nutrient dense and kale-like *sukuma wiki*. Kenyan runners swear by *ugali*as a big source of energy and even cook it in hotel rooms abroad before races.

##### Train*
*
Today I’m running at my own pace. I pass children bundled up as though it’s the dead of winter. At 10–12°C in the early morning, the locals find it very cold. There are athletes of all different speeds out running, and almost all have tights and a jacket. I’m one of the few wearing shorts (very Canadian). I run 18km in an hour and 20 minutes, which is quite routine for me. My legs are fairly tired from the last few weeks of intense training, but a little soreness and fatigue is just part of the game. Later I do another 10km in 45 minutes with fellow Canadian John Mason.

I spend some time at the gym at HATC and go through my core routine, which I do 2–3 times per week. It consists of functional movements on my feet, work with a medicine ball, planks and injury prevention exercises.

##### Recover
I’ve been running up to 170km per week lately, which isn’t really high for me, but it’s enough that I feel like taking a nap. I feel very comfortable in Kenya, it’s like a second home to me. The weather, the trails, the people and the atmosphere are great.



## Hours 24–48
##### Fuel
Breakfast is functional tea and oatmeal. I dive into my stash of protein bars mid-morning and round things out with lunch of vegetable soup, fresh bread rolls, rice, lentils and salad.

*Ugali*, *sukuma wiki* and salad are on the dinner menu tonight, as well as beef stew and roasted potatoes with watermelon for dessert. It was a solid day, so I decide to treat myself to a mango and beetroot juice, too.

##### Train
Over 200 athletes use the track at Kamariny Stadium between 7 and 11am. Today’s work out begins at 9:10am and it’s hard. I prep by going through my stretching routine, listening to music and applying some much-needed sunscreen.

I lace up my [New Balance](/en/products/footwear/shoes/c/1195?filters%5Bcustom_fields.ideal%20for%5D%5B0%5D=running&filters%5Bbrand%5D%5B0%5D=new%20balance&q=%3Asales-rank&text=) 1400v1 racing flats and finish off my 5km warm-up around the track. I brought a slightly used pair of runners so I could give them away to a local athlete at the end of my training camp. I came here with 16 pairs and will leave with just three.



There are typically 40–50 athletes in the group I train with. About 10 guys who all have experience racing abroad are doing 15 x 1000m and are targeting 2:50–2:55 for each interval, with just over two minutes rest between them. I join in, averaging 2:55 for the first six intervals while hanging on to the back of the group.

Martin Matathi (2007 World Championship 10,000m Bronze Medalist) picks up the pace on the seventh interval and I trail the group by a few seconds. I’m pretty tired and I’d rather run with the group than fall behind, so I decide to run the first 600m of their 1000m for the last eight intervals, embracing the extra rest. They ask me to pace the last two. I’m a little nervous about screwing up, but I hit the splits right on and run 1:43 and then 1:42 while leading the remaining seven guys still in the workout.

Later, I do an easy 6km run to get my daily running volume up to 26km. I run some drills and a bunch of kids come over. They mime my running drills, lunges, high knees and jumps.



##### Recover
I venture over to Dan’s apartment for a massage. He’s a really good masseuse and only charges 500 shillings (about $7 CDN) for an hour. I’ve heard different stats but it sounds as though the average income is about $1000 CDN a year in rural Kenya, plus I’ve seen world record holders getting massages here.



In the 12 weeks leading up to the games in Rio I’d like to average around 200km per week. Physiotherapy, stretching and pool running will keep me in training mode. My goal for Rio? To finish in the top 15 in the marathon or top 10 if training is going really well.

*We’ll be rooting for you in Rio, Reid. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes look at life training in Iten. – MEC*

**Reid Coolsaet is the second fastest Canadian marathon runner ever, after Jerome Drayton (2:10:09 in 1975), and is the current fastest at only 10 seconds behind Drayton at 2:10:29. That’s pretty darn fast.*



Road to Rio: 48 hours in Kenya with Reid Coolsaet | MEC Blog

Road to Rio: 48 hours in Kenya with Reid Coolsaet

This winter we hooked up with Canadian free skiers Mike Henitiuk, Joe Schuster, Riley Leboe, and Matt Margetts from the web series *Seeking Nirvana*. Sit back and enjoy three episodes of vast powder bowls, big lines and good-time skiing with friends.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 1: Home


This is the mountain village of Whistler, 675m above sea level. Forested with old growth fir and cedar. An important black bear habitat. Criss-crossed by deep valleys making way to endless glaciers. There are few paved roads but instead many miles of intersecting logging roads and dirt trails. It is an El Nino year. We are on the far edge of the Howe Sound, famous for fierce storms, which will make landfall from the west, come December.

4 men make haste into the storm in search of vast powder bowls, to which the mountain village has garnered a reputation. A difficult task, travelling the unchartered terrain, requires the groups combined wits. Only persistence and a spot of luck will reward success. The adventure begins in the mountain village they call home but foreign lands beckon. A journey awaits and a feeling desired. We follow this group, through trials and triumph, Seeking Nirvana.


Created by:
Mike Henitiuk
Joe Schuster
Riley Leboe
Matt Margetts

Cinematography by:
Taylor Loughran

Edited by:
Leigh Powis

Narration by:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Graphic Design by:
Alex Viau

Seeking Nirvana 1.1 - Home



This is the mountain village of Whistler, 675m above sea level. Forested with old growth fir and cedar, an important black bear habitat. Criss-crossed by deep valleys making way to endless glaciers. There are few paved roads but instead many miles of intersecting logging roads and dirt trails. It is an El Nino year. The far edge of Howe Sound is famous for fierce storms.

Four men make haste into the storm in search of vast powder bowls, to which the mountain village has garnered a reputation. A difficult task, travelling uncharted terrain requires the group’s combined wits. Only persistence and a spot of luck will reward success. The adventure begins in the mountain village they call home but foreign lands beckon. A journey awaits and a feeling desired. We follow this group, through trials and triumph, seeking nirvana.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 2: Cabin Fever


Childhood friends embark on a journey past roads-end. Far from civilization, deep in the wilds of British Columbia, time slows as they align with their surroundings. Battling blizzards they quest towards untracked landscapes of powder glory. Through trial and triumph they tirelessly press on. The snow falls, the angst builds. Fever has set in...

Strange adventures await, Seeking Nirvana.

Created by:
Mike Henitiuk ~ @mikeheni
Joe Schuster ~ @joe_schuster
Riley Leboe ~ @rileyleboe
Matt Margetts ~ @mattmargetts

Follow us:
@seeking.nirvana 

Video Editing, Sound Design and Color Grade:
Leigh Powis

Cinematography:
Taylor Loughran

Aerial Cinematography:
Dylan Ross

Narration:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Graphic Design:
Alex Viau

Seeking Nirvana 1.2 - Cabin Fever



Childhood friends embark on a journey past road’s end. Far from civilization, deep in the wilds of British Columbia, time slows as they align with their surroundings. Battling blizzards, they quest towards untracked landscapes of powder glory. Through trial and triumph they press on. The snow falls, the angst builds. Fever has set in. Strange adventures await.

#### Seeking Nirvana | Part 3: The Lucky Strike


This band of seekers have found a treasure, a mother lode if you will... it's time to stake their claim and strike it rich! This treasure.... it’s not the conventional kind ... gold, diamonds or other such things ... this treasure is much more rare. Found only in the alpine, an land of unrelenting rock and ice, caped with soft and endless snow.

Created by:
Mike Henitiuk ~ @mikeheni
Joe Schuster ~ @joe_schuster
Riley Leboe ~ @rileyleboe
Matt Margetts ~ @mattmargetts

Follow us:
@seeking.nirvana

Fellow Traveller:
Josh Bibby

Video Editing, Sound Design and Color Grade:
Leigh Powis

Cinematography:
Taylor Loughran

Aerial Cinematography:
Dylan Ross

Narration:
Colby James West
Jay Henitiuk

Seeking Nirvana 1.3 - The Lucky Strike



This band of seekers have found a treasure, a mother lode if you will… it’s time to stake their claim and strike it rich! This treasure…. it’s not the conventional kind … gold, diamonds or other such things … this treasure is much more rare. Found only in the alpine, an land of unrelenting rock and ice, caped with soft and endless snow.

*All videos via [Seeking Nirvana](https://vimeo.com/user48494445) on Vimeo.*



3 episodes of vast powder bowls, big lines and good-time skiing. Features Canadian free skiers Mike Henitiuk, Joe Schuster, Riley Leboe, and Matt Margetts from the web series Seeking Nirvana.

Seeking Nirvana captures backcountry ski radness | MEC Blog

Seeking Nirvana captures backcountry ski radness

*What does it take to capture a one-one thousandth-of-a-second, once-in-a-lifetime shot? Reuben reveals how he teamed with Salomon, trekked to the Arctic Circle, and captured a skier in a solar eclipse.*

A third of the way through Salomon’s latest episode of [Freeski TV](http://freeskitv.salomon.com/en/episodes/eclipse?intcmp=mainmea_vertical_us_hp_eclipse_FW15#eclipse-1), viewers meet the dreamer behind a questionable chase to the Arctic Circle. His ambition: to capture a skier in motion during one of nature’s rarest phenomena – a total solar eclipse. The subject is photographer Reuben Krabbe, who wowed ski fans in February 2015 after capturing fellow ambassador Tobin Seagel skiing against a backdrop of the northern lights.

“There’s a Grant Gunderson photograph of a skier amongst a trail of stars,” says Reuben, citing the Gunderson work as the inspiration for his Aurora Borealis shot. “After that photograph of Tobin, I was looking at maps available through NASA that show all of the different places where solar eclipses are going to happen in the next 20, 50, 100, 200 years.” So where was Reuben to find his white whale? Svalbard – a Norwegian group of islands sandwiched between mainland Norway and the North Pole. Rugged and teeming with glaciers, frozen tundra, and a fellowship of polar bears, it’s the very definition of remote, and one of just two places where the total eclipse could be viewed in 2015.



Roughly one solar eclipse appears per year, but typically in places where people won’t see them, such as the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Worse yet, they often occur when the moon is too far away from earth, so it doesn’t fully cover the sun.

Eager to bring his dream to life, Reuben pitched the idea to the director of Salomon Freeski TV, Mike Douglas, in late 2014. He recognized the hook of the story immediately: this had never been done before. But, there were risks. “We both knew the chances of it working out were so low – if you miss it through the clouds, it’s not that interesting. It’s completely boring actually. You’d just be able to show a time lapse of a cloudy day getting dark and bright again.” Salomon came back to Reuben with a green light. “They said, ‘we love this idea, let’s do everything possible to make this happen in the best way.’ I was completely taken aback.”

The team consisted of skiers Chris Rubens, Cody Townsend and Brody Leven; director and filmmaker Anthony Bonello; on-slope videographer Bjarne Salen; guide Steve Lewis; Reuben; a camp cook; and two ski guides (one an ex-trauma doctor). They spent three weeks on Svalbard and winter-camped while scouting locations for an additional 12 days. Reuben credits Bonello as the coordinator behind the trip, allowing Reuben to simply make sure he was winter ready. His set up included the [MEC Radiator Parka](/en/product/5036-945/Radiator-Parka), boot warmers, and essentially everything a person needs to not freeze.



Leading up to the eclipse, the team had no idea of the elements they would face. Clear days were used to scout the right location, leading to some frustrated skiers. “We were burning these bluebird days that have stable snow and perfect light and we hadn’t got to ski great stuff yet, just two little chutes. They were all looking at all the stuff they wanted to ski and the pursuit of this single photo – a photo we don’t know whether or not will turn out – is preventing them from skiing,” Reuben sympathizes. “It’s just this impossible thing to deal with. They went through with it, but were vocal, which is good. I was just as frustrated that I was the person standing in the way.”

When the day of the eclipse finally arrived, the team was elated to see the weather was working in their favour, and Reuben’s dream was realized. Bonello shot some stunning footage of the total eclipse: waves of light gently rippling around a massive black orb. As the light changes, Svalbard appears as an alternate world with two moons; one bright orange, the other heavy ebony, both filled with quiet contrast and mystery. For a short time, the sky goes black, and moments later dawn-like rays careen into the scene, blanketing sheets of fresh white powder in light.

“It was pure elation. Everyone finally understood why this is such a dramatic thing that people fly around the world to just watch,” says Reuben. “We got to create something with it. The success validated the entire pursuit. And then, finally, we got to go skiing. We went back to camp, grabbed some food, and went. We got some beautiful shots [of that] right away. It was nice, to go back to simple shooting in the Arctic.”



Salomon’s Freeski TV episode recently screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival to great acclaim, taking home the grand prize for Best Film in the Snow Sports category. “I had no idea going into it that it was going to have this kind of reception outside of skiers. It put this huge validating stamp on this concept and the entire project,” says Reuben. “It’s been a beautiful way to kick things off.”

For now, Reuben is enjoying the afterglow. “Regardless of whether you’re a skier or not, when you see the solar eclipse photo, you can’t help but stop and look and start trying to figure out ‘What is this? The moon? The sun? How on earth did they do this?’ I think the fact that I can do that by capturing one-one-thousandth of a second is just so cool.”

*– Photos by Reuben Krabbe. Check out MEC’s selection of [Salomon gear](/en/brand/salomon/products/gear/c/gear?q=%3Asales-rank&text=).*



The photo of a lifetime: solar eclipse | MEC blog

The photo of a lifetime: solar eclipse

Emelie Stenberg pulled out a map of the Pamirs and walked us through her plan to traverse the Fedchenko Glacier in Tajikistan. Her idea sounded horrible. Vince and I were hooked. So we started planning the longest and most ambitious expedition of our lives. *–**Story**by Holly Walker, photos and video by Vince Shuley*

#### Day 8 of 29: May 7 (4200m)
I leaned on the outside wall of the Gorbunov meteorological station, sipping on a splash of génépi to celebrate with the team. Our arrival onto the Fedchenko Glacier was now just 300m away. Warm sun beat on my face and I wiggled my toes on the dry rocks in front of me. Taking another sip of génépi – one of our two bottles of booze we carried up here – I questioned the bottle’s weight. At that point, I also questioned how we’d even gotten here.



It had taken two years of planning, three days of flights, five days of in-country preparation with three days of ground transportation in an overloaded Nissan Patrol SUV and a GAZ-66 Russian military truck in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province (GBAP). Then eight days of slogging up and down, up and down the talus-covered Russian Geographical Society (RGS) Glacier with almost 90kg of gear each.

Now we were at the access point onto the Fedchenko Glacier. We’d travelled up the crevasse-ridden RGS Headwall three times, and our five-person team – Team Flow – was deep in the Pamir Mountains, the so-called Roof of the World. The surrounding peaks were massive, some rising above 6000m, and the 77km Fedchenko Glacier was vast.



I felt so little.

#### 587 days prior to day 1: (200m)
Photojournalist Vince Shuley and I met Ski Guide Emelie Stenberg for dinner. She had ideas to ski crazy zones in Central Asia, and walked us through her plan to traverse the Fedchenko Glacier. During her research, she’d also found an old Alpine Journal article about a Russian ski expedition that traversed the Pamirs in 1995.

> “Ours was the first unsupported expedition to cross the Pamirs from the SE to the NW – a distance of 480km. If you try to imagine spending 30 days as one of a small four-member group, at altitudes up to 6000m and temperatures sometimes down to -34°C, with only 550 grams of dry food per person per day, you will have some idea of the challenge we faced.” – From the Transpamirs Ski Expedition, The Alpine Journal, 1995
>
I knew nothing of the former Soviet Union “stans” nor the Pamirs. Tajikistan is west of China, north of Afghanistan, east of Uzbekistan and south of Kyrgystan. The Pamirs take up about eighty per cent of the country and mainly lie in the GBAP, and there are few recorded stories of its 6000m-plus peaks.



#### Day 1 of 29: April 30, (2500m)
Yesterday, Team Flow passed all the necessary military checkpoints and we were only three kilometres away from Poi Mazar when our overloaded SUV burst a tire trying to cross the river. Saidali, our local fixer from Pamir Guides, made a call on his cellphone to Jafar, our host in Poi Mazar. We frantically organized our gear for the 30-day expedition in the dark, leaving any unnecessary equipment and food in the SUV. Jafar and his GAZ-66 truck arrived and we loaded it up as I negotiated the rate of passage – what later seemed like a pointless task when our other choice was to sit in the dark on a riverbank full of boulders for the night. Our driver bade us farewell and left us with a warning, “Be careful, you will get so high that Sputnik will hit you.”

When we arrived at Jafar’s home, he fed us our final home-cooked meal for the next month and registered our team’s entrance into Tajik National Park. We wrote our team’s intention of crossing the RGS glacier, traversing the Fedchenko and exiting out towards the Bartang Valley. Jafar gestured avalanches with his hands and shook his head. He then flipped through his Tajik-English dictionary and pointed at one word: “impossible.”

We loaded back into the military truck and continued the bumpy ride to the foot of the RGS glacier, and started ski touring with our packed sleds. After 400m, we hit the River Abdulkhahor. As I sat with my gut rotting from recently ingested water or food, Selena entered the river to gauge the deepness. Zebulon shimmed across a destroyed bridge line to the other side of the river to create a Tyrolean traverse. We shuttled our 90kg duffles and backpacks over before crossing the river on foot and soaking ourselves.



Two months before our departure, Emilie, Vince and I had decided that our team would need at least one or two more members in case one of us got hurt and the other two couldn’t begin the traverse. We had recruited Zebulon Blais, a guide on Mount Rainier with numerous Denali expeditions under his belt, and Selena Cordeau, a glaciologist and expedition cook who’d completed several sizeable ski traverses. Their experience was obvious and we were happy to have them on board, despite only having travelled less than a kilometre on our first day.

#### Day 15 of 29: May 14 (4800m)
*Whumpf…* “Avalanche! Avalanche!” yelled Zeb. I watched his yellow jacket sliding down about 10–12m to the left of me. The slab continued to propagate, hitting Vince. Emelie had been standing next to me on the track digging a hasty pit, now she began traversing away quickly from the slide path. I took my eyes off of Zeb’s yellow jacket, flipped a 180 and began descending in touring mode with my ski crampons.

As I stopped, Emelie raced back towards the slide path and yelled for everyone to switch their transceivers to search mode. Selena, the most downhill of the group, raced up towards Vince, who screamed he was fine and to go find Zeb.

We spotted a hand wiggling its fingers in the debris. Zeb had raised his arm in a desperate effort to fight the snow as it slowed and solidified around him. Emelie and Selena dug his face free with their bare hands, and Selena and I dropped down to the side of his body to quickly dig in a conveyor belt fashion. As Emelie protected Zeb’s face, he gasped for air. Selena and I cleared his body, removed his backpack and checked him for injuries from head to toe. Zeb was unharmed but cold and shaken.

We found his skis and poles a metre deep in the debris and quickly gathered our gear to return to Camp 7. Having left camp at 5:00am with -25°C and no formal breakfast, we headed to the kitchen tent to eat, evaluate the incident and examine the human factors that lead to this incident. We had already skied two days of 20-degree slopes and decided that risking our group on any steeper terrain this deep in the Pamirs would be frivolous. Our dreams of first descents were beaten.



#### Day 22 of 29: May 21 (5500m)
After four days of bad weather, and being tent-bound reading our books backwards, we awoke at 6:30am to sun shining on our tents. It was our window, our “go time.” We rallied a quick breakfast, put on our skins, grabbed our day kits and started skinning fast in frigid temperatures.



Again, I felt so little. As we reached the fork at the end of the Fedchenko Glacier, 6940-m Independence Peak (formerly Peak Revolution) towered above us. Team Flow smiled and took a group picture before Selena retreated back to Camp 8. She’d been plagued with symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness for almost ten days with our altitude above 4000m, and Diamox offered her little help.

The four of us continued on to ascend a col to the west. At our high point of 5500m, we looked down the Yazgulom Valley to another vast glacier and endless high peaks of the Pamir Range.



#### Day 28 of 29: May 27 (3900m)
We awoke at 5:00am, had a quick breakfast, and set off back up the Tanimas Valley. Our backpacks were empty and we had one final load to retrieve before settling back into Kok Jar Pass for the night to wait for our pick up from Pamir Guides the next morning.

My biggest challenges were at the beginning and the end, where we were forced to carry the weight all on our backs. Off the glaciers, we couldn’t use our sleds due to talus, scree and crevasses. On day six, I broke down and sobbed my first tears to Vince, and he gave me a reassuring hug. I hadn’t expected to walk in running shoes over scree for days, carrying all my load. I told him my body ached and that I wanted to go home.

Now, near the end of our journey, Vince and I made a pact to retrieve our final load by 11:00am. I got there at 10:55am, loaded my pack, traded my last salami with Emelie in exchange for some Clif Shot Bloks, and started to shuffle over rocks and plunge through the river crossing with my final 27kg of gear. I was amazed to see goshawks flying in the air, ibex scaling the sides of mountains, and rusted tin cans in the dirt, all signs that we were no longer so far from civilization.

Both Vince and I were reaching exhaustion and we knew we’d each lost about 4.5kg, but the last section continued to test us.

In the final 10km of our 43km day, the wind picked up and tried to blow us back up to the Fedchenko. On our last river crossing, I was almost swept away because the bottom of my sled got caught by the swift water and nearly flipped me on my back. Vince threw me his ski pole and pulled me to shore, where we rested and ate our last few Clif shots. Then, with Camp 13 in sight, we got hit by a big dust storm, followed by a torrential downpour.



We dragged ourselves into camp, wet and exhausted. We could see the road on the mountain side and knew that another SUV would greet us with the next sunrise.

Vince gave me a big hug and said, “We’re going home Holly, we’re going home.”

*Photography and video by [Vince Shuley](http://www.vinceshuley.com/).**Skier and writer [Holly Walker](http://www.hollywalker.ca/) lives in Whistler when she’s not travelling in search of perfect pow. She is sponsored by Mammut, K2 Skis, Clif Bar, Smith, POW and Mons Royale.*

*The Fedchenko Expedition was made possible with grants from the [MEC Expedition Support Fund](/en/explore/outdoor-impact), [Alpine Club of Canada Jen Higgins Fund](http://www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/community/financial-grants/) and [Polartec Challenge Grant](http://polartec.com/). Additional expedition sponsors include [inReach Canada](http://www.inreachcanada.com/), [Goal Zero](http://www.goalzero.com/), [Clif Bar](http://www.clifbar.ca/), [Darn Tough Socks ](http://darntough.com/)and [Beal Ropes](http://www.beal-planet.com/). Over 135kg of clothing donations to villagers in the GBAP was made possible by MEC, [Whistler Blackcomb](http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/) and the kind people of Tahoe and Whistler. Special thanks to [Pamir Guides](http://www.pamirguides.com/) / Saidali Gaidbuldaev for ground transportation and logistics and to Sebastian Tallent for Pamir weather updates.*



Flow of the Fedchenko | MEC Blog

Flow of the Fedchenko

MEC works with a group of athletes who inspire people, strive to innovate, and set benchmarks within their field. As a member of the [Ambassador program](/en/explore/mec-ambassadors), Jim embodies these values and in 2014, completed an incredible achievement by setting the record for running the entire length of the Bruce Trail. While doing it, he raised nearly $2500 for [Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society](http://www.cpaws.org/) (CPAWS).

It took him 10 days, 13 hours and 57 minutes to run all 855 km of the trail, shattering the previous record by nearly 2 full days.

Here are some excerpts from the captain’s log he kept and posted along the way:

### Captain’s log, Bruce Trail run, 3.5 days in
I’m stopping to take a little break so I thought I’d share a few thoughts and points about the first three and a half days on the trail.

- The terrain on the first day was so challenging that I was actually cursing the earth for forging such awe inspiring geological landscapes. The earth and I have since come to peace.
- Yesterday, along a muddy section of trail, I was literally running in the fresh footprints of a bear.
- No matter how tired I feel, I’m still pretty fast with the right motivation.
- Three small vertical lines on the Bruce Trail maps basically mean: hey dumbass, that’s a sheer cliff, please don’t plummet to your death.
- When tripping over rocks and roots and such, try and find a soft part of the world to land on.
- I found an enchanted forest, and I think there may have been trolls and Pixies and things in there.
- I’ve been singing to myself a lot… I’ve realized I don’t actually know the full lyrics to many songs, so I’ve been making up my own.
- I think I can I think I can I think I can.



### Captain’s log, Bruce Trail Run day 10.5 (mission complete)
- That was *!@#%$* hard.
- I strained my Achilles tendon with 75km to go, and I averaged about 14 swear words a minute afterwards trying to run on it… you do the math.
- With a piercing war cry, and a mighty punch at the air, I was only a few short kilometres from the finish… *insert screeching tire sound here*… but then my light went out, I got lost in the woods, had to scrabble down a cliff and my crew had to pick me up.
- Reset.
- New light, back on track; with a war whisper, a half-hearted swipe at the air, I shuffled off to the finish.
- Thank you to every single one of you who supported me in any way!
- This was never about just breaking the record; this was about doing something that scared me.



Congratulations on your achievements, Jim! The amount of training and hard work you put in to complete your goal is incredibly inspiring. By making it a DIY MEC Big Wild Challenge, you have enriched MEC’s long-standing partnership with CPAWS, where both organizations constantly look for ways to conserve the wild places where we adventure.

Learn more about Jim’s successful Big Wild Challenge and new Bruce Trail record:

- Canadian Running Magazine Article: [Cancer Survivor Jim Willet Breaks Bruce Trail Record](http://runningmagazine.ca/cancer-jim-willett-survivor-breaks-bruce-trail-record/)

Follow Jim on social media:

- Instagram: [@TheOptimismRevolution](https://www.instagram.com/optimismninja/)
- Twitter: [@OptimismNinja](https://twitter.com/OptimismNinja)
- Facebook: [The Optimism Revolution](https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Optimism-Revolution/155904444501553)
- Blog: [Run Jimmi Run ](http://runjimmirun.blogspot.ca/)



Jim Willett's record run of the Bruce Trail | MEC Blog

Jim Willett's record run of the Bruce Trail

Jim is a runner, an optimism ninja, a cancer warrior, and an adventurist. Essentially, he is a man who understands the nature of a challenge.

His 2014 challenge – a Big Wild Challenge – was running the Bruce Trail end to end, all 885 kilometres of it, in a single push, setting a speed record on the way and raising $4 per kilometre to support wilderness conservation.

We asked him to help break it down so we could wrap our minds around the scale of this project.

##### As an ultra-distance racer, have you done anything comparable to this run?
I have done week-long races, but nothing quite as large as this. To run this kind of distance for this many days in a row … well, there aren’t many people around who have. That makes me feel both excited and a little freaked out.



##### Does the Bruce Trail have any particular challenges or hazards?
The trail runs along the Niagara Escarpment so there’ll be a lot of short steep climbs and descents, which are not only tough on the legs, but can be worse on the feet – in terms of blisters. And it’s fairly technical and rocky in spots, particularly towards the north end. Even just hiking some of these sections can be tough, so running them could be insane.

There’s also something to be said for the motivation you can get from being in a race. In ultras, the field of competitors is usually pretty small so you do spend a lot of time on your own. And I’m used to doing the majority of my training alone as well. So the solo aspect doesn’t faze me. But, I’ll miss having competitors on the trail.

##### Do you have a specific training plan in place for this run?
I’ve never been one to follow a structured training routine. Probably not the best approach for an ultra runner, but it’s what works for me. And there is progression in my training, but it’s more of a guideline than a plan. I’ve really just learned to listen to my body and base my training on that.



##### Can you share some optimism ninja wisdom with us?
I’ve come to the realization that this journey isn’t about becoming anything … I think it’s more about “un-becoming” the things I’m not. Stripping away the preconceived notions and labels of the person I thought I was so I can become the person I was meant to be.

What I’ve learned about being positive is that the more you do it the better you get at it. Just like most things in life. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy, but it’s necessary if you want to complete any kind of goal.



##### Why is wilderness conservation important to you?
I could go on all day about this one. I could talk about our responsibilities, both as a society and individuals. Or, about how grateful we should be to live in a place like Canada, with so much to offer us. But aside from that it’s freaking amazing. When I went through the cancer stuff; surgeries and chemotherapy, it was the doctors and nurses who helped to heal my body, but it was running and nature that helped to heal my soul. That’s the kind of power it has on us.

##### Does anything kick your ass?
I have no doubt the Bruce Trail will kick my ass … over and over again. As have most of the races I’ve done. As did the surgeries and chemo. But without the adversity and struggles we wouldn’t get the opportunity to grow. Or, be given the choice to get back up when life knocks us down. And we wouldn’t know how strong we really were or what we’re capable of achieving. Personally, I know I can take an ass kicking, pick myself up, and keep moving forward.

*A Big Wild Challenge is about pushing your own limits and doing something that matters to you. They all happen outside and they support wilderness conservation in Canada.*



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