2022 has been a busy year for us and that’s part of why this space has been a bit quieter than usual. We figured we’d put together a quick recap and look back on what we’ve been up to!
Everett
Without a doubt, the biggest news for Zen Travellers in 2022 was the birth of our son!
Everett was born in March and has taken up a lot of our time as babies tend to do. He’s 9 months old now and we have loved this new adventure and the change of pace it brought us.
Adventures
Obviously, with a little munchkin in tow, some of our travels had to change. We didn’t get out on any backcountry trips or worldwide adventures, but we still were able to find some time for local travels and introduce the little guy to the great outdoors.
At 9 months old, this little one has been hiking, swimming, canoeing (ok, just once), and cross-country skiing. A brief overview of some of our trips during the past year:
Our first overnight trip with Everett was to Drumheller, AB where we took in the hoodoos and did a bit of birding. In past years we’ve paddled the Red Deer River, and of course, every stop in Drumheller requires a visit to Valley Brewing.
We did several hikes with the little one in tow including Arethusa Cirque, Highwood Pass (both during fall larch season), Rawson Lake, Hailstone Butte, Flowing Water Trail, Troll Falls, Many Springs, Widow Maker, and probably a few others we’re forgetting. This kid’s done quite a few hikes in his first summer!
We also travelled to British Columbia for a couple of trips in the summer, first spending some time re-visiting the Okanagan, enjoying the heat, lakes, and British Columbia wines. Of course, at every winery, Everett was the star attraction.
Our next adventure was an Interior BC road trip through Invermere, Kaslo, Nakusp, Revelstoke, and wrapping up in Golden for a friend’s wedding. This trip, of course, included more hiking.
We also had some pretty great wildlife encounters. We upgraded all our photography gear (A full frame Sony A7III and a slick Sony 200-600 lens) and were lucky to have several encounters (from the safety of the car!) with wildlife, the standout being a 6 grizzly day at Highwood Pass.
Calendar Update
As we have done for the past couple of years, we once again put together calendars with all of the proceeds going to environmental conservation. This year we shook things up by reaching out to a handful of Alberta’s best photographers to put together an Alberta Wilderness collaboration and chose Alberta Wilderness Association as the recipient of this year’s donation.
Despite a slow start to sales which had us a little bit nervous, we managed to sell out all 250 of the calendars we had printed. We CRUSHED last year’s fundraising total of about $1,500 and will be donating almost $3,700 to Alberta Wilderness Association. THANK YOU for your support and for helping us to give back in this way!
Looking Ahead to 2023
We are going to try to write a bit more consistently in 2023 (in between diaper changes, MBA classes, and everything else of course). Some of our upcoming posts will revisit trips that we’ve done but didn’t get around to writing up (the Rockwall trail is first up!) as well as some of our upcoming trips.
Everett’s Passport is also ordered and on the way so we’re hoping to do some travelling abroad in 2023 (although we’re not looking forward to flights with a little one), and we have some other exciting plans in the works that we hope to be able to share soon! (Hint: It has something to do with our incredible trip to Antarctica)
Happy New Year and we wish you all the best in 2023!