The Beautiful Colours of Rainbow Mountain and Red Valley

Autumn time change: One extra hour of sleep? More like stay up one extra hour eating M&M's while binge watching TV. For those that think Anita and I are succeeding at life with our seemingly endless adventures, this is what happens when we have nothing to do. :(

Anyways, I wanted to share with you photos from our hike last month to 5200m high Rainbow Mountain, or as one friend described it, 'the stripey mountain!' See the photos, and you'll agree how accurate that description is. The vibrant coloured striations are apparently due to different concentrated bands of mineral content.

To get here, we hopped a shuttle from Cusco at 2:15am and made our way along a narrow road so bumpy and winding that I was one turn away from barfing up my breakfast (fortunately when I was about to ralph, we arrived at the trailhead). The crisp dawn air quickly reversed any ill effects, but because we had only arrived a day earlier in Peru without time to acclimatize, altitude sickness quickly felled one in our group who had come from nearly sea level. Fortunately, we were able to call upon the Andes version of Uber (a horse) to take her up, while the rest of us trekked. From Rainbow Mountain, we would also extend our day hiking into beautiful Red Valley for some more gorgeous vistas of mineral rich sedimentary rock.

Okay, now go enjoy your 25 hour Sunday.




Beautiful morning light of the sun slowly rising, around 6:30am.




We were the first group on the trek.




Andean Uber.


At the top, we were greeted by views of this striking stripey mountain.


Our guide showed us photos from a week prior, when it was completely snow covered. So despite the altitude sickness, we really lucked out.




The beautiful landscape we hiked to get to Rainbow Mountain.






Tourist trap photo of 'local person with llamas'. I regret nothing.








A sweeping pano of Red Valley.

Peruvian Adventure part 1: Charming Cusco

We've returned from our 3 week trip to Peru, and the mountain of photos I have to sort is almost more daunting than the peaks of the Andes we trekked through. Our trip overall was epic, with beautiful wild landscapes that ranged from the high altitude of the Andean mountains, to an oasis in the middle of the Peruvian desert, to the third deepest canyon on the planet (nearly double that of the Grand Canyon), and everything in between. Of course, there was also a whole lot of eating sandwiched in there as well, from the simplest of rustic farmer fare, to the most elevated of Latin American gastronomy. It's hard to describe how incredible this trip was in words, so I'll let the photos do the heavy lifting.

If you follow me on instagram or FB, or are on my email list, then you'll have seen a variety of photos from our hikes up Rainbow Mountain, Salkantay Trail, and of course, Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. While there are a ton more of those, here are a selection from our first couple of days in the historic capital of Cusco. The old centre of the city is very walkable, and has a certain small town charm to it.

Beakerhead 2018

Last night was Beakernight, the culmination of the annual Beakerhead festival in Calgary, where science, art, and engineering come together to create weird and wacky exhibits to tickle our senses. Despite the light drizzle and cool weather, we let our inner science nerds out, taking in the various exhibits on the grounds at Fort Calgary. There were flames, giant inflatables, high voltage sparking through the air, chemistry themed escape room battles, LED arts and crafts, lenticular style portraits, and much more.

But while this year's edition had some pretty cool stuff, I will argue there weren't quite enough flames as in year's past. MOAR FIRE, please. Click here for some photos from previous years. Did any of you take in the event? If so, what did you think compared to prior editions?


The Fabulist!


Fire makes everything better.


It was drizzling out, so the water droplets on my lens added some interesting flare and bokeh.




The 32ft Sextant Tesla Coils, with a wee bit of electricity flowing.




Inside The Saturnian exhibit, a giant inflatable igloo thingy. Flare courtesy of some condensation on my lens.






DIY LED arts and crafts.


Pulse and Bloom, a series of metal lotus sculptures that lit up in response to your pulse.


The Dreams Never Die exhibit.