Year-End Podcast Extra - Dec 31 09 - Day 0, Part 1

Year-End Podcast Extra: Hilary's Mountain Audio Journal!

A Special Year-End Podcast, From Hilary’s Trip To The Canadian Rockies Last Summer, August 16^th Thru The 23^rd, 2009, Our New Year’s Gift To You!

Week-Long Alpine Club Fall Hiking Camp at the Stanley Mitchell Hut in Little Yoho Valley (Canadian Rockies)

*CLICK HERE TO LISTEN*

*CLICK HERE TO SEE HILARY'S SLIDESHOW*

From the urban wilderness to the actual wilderness and back again.

Almost every year from the age of six to sixteen, Hilary spent a week of her summer vacation in the northern Canadian Rocky Mountains with her sister and parents at the annual Family Camp run by the international mountaineering organization known as the Alpine Club.

They would hook up with other ACC-affiliated families, drive out to the middle of the Rocky Mountains, hike in with enough food and gear for a week, and live communally in a rustic log cabin. Days were spent hiking, nights eating, playing cards, and sitting by the wood stove with friends.

The very first of these trips took place in 1977, shortly after Hilary's family moved out west to Edmonton for her dad's new government job as a computer systems analyst.

The camp that year was in the Little Yoho Valley, one of the most scenic and hikeable areas in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and the group stayed at the Stanley Mitchell Hut; many similar cabins owned by the Alpine Club are found throughout the mountain range, and serve as staging points for mountaineers to take hiking, climbing or skiing day trips deeper into the wilderness than is possible if they had to start from a parking lot near the freeway.

Thirty-two years later, this August, Hilary met up with her dad and sister to participate in the adult Fall camp organized by the Alpine Club at the same hut – the Stanley Mitchell in Little Yoho Valley.

Listen in as Hilary shares daily highlights from her audio diary, reflects on how that early wilderness experience shaped her life and comments on how the area has changed in the past three decades.

Day 0: On The Freeway: Seattle to Abbotsford (Two Parts)

Before you can hike, you have to drive; Hilary drives across the Canadian border to pick up her father and sister from a rural BC airport.

To hear the other segments, go to the other days listed above this post!

Day 0, Part One: Hitting The Road (15')

· Escape From Seattle
· Lesbian Cat Litter Wars
· Old School Mountaineers And Their Gear
· Stuck In Everett Traffic
· Falling Asleep At The Wheel
· Musical Rant
· Speeding