This following entry is from a trip Natalie and I did from May 1st to May 14th 2010. Please visit my flickr account for more photos that i hope to put on here at some point. So after spending a few weeks working for Natalie’s parents at Northern Edge Algonquin in South River Ontario in April, helping getting them set up for their summer season we were off. (for all photo albums from the collection visit my flickr)

Our first night camping at Agawa Bay on Lake Superior.

One of the best Lake Superior Road side views at Kama Hill. View of Nipigon Bay.

Our travels took us back up and through Thunder Bay, down through Duluth, MN and south to the twin cities.

We met up with an old CS friend Bill and he took us out for cheap beer and burgers with olives, bacon and cream cheese in Superior Wisconsin.

We then zipped across the U.S. prairies straight to Boulder Colorado.

Awesome wind mills along the way

We found a real nice campsite by a river there in the middle of the night and didn’t get caught for camping for free which was excellent.

We spent several days there biking and climbing and tasting some local brews. We stayed with a Couchsurfer named Annaliese who had cool roomates that accomodated us. I also got a chance to pick up my Outward Bound Prodeal order directly from Golden and Natalie and I got a tour of the OB headquarters and offices. The first few days were windy windy windy… but it was awesome to be in this great mountain community.

We did some climbing in Boulder Canyon, mostly trad routes and i only had sport gear but we managed to set up some top ropes on some easy 5.6-5.8 trad single pitch routes and it was great.

We also decided to bike way down the hill into town and hitch back up this was quite an awesome ride they have such awesome bike paths everywhere.

Our next stop was Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park Colorado.

We did some hiking and driving around here and it was beautiful in the snowy mountains. So much wildlife it was amazing!

Lots of Snow!

Elk. They were everywhere!

Badger. The park warden came around really early and told us about this little guy. Pretty sweet!

Town of Estes Park, Colorado

We then had a long drive through the beautiful mountains of Colorado to get into Moab Utah. We turned off like we were recommended to do and drive down BLM land road and camp where ever. This we did on a road called Gemini Bridges… Really sketchy and steep but freakin awesome veiw!

We then went biking through Arches National Park. I feel like we biked 30-40 miles… it was a full on day up and down hills biking right through the park to the delicate Arch. Hiking way up and back then biking back to our car… it was a long but very awesome day.

The Delicate Arch

On our bike trip we actually ran into our couchsurfing friends from Boulder!

The next day we spent some time camping for free in Kane Creek Area with another fellow couch surfer living in his van named Josh and his dog Paris. He was so great to us and told us all the awesome places for climbing, camping for free and places to check out in the town of Moab.

free camping spot in Moab’s Kane Creek

A few days later in this same area we were in a desert sandstorm and i decided to use my tent over Natalie’s for the night and Nat got out in the morning and the tent blew away in the air with me in it. It destroyed my tent fly pretty bad but was a good story none the less…

we spent a day climbing at ice-cream parlour area with some easy 5.7 to 5.9 sport routes and one 5.10a that we did. We met another couple from Park City Utah who came down to climb and were camping with us at Kane Creek.

The next day I went and did some harder classic trad routes and some more sport routes with Josh and his friend Mike to a place called Wallstreet just outside Moab, I did one climb that was a comparable 5.10 crack climb at Indian Creek, an area world renowned as one of the best consistently straight and vertical crack climbing destination which was about 45 min drive from where we were. Nat relaxed and did some work for her WFR course at a local coffee shop in Moab.

Wallstreet

Lizard in the crack we were about to climb

We then went and checked out Canyonlands National Park. It was cold and windy but it was beautiful, much like the grand canyon.

We then started the drive north not knowing if we were to go to Jackson Wyoming and check out the Tetons or meet up with our friends who randomly decided to do a road trip to Idaho from Calgary but communication was difficult. We ended up going to Craters of the Moon and making a time to meet for breakfast in Arco, Idaho.

Biking Craters of the moon

These crazy guys, Steve, Matiss and Tanis all met us randomly not knowing that we might cross paths it just happened and was fantastic!

We ended up catching each other just as we pulled out of Craters of the moon. It was flippin awesome to meet up with these guys we couldn’t believe that we met at Craters of the moon in Idaho of all places in the world.

This who experience left me lost for words… It felt like a dream but we enjoyed a great breakfast in the town of Arco and then travelled north enjoying the beauties of Idaho together and went and camped out at these awesome hot springs.

Good friends from Dundas Steve, Matiss and myself

The awesome hot springs with all of us relaxing and loving life!

This whole experience was so good we didn’t want it to end and we kept staying longer and longer but had to drive all the way to Mazama Washington so we could have a day to chill before my training and Natalie’s WFR course… We drove all night long and made it!

Outward Bound Base in Mazama