Hey everyone!
I hope summer is treating you well so far. After a great vacation on the Gulf beaches of Florida over 4th of July weekend, I've been back in Boston with some work and preparing for an upcoming adventure of a totally different kind. If you're up for some interesting content that's unlike things I've written about before, I invite you to tag along with us (I'm excited to announce my girlfriend Dani will be coming along, too) for what will be nearly a month of travel across Canada.
Every summer, a small group from the Massachusetts-based Jeep club I founded get together and take off on an "overland" trip. Defined as "self-reliant adventure travel to remote destinations where the journey is the primary goal", overland travel is where we rely on our vehicles to be fully stocked, prepared, and capable to cross terrain of all types and get us to places to see and explore interesting parts of the regions we travel through. In 2016 the group took a 1,000 mile trip through the vast and incredibly remote area of Northern Maine's Wilderness; this summer we're taking off on a 5-day trip through Ontario, exploring the Frontenac Wilderness and other wooded areas throughout the province. Our group will be comprised of 7 vehicles, and we'll have upwards of 16 people including three kids. Our route will cover about 500 miles of dirt roads and remote travel, finishing off in Ottawa at the end of July, where the group will split ways with all but one of the overland vehicles heading back to the Greater Boston area.
That's where our summer adventures continue... Dani and I will leave Ottawa and head west when the rest of the group returns to Massachusetts. Over the course of four or five days we'll drive across Canada, crossing through the western portion of Ontario then on through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and into Alberta. We'll turn our heading at some point and aim towards Jasper, a few hours northwest of Calgary, where we will begin a week and a half of adventure through Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, and hopefully British Columbia's Glacier National Park. We've got a few campsites reserved as well as backcountry campsites in mind, and will be hiking regularly throughout the Canadian Rockies while we're out there. My hope is to spend many mornings with sunrises, evenings with sunsets, and nights under the stars, my camera in hand throughout. I also bought a DJI Mavic Pro quad-copter drone to begin capturing video while we're out exploring the incredible sights that country has to offer. I submitted my formal request to the Superintendent of Canadian National Parks for permission to fly the drone within Park boundaries, which hopefully they'll give me access to do. I would be incredibly grateful to capture aerial footage of the breathtaking lakes and mountains the area is home to.
The trip as a whole will be a different kind of undertaking, and with that will probably be a different kind of storytelling on here as well, but I'm hoping that you'll be interested in following along and seeing photos from throughout the trip. I've added a new "Overland" section to the website where you can read about my new Jeep Grand Cherokee, including modifications and upgrades I've secured from a half-dozen corporate sponsorships. I have done my best to make it an exceptionally capable, comfortable, and mobile base-camp for our trip. I'll put more details about it into posts once we're underway with the Ontario overland trip with the Jeep club, but for now feel free to peruse the new parts of the site.
I'm looking forward to getting back to writing more, hiking both in a new country and new mountain ranges with Dani, and sharing what I hope will be epic landscape photos with you all.
Onward & upward!
Ryan
I hope summer is treating you well so far. After a great vacation on the Gulf beaches of Florida over 4th of July weekend, I've been back in Boston with some work and preparing for an upcoming adventure of a totally different kind. If you're up for some interesting content that's unlike things I've written about before, I invite you to tag along with us (I'm excited to announce my girlfriend Dani will be coming along, too) for what will be nearly a month of travel across Canada.
Every summer, a small group from the Massachusetts-based Jeep club I founded get together and take off on an "overland" trip. Defined as "self-reliant adventure travel to remote destinations where the journey is the primary goal", overland travel is where we rely on our vehicles to be fully stocked, prepared, and capable to cross terrain of all types and get us to places to see and explore interesting parts of the regions we travel through. In 2016 the group took a 1,000 mile trip through the vast and incredibly remote area of Northern Maine's Wilderness; this summer we're taking off on a 5-day trip through Ontario, exploring the Frontenac Wilderness and other wooded areas throughout the province. Our group will be comprised of 7 vehicles, and we'll have upwards of 16 people including three kids. Our route will cover about 500 miles of dirt roads and remote travel, finishing off in Ottawa at the end of July, where the group will split ways with all but one of the overland vehicles heading back to the Greater Boston area.
That's where our summer adventures continue... Dani and I will leave Ottawa and head west when the rest of the group returns to Massachusetts. Over the course of four or five days we'll drive across Canada, crossing through the western portion of Ontario then on through Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and into Alberta. We'll turn our heading at some point and aim towards Jasper, a few hours northwest of Calgary, where we will begin a week and a half of adventure through Jasper National Park, Banff National Park, and hopefully British Columbia's Glacier National Park. We've got a few campsites reserved as well as backcountry campsites in mind, and will be hiking regularly throughout the Canadian Rockies while we're out there. My hope is to spend many mornings with sunrises, evenings with sunsets, and nights under the stars, my camera in hand throughout. I also bought a DJI Mavic Pro quad-copter drone to begin capturing video while we're out exploring the incredible sights that country has to offer. I submitted my formal request to the Superintendent of Canadian National Parks for permission to fly the drone within Park boundaries, which hopefully they'll give me access to do. I would be incredibly grateful to capture aerial footage of the breathtaking lakes and mountains the area is home to.
The trip as a whole will be a different kind of undertaking, and with that will probably be a different kind of storytelling on here as well, but I'm hoping that you'll be interested in following along and seeing photos from throughout the trip. I've added a new "Overland" section to the website where you can read about my new Jeep Grand Cherokee, including modifications and upgrades I've secured from a half-dozen corporate sponsorships. I have done my best to make it an exceptionally capable, comfortable, and mobile base-camp for our trip. I'll put more details about it into posts once we're underway with the Ontario overland trip with the Jeep club, but for now feel free to peruse the new parts of the site.
I'm looking forward to getting back to writing more, hiking both in a new country and new mountain ranges with Dani, and sharing what I hope will be epic landscape photos with you all.
Onward & upward!
Ryan
The Planned Route
Testing our new REI Halfdome 2 person tent - Brattleboro, VT
Banff Postcard circa 1946
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