143 posts, 2012 to today.
It’s 3am, I get up and inform Sarah that I will be leaving soon, the kids are deep asleep. I start getting dressed in my favorite racing outfit. Quick breakfast, check of the racing vest’s content. 330am Adrien and I meet outside and walk towards the Mont-Edouard shuttle bus that will take us to the […]
It’s been 5 months since I started training for the UTFS 100 or Ultra Trail Fjord Saguenay 100km. It’s been a really good training stint overall. It started in March, the week we took a family trip to Stowe to ski. That week the long run was 16km and I thought it was a bit […]
It’s not about me, it’s about my good friend Dan Barufaldi taking a very long motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to NY state, check out his blog if you are keen to follow his adventure, there will be loads of stories for sure! https://danbarufaldi.com/new-york-to-alaska-and-back/
It rained through the night and the roads are wet but drying. We grab breakfast at the hotel, get dressed in our motorcycle gear and jump on the bikes. We are off at 830am. Dan has prepped a very nice route that takes us on many twisty backroads including the ‘famous’ Tracy road and Ensign […]
Motorcycling trip upstate New York meeting up with Dan
A 2-day raid in Quebec’s magnificent Charlevoix region riding ski-doo’s latest Expedition Extreme. The super punchy 2-stroke engine ski-doo reminds me of go-karting, but instead of 25hp it’s an 850cc 160hp engine and in place of a small go-kart track you have an unlimited expanse of mountains & forests. And when you have had enough […]
A few professional shots from the photographs of the UTHC Harricana 80km trail race last weekend. The pictures cover pre-race resting to evening arrival.
This race has been an amazing way to connect with Quebec’s nature. The effort required to complete 80km increased this connection. At times during the race, I would envy and admire the spiritual connection that First Nations have with nature. And finally, I was fortunate to run all 80k with Adrien, who suggested this race […]
Après plusieurs mois de préparation j’y suis. le 125km a débuté aujourd’hui, les autres distances sont pour demain, dont la mienne le 80km. Mon numéro de dossard: 8162 Suivre la course After months of training, its race time. The 125km race started today, the other distances start tomorrow. My race bib number: 8162 Follow the […]
(English follows) Quelle meilleure façon pour marquer notre changement de continent et ‘retour au Canada’ 32 ans plus tard que de découvrir les forêts locales, les grands espaces de nature et la beauté de Charlevoix lors d’un ultra / course de sentier de 80km. Sur la recommandation d’Adrien, on s’inscrit tous les deux pour une […]
Last week our WhatsApp climbing group was packed with messages as I woke up. I checked the group to learn that Abdul, whom we had climbed Denali in Alaska, had just died on Everest. Reading from the news, Abdul summited Mount Everest, raised the flag that he was carrying and died on the way down. […]
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315am wake up, breakfast at 345am, at 4am we are out the door with our headlights and off for the final leg of the climb: the refuge to the summit at 4065m It is a beautiful night, the half moon is extremely bright and we can see stars and mountains around. We are one of the […]
This is the first leg of the climb, the trek from Pont to the refuge. It’s a beautiful day, sunny and warm. We trek from 1900 to 2700 in just around 2 hours. We grab lunch at the refuge and have to wait until 3pm to get the bed allocation. It’s a container with 3 […]
Wake up in our beautiful hotel Lo Fleye in St-Pierre, near Aoste. Breakfast of desserts, cakes and bread and amazing cappuccinos. We have decided to go trekking and hopefully find some snow around 3000m altitude to rope in, put on crampons and practice our skills before the main climb. We head up the mountain to […]
After months looking forward to some time In the mountains we are finally here for our Gran Paradiso climbing weekend
9 September 2014 Grand Paradiso national park, Italy Trek: 2h11′ Altitude: 1900m to 2776m Weather: cloudy and rainy 2 hours drive from St Gervais, going through the 11km long Mont Blanc tunnel, we are now in Italy for 2 days for the Grand Paradise summit. We have lunch in an old renovated […]
Picture taken by Peter de Jong | Photographer. Friend of Xavier who happened to climb Denali twice at the same time as us I 2017 & 2019. On that day, Peter was heading down and returning to Denali Base camp. Check out his site for more Denali pictures: www.pdjphoto.nl