Natura Vive Skylodge - The Million Star Hotel

I wanted to share photos from one of the highlights of our trip to Peru last October. We spent one night at the Natura Vive Skylodge, a 'hotel' consisting of 3 clear pods suspended off the side of a cliff overlooking the sacred valley, with no elevator. To get to our room, we had to climb a Via Ferrata straight up a cliff side for 1300ft while carrying our bags for the evening. The views from the 'room' were phenomenal, especially in the evening, making the claim of 'The Million Star Hotel' very apt. See the milky way shot below.

[interlude] And because I know you're going to ask, yes, there was a partitioned off bathroom in each pod, that had a toilet seat set up over a bag lined bucket. When you finished your business, you tied up the bag (tightly) and dropped it down a chute that led to a bin underneath your pod. The thought "What if I need to poop?" never even crossed my mind when we booked this adventure, but when I posted a photo of this place to instagram, that's all anyone asked about. Weirdos. [end-erlude?]

To check out of the hotel, we ziplined down a series of 7 lines back to ground level. Are you sold yet? Is this something you'd be up for during a visit to Peru? Do you have a crippling fear of heights? Life advice: face your fears. What's the worst that could happen? Oh right, your fears could punch you right in the face... which in this case is a metaphor for "a wee bit of death." But it's mostly safe. There's harnesses, carabiners, fixed lines, and even some used gardening gloves to protect your delicate skin during the climbing and ziplining. So thoughtful. And I bet they might even inspect the ziplines every once in a while. Or not. Whatever. YOLO.

Okay, go look at the photos and decide for yourself. I wanted to post a GoPro video of me on a zipline... but I couldn't figure out how to work iMovie cause I'm dumb.

K, bye.






These would be our rooms for the evening.




As they say, Safety Third. (1st: Get the shot. 2nd: Have fun).
























The night sky view from atop our pod for the evening.


Breakfast in the kitchen pod.


Anita navigates between pods.




The interior of the pods looks like this.

Snowshoeing to Gypsum Ridge

Years ago, if you had asked me if I could convince the missus to get out of bed early on a -26 degree Sunday morning to go for a snowshoe ascent up a small mountain (500m of elevation gain), I would have laughed. Now, after years of priming her with increasingly difficult hikes, scrambles, and multiday treks, I've actually managed to get her interested in doing even winter hikes. It was pretty frosty when we arrived at the trailhead in Kananaskis, but that didn't stop us from pounding up to the west summit of Gypsum Ridge in about 2.5hrs. We had the entire mountain to ourselves... likely because we were the only three morons in Calgary dumb enough to go out in this cold.

The hike was mostly uneventful, save for one stretch where we found clumps of greyish brown fur on the ground. None of us are terribly well versed in wildlife, so we could only make an educated guess as to the animal - we suspected a bear. Jas grabbed the fur and sniffed it. I sarcastically inquired 'Do you know what bear smells like?' and he immediately realized how silly the action was. LOL.

If you decide to make an attempt up this route, the trek to the ridge is a steep slog through trees, so don't expect any views until you reach the end. But with the blue skies, ample snow, and wind free summit, we had an incredible day, despite the freezing temps.




It was a little bit wintery today.




Only a few minutes into the trek, Anita's eyelashes started to frost up.


Check out that water vapour/ steam rising off of Jas. Yes, it was cold out.


























Summit Brew: 2 Crows Brewing - Wild Skies Brett Sour

Winter in Saskatoon

Have you ever wondered what -53 degrees C looks like? No? Me neither. But since I made the poor life decision to schedule a work visit to Saskatoon this week, where it was that very temperature this morning, I figured I may as well embrace it and snap some photos for you to see. While -53 degrees (factoring in windchill) is indeed cold enough to freeze the nuts off a bridge (or insert any other hyperbole here), it also makes for some moody Siberia-esque scenes. I went outside for about 1/2 hour to capture these scenes, before I lost all feeling in my face and fingers, and called it a day. I hope you enjoy these 'more frigid than a 70 year old nun' scenes from the comfort of your toasty home.