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Mount St. Helens Monitor Ridge: A Relentless, Awe-Inspiring Journey to the Crater’s Edge
In July 2025, three of us set out to reach the crater rim of Mount St. Helens — the iconic volcano in Washington State that last erupted in 1980. We chose the Monitor Ridge route, a challenging 10-mile round trip that gains roughly 4,500 feet of elevation. Our goal? To stand at 8,366 feet, peer into the massive Mount St. Helens crater, and soak in sweeping views of the Cascade Range. Bob filmed the entire climb and I turned it into a YouTube video filled with trail tips and honest observations.. If you want to see the route in action, you can watch it here. On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens…
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The Entire Camino Frances in 60 Seconds
Our 500-mile, 38-day Camino Frances from Saint-Pied-de-Port to Santiago de Compostela distilled down to 60 seconds. It was difficult to choose one picture to represent each day because each day had so many memorable moments. We hope this gives you a glimpse into the amazing journey that is the Camino: the hard parts, the rainy and wet parts, the silly parts, the beautiful parts, and the joy that comes from achieving your goals. Buen Camino! For more details about each day on the Camino de Santiago, check out our entire Camino Frances itinerary complete with Relive videos for each day.
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Camino Trivia Quiz: Saints, Miracles of the Camino Frances
Trivia quiz about saints and miracles along the Camino Frances, the French Way of the Camino de Santiago. How much do you know?
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Mushroom foraging in Olympia’s Tolmie State Park
2023 has been a tremendous fall for mushroom foraging in Olympia and the south Puget Sound area. With that in mind, I headed to our favorite state park to capture as many varieties as possible. Not only was this a fun and different way to explore a familiar trail it also gave me an excuse to walk slowly and enjoy a beautiful fall day. While my fascination with mushrooms is high, I have not yet worked up the courage and confidence to collect mushrooms for eating. For now, I am more than content to do all my foraging with my camera. Tolmie State Park, located in the heart of the…
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10 Things we will do differently on our next Camino
Our 38-day Camino Frances trek was one of our best trips but there is always something to learn and room for improvement. Here’s our list of lessons learned in no particular order (except maybe the first one, this is the most important change we would make). We’ve also added a couple of bonus Camino Frances-specific tips at the end. Plan shorter days We learned pretty quickly that our feet do best when limit our distance to 10 to 12 miles. For this trip we had booked ahead the entire trip so were committed to a few long days. Now that we know 15 miles is too much for us we…
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Relive our Camino de Santiago French Way Trek
We recorded Relive videos on our fall 2023 pilgrimage from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. The trek took 38 days (including some rest days); the videos will give you a glimpse of what each day looked like, I’ve also added some thoughts about some of the days: lessons learned and things we’d do differently next time. The distance numbers are what we tracked on All Trails and will include any distance spent being lost and exploring (I sometimes started the Relive videos late so the numbers you see there might be different). Day From To Distance (miles/KM) Where we stayed Cost per Night (USD in 2023)…
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Truly Unique Farm to Table Experience at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro
Our Kilimanjaro adventure included five days at Mbahe Farm before we began our trek. Mbahe farm sits on the foothills of Kilimanjaro in Marangu. Those five days at the farm gave us a chance to acclimate, recover from jet lag, and learn a little about this African village and the Chagga people that live there. The stay at Mbahe Farm Cottages is part of the Summit Expeditions and Nomadic Experience (SENE) program. SENE is the guide company we chose for our Kilimanjaro climb. SENE is a Tanzania-owned eco-adventure company that offers climbs, safaris, trail running, and bike treks. SENE’s director, Simon Mtuy, holds the record for the fastest unsupported ascent-descent of…
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