The mountains are calling: Our trip to Yosemite

April 15, 2019April 23, 2019 / Oleksandra Budna / 2 Comments

I am a mountain person at heart: the love that was born during my school trips to the Carpathian Mountains and nurtured during all those adventures around North America. So when the mountains call, as Muir so eloquently put it, I must go. Last summer, as I was planning our trip to California, many places were added, then scratched off the list. One destination, however, remained non-negotiable – Yosemite National Park, Muir’s old stomping grounds right in the heart of Sierra Nevada.

Sierra Nevada – view from Olmsted point in Yosemite National Park

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Somewhere on the edge of spring: Hiking Bruce Trail near Smokey Hollow Falls (photo essay)

April 2, 2019April 3, 2019 / Oleksandra Budna / Leave a comment

What are the first signs of spring you usually look for? Tree branches swelling with buds, dainty flowers poking their delicate heads through last year’s leaves, that cheerful bird twitter in the morning. How about rushing waterfalls? Or better yet ankle-deep, thick mud. We certainly encountered a lot of the latter on our most recent microadventure.

Spring, when rivers are at their fullest after the snowmelt, is the best time for waterfall chasing. And with Hamilton, the waterfall capital of the world, located less than an hour away, finding one is never a problem. (Although deciding on which of its 100 tumbling water features to visit can sometimes present a dilemma). Then, once we enjoy the sight and sound of rushing water, we find Bruce Trail or one of its tributaries, which are always bound to be somewhere nearby, and set out on a hike.

Our most recent microadventure took us to Smokey Hollow Falls, also known as Grindstone, Waterdown or Great Falls Continue reading →

The Best of 2018

December 26, 2018December 26, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 6 Comments

2018 had a lot going for it. It started with a magnificent sunrise from a hill-top cabin in Quebec. We travelled to California to spend time with my brother and his family. We visited many new parks, finally making it to Yosemite and Sequoia, and new cities, like San Francisco. We got to explore familiar places and see different sides of them. My essay about gardening appeared in The Globe and Mail connecting me with fellow gardeners and yielding a free bag of compost.

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Bringing the outside in – one overnight stay at Pinery at a time

December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 11 Comments

How often do you hear people say: “I wish I could do more of x (in my case spend more time outdoors) but life gets in the way”? I am not a big fan of that expression – “life gets in the way.” It’s right there with “time to return to real life.” Both imply that time spent outside is nothing more than a frivolous pursuit or, at best, an escape from our productive and important lives filled with jobs, chores and responsibilities.

There are days when I daydream about ditching the so-called “real life” for a life of outdoor adventures. I know, however, that right now it is not realistic. So instead my goal is to incorporate outdoors into my everyday life as much as possible, whether by making sure I take a walk during my lunch break, skipping the bus and walking part of the way home, growing a container garden on my balcony and filling my apartment with plants, or making weekend getaways and microadventures a priority.

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Celebrating fall’s arrival at Point Pelee

October 13, 2018December 17, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 9 Comments

This year, to celebrate fall’s arrival we decided to do something different. Just kidding. We headed to the woods in search of fall colors. Not the reds of maples, but the orange of monarch butterflies. Each year they congregate at Point Pelee in thousands before making their trip south. I’ve seen pictures of this miraculous sight but never actually experienced it. Plus the new oTENTiks now available in the park sounded like an attractive proposition. I love our tent – a lot. Occasionally, however, glamping with no camp to set up can be very alluring, especially for a quick weekend getaway.

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The ups and downs of our road trip to California (in lots of pictures and a few words)

October 4, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 5 Comments

“We forgot to do our highlights of the trip,” said my husband right after we crossed the border.

“Well, good thing we still have another four hours of driving ahead of us.”

We love road trips. Every summer we pick a destination, map out stops along the way, pile into our car and go. Sure, long driving stretches can sometimes be tiring but they provide a nice transition from the structured busyness of everyday life. A drive back works in reverse offering an opportunity to leave our vacation behind. That’s when we reminisce about everything we’ve seen and done and try to narrow all the experiences down to ten best. Not an easy task.

This year’s trip took us from 282 feet below the sea level in Death Valley
to almost 10,000-foot altitudes of High Sierra.
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All I want for my birthday is a sunrise and a long trail

September 20, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 4 Comments

I haven’t posted anything in the past couple of months. Our four-week trip turned into a lengthy vacation from all things Internet, and with planning, preparing, packing and unpacking, there was little time to write and post updates. Now, back home with both my camera memory card and the one inside my head filled to the brim, I am slowly making my way through all the experiences. That may take some time so in the meantime here is a post I wrote right before we left but never got a chance to publish.

What’s your idea of a perfect birthday celebration? Mine usually starts with a sunrise. Continue reading →

Forest Bathing at Hockley Valley

June 21, 2018June 21, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 4 Comments

For me, the forest has always been a magical place. Not a scary locale of many fairy-tales and horror films, but rather a trove of endless wonders. As a child I spent many summer days wandering through the woods behind my grandparents’ house, listening to the trees whisper to each other, their branches touching tenderly up above, their roots in a tight embrace breaking through the ground under my feet. What thoughts ran through their trunks, I wondered. What dreams nestled in their canopies?

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Breaking out of the loop: Hiking Bruce Trail in Hamilton

May 18, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 4 Comments

Recently, I’ve been guilty of allowing myself to fall into the same home-work cycle, at times feeling like an android host in Westworld, going through the same narrative loop and desperately wishing for the writers to introduce a new twist to my story. Weekend microadventures slowly gave way to other engagements and fickle spring weather. The month of April got compressed into a blur, and no matter how much I tried to grab at its edges to stretch it out just a little bit, it kept slipping away leaving me craving greenery and silence. So when a work event came up in Hamilton, I used the opportunity to stay behind and do some hiking.

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My giant microadventure: a winter hike at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park

March 25, 2018March 29, 2018 / Oleksandra Budna / 8 Comments

I grip the handles of my seat as the plane leaves the tarmac of Thunder Bay International Airport. Not that I am afraid of flying; just prefer to remain on the ground. That little niggle at the pit of my stomach is forgotten as soon as the frozen expanse of Lake Superior comes into view. The white is interrupted by the dark blue waters, smooth and serene from up here. Glued to the window, I glimpse the head and chest of Sleeping Giant, just as majestic from the air as he is from the ground. The plane dives into the cloud before I manage to say good-bye.