Across Canada by Train

by Erik Olsen on

Riding in a train across Canada, Discovery Channel’s
David Newland
is watching the passing countryside through his window and ruminating on just about everything under the sun. Such
is the way things go when you travel by train. The landscape serves as a kind of mind candy, a phantasmagoria of moving
images that help your eyes chew on something as your mind works over delicate matters.

As for David, in this fun and insightful series, he ponders our fortune, most of us anyway, to be immigrants to this
continent, and, truly going back in time, he tries to get by
without a
connection to the Web. I liked this series. Crossing Canada by train is something I’d very much like to do, and
Newland’s style is lively and unpretentious.

Gold Mining In Alaska

by Kelly Amabile on

One of the items mentioned on the
geologist field list is the experience of finding
gold, which can be educational (if you’ve never mined before) and quite joyous, I assume, if panning or
picking leads you to some shiny stuff. An
article in this
week’s USA Today suggests that Alaska may be the “hot” place to do it now.

 

There is plenty of gold in Alaska that has not been mined, but also all sorts of restrictions on who has
access and where it is allowed. The Department of Natural Resources has recently began to authorize recreational mining
business in the state, and companies are beginning to organize trips for tourists willing to pay the price
for a true mining experience. Small groups have recently “struck it rich” on mining claims owned by these
businesses.

There are also public gold mining areas
in Alaska, but companies who have been servicing the mining industry for years know their stuff too. Whether you head
out on your own, or work through a mining host, there are tons of resources to help plan a gold mining excursion:

Alaska’s Gold (historical background from the state
library)

Alaska Gold Forum

Alaska Miners Association

Alaska’s Largest Gold Nuggets

Recreational Miners Association

Gold Prospector’s Association of America

Recreational Gold Mining in Alaska (good PDF overview from
National Park Service)

Alaska Gold Mining FAQ (compiled by the owner of
Alaska Mining & Diving Supply, one of the businesses that has begun hosting
nugget hunting tours)

Art of the Tehran Metro

by Erik Olsen on

Way back when, Adrienne posted a link about art on
the Tehran metro and I just happened to stumble upon it while Googling for that very topic (I love finding gadling
posts in Google).

It’s worth mentioning again, becuase this is a really cool
site that shows some of the very impressive art in any metro anywhere. Beats even most of the stations in NYC. With
such a fantastically rich culture, it’s a shame that the President listed Iran as one of the axis of evil
countries.

Several folks I know who have been to Iran say it is one of the loveliest, friendliest countries on earth.
Giving the whole country a bad rep via political rhetoric seems such a shame. The photo here is from a work called
dream and is
just one of several superb works that can be seen online or (even better…much better) in person.

Lifelist 2: Hiking the Inca Trail

by Erik Olsen on

Time for another edition of our
lifelist feature, in which we scour the Web for resources
to help you build your lifelist and make key lifelist decisions. As you will recall, a lifelist is a detailed (or not
so detailed depending on how anal retentive you are) enumeration of experiences that you hope to some day complete.
Everyone has different tastes and varying visions of the things they want to accomplish in life, but we try to help
that process along by suggesting things you might not otherwise have thought of.

So today’s lifelist recommendation is one that will appeal to both hikers and fans of ancient South American history.
The Inca Trail is a legendary trek that will have you gasping for
air at high altitudes and gaping at magnificent ruins the likes of which exist nowhere else on the planet (and some
believe they were actually built by aliens…I’ll not get into that, though there is a whole industry of these
folks).

The culmination of the Inca Trail trip is your arrival at the
ruiins of Machu Picchu. I could spend many paragraphs
describing the ruins, for they are truly spectacular. Chances are you’ve seen the photos, or seen a documentary or two,
but there is NOTHING quite like wandering among them for yourself. Of course, you don’t have to trek the Inca Trail to
reach the ruins, but you’d have to be old and immobile, very short on time or a complete pussy not to hike the trail to
reach them. And the more days you take to do this, the better.

Finding an Outfitter

As you might imagine, there are scores of outfitters who do Inca Trail trips, most of them out of Cuzco (which is
itself a marvelous city). One of the best is Peru Treks and
Adventure who is known for contributing to the local community. Big-time outfitter
Mountain Sobek also offers a trip there that includes a five day hike to
the ruins. A list of other outfitters can be found
here.

The Hike

As I say, you should spend several days hiking the trail to reach Machu Picchu. You should be in passable shape as
sections of the trail are actually rather difficult. At certain stages along the way you reach altitudes of almost
14,000 feet. One of the most challenging parts of the hike is ambling (and most likely chuffing) over “Dead Woman’s
Pass” at 13,900 feet.

Each night (assuming good weather), you will camp beneath some of the clearest skies you have ever seen…the milky
way is so thick you might have the urge to dip your cup into it. Of course, all along the way, you pass other
lesser-known ruins like Runkuraqay and Sayaqmarka. For a brief overview of some of the sites you will see along the
way, check out this link.

Reaching the Ruins

Now as someone who has done the Inca Trail I have one key suggestion (other than being SURE to go on a multi-day
hike): reach the ruins early. One of the singular experiences of your lifetime will be passing through the Gate of the
Sun on your final morning. The ruins reveal themselves at the top of a rise and will not only take your breath away,
but you are also likely to wet your pants (or so happened to one of my colleagues…although some previously consumed bad
water might have also had something to do with it :-)).

Other Links and Stories

Tim Leffell, who’s Cheapest Destinations site is a must for budget minded travelers, wrote
this superb peice on what you
need to consider when planning for and hiking the Inca Trail. World 66 offers
this excellent, and quite recent overview of
what to expect along the trail. Another travelogue can be found
here.

So that’s that. Add a hike to the Inca Trail to your lifelist if it is not there already. And if you’ve done the
trail, leave some tips and comments for folks who might be thinking about it. 

NYT on Vietnam

by Erik Olsen on


So as I mentioned, I was out for a few days, spending time in beautiful (and damn cold, IMHO) San Francisco. I also
managed to get myself down to Ventura and spent one very fine weekend paddling the sea caves of the Channel Islands. Oh
man, oh man, was it great. A detailed account will be forthcoming along with photos, but right now, I have to step back
a few days and catch up on some missed stories in the New
York Times and other papers, since the Sunday travel sections are always filled with goodies.

To wit:

here is a story that should not be missed from the Sunday Times about Vietnam. Now, I confess I’ve never been to
Vietnam. I consider it a “must see” destination and am more or less just waiting for the right opportunity. But stories
like this whet my interest and make me wonder if the time should be sooner rather than later.

The writer visits Hue and several places in center of the country, along the dividing line of North and South Vietnam,
where some of the Vietnam War’s fiercest battles were fought. Here she takes an old wooden motor boat down the Huong
Giang, or “Perfume River” and later wanders some of the local ancient tombs and temples. Then it is on to Da Nang and
Hoi An, where memories of the war are still very much alive. Vietnam’s main cities are changing so rapidly due to
globalization and tourism, that the mind swirls when imagining what they will look like a decade from now, but as the
article suggests, in some places the past remains very much alive.