Greetings from the Himalaya! I’m in Nepal again, as I usually am about once a year these days, and I must say it is good to be back. As some of my readers will know this place was home for me in a previous life and while I am so happy to be living on Vancouver Island now I must say it is always good to reconnect with this amazing part of the world.

I’m off to Kanchenjunga in a couple of days to explore the remote north eastern corner of Nepal. It promises to be both visually stunning and culturally fascinating. But I have to say that as I visit old friends here I find myself showing them photographs of the mountains at home with a sense of pride. Not only do we have remote and beautiful mountains on Vancouver Island, we have something rarely found in this part of the world: true wilderness. Our peaks may not be as high as the Himalaya but they are certainly remote and uniquely beautiful and the good news is that most people do not even know that we have mountains on Vancouver Island so they are all ours to explore in solitude.

It’s warm here in Kathmandu (mid to high twenties by day) but soon we’ll be in the high country with temperatures dipping well below freezing at night. It’ll make good training for coming home to winter. Ah winter! I love the onset of winter on the west coast with the first snow on the peaks in November and dreams of skiing to come. You may remember that last winter we were out skiing great low density powder in November. Let’s hope for some more of that this year! I am really looking forward to the start of the ski guiding season, teaching avalanche courses and forecasting for the Island Avalanche Bulletin.

I hope that you are looking forward to winter too and that we’ll see you on a trip or course this winter. Get in touch to let us know your plans or if you want route information or conditions up dates. Similarly if you are traveling in the mountains and have conditions information to share please get in touch via our contact page and we’ll pass the information along with our observations and others to the readers of this space.

I’ll be updating you with news for the winter when I get back to Canada in November. In the meantime enjoy your autumn and Namaste!

Jan