Kéno-marche 2010

For the last five years, we and a large group of supporters have raised funds for La Fondation Kéno (site en français) by walking along a beautiful green bicycle path between the small town of Saint-Raymond (50 km north-west of Quebec City) and a road stop along Route 367, 18.6 km east.

The fall colours in this region are dependably spectacular at the end of September. This year, for the first time, we walked part of the way in the rain. The rain heightened our appreciation of the dry interludes, lowered the light's contrast and supersaturated the warm hues. I particularly liked these muted, lacey ferns that bordered the path in many areas.

Click the link for more pictures of our very successful Kéno-marche day.

La Traversée de Charlevoix

Late last October Paulette and I spent three days exploring several trails in the Pied-des-Monts sector of La Traversée de Charlevoix. We were invited by Jacques Breton and a group of friends to stay at La Marmotte, a chalet located at the end of Day 2 along the 105 km Traversée.

A Canadian Geograhic journalist, Dan Rubinstein, was in the area and wrote an article on his solo trek. He illustrated his piece using Jacques Breton's and my photos. Read his story entitled, Hiking La Traversée de Charlevoix.

The picture above is Refuge Boudreault under a delicate dusting of snow; one of the more rustic camps along the trail less than a kilometer from La Marmotte.

Parc naturel du mont Bélair

Fall colours seem to appear first in the forest under-story. Paulette and I walked in the Parc naturel du mont Bélair yesterday, a mere 13 km directly north from our home.

It was cloudy-bright in the open and cloudy-dim in the forest with light periods of rain. Perfect light for capturing the saturated fall colours of the ferns, Hobblebush (Viburnum alnifolium) and the purple pitcherplant (Sarracenia purpurea). The trees continue strongly green with the odd touches of red, yellow and orange. Another two weeks and we'll be treated to the full force of fall's splendor!

Click on each photo to see a much larger view.

Ahhh! Landmannalaugar

As I mentioned last post we took the "easy" way to our hut down and across the Vondugil valley. Turning back the way we came, thick dark gray clouds were building on the horizon while crisp sunlight highlighted these eroded hills. What a jumble of shapes! What a variety of colours! What a sight!

Landmannalaugar's rhyolite ridges seem to exude an inner glow that doesn't require an external light source for its beauty to shine under all atmospheric conditions (as we witnessed the next two days of cloudy and then stormy skies).

Stay tuned!

Picnic Place

Trek, Day 3, 17 km towards Landmannalaugar. We walked around this lake, Lifrafjallavatn, watching the the cloudy sky and the rays of sun shining through. We stopped for a long, languid lunch at the crest of the ridge where I took this photo. I especially like the reflections in the calm surface of the lake and the mysterious horizontal band of turquoise or aquamarine blue running from the highlighted headline on the right. It disappeared after only a few minutes.

After another long steady climb after crossing route F225 (F routes are only open to fully-equipped four-wheel super Jeeps) we took the easy route to the Landmannalaugar Hut down through the Vondugil Valley and through the Laugarhraun laval field. An exhilarating 8 1/4 hour day.