My Suitcase

In the fall of 1994 I spent three weeks touring China on a trip organized by a friend from Chiltern Mountain Club. I took a video camera and shot ten hours of tape. I have made one video from this material - The Way to Hua Shan - and several more are projected.

In 1986 I toured New Zealand with a group sponsored by the Appalachian Mountain Club. I enjoyed the country so much that I have gone back nearly every year since then. I walked the Milford Track on my first trip and again in 1996, and have hiked (tramped) most of the major trails in the country, including the Tongariro Traverse, Mt. Ruapehu, the Lake Waikaremoana Track (Urewera National Park), the Routeburn Track (twice), the Hollyford Track, the Kepler Track, the Abel Tasman Track, the Heaphy Track, the Wangapeka ("it may not be longer, but it's harder") and trails in the Kaueranga Valley (on the Coromandel Peninsula, near Auckland ), the Mt. Cook National Park, Matukituki Valley (Mt. Aspiring National Park) and the new Nelson Lakes National Park (1995 and 1997). On my first trip (1986) I climbed up to the crater lake of Mt. Ruapehu, which erupted in 1995 and again in June, 1996.  In 1996 we enjoyed walking up Avalanche Peak in Arthur's Pass (near Christchurch).

In recent years I have included a week or two in Australia on my trips Down Under. My favorite places are the harbor and beaches of Sydney and the Blue Mountains, although I had a rather nice time in Melbourne over the past few years, including its first ever (!?!) gay pride parade in 1996. I was in Sydney for Mardi Gras one year and it was amazing.

In July 1996 I did a five-day backpacking trip with some hiking pals in the Olympic National Park near Seattle. We also did a six-day backpacking trip in January, 1997 in Nelson Lakes National Park in New Zealand. In January 1998 I did two backpacking trips in Mt. Aspiring National Park with my Auckland tramping friends, including a memorable hike over Cascade Saddle  (Another group's trip is described here and an unsuccessful attempt is recounted in Scott Yost's N.Z. journal).  In June, 1998 I walked part of the Coast to Coast Walk across England - the first 80 miles, in the Lake District.

In prior years I participated in four expeditions with Earthwatch - excavating a recumbent stone circle in Strichen, Scotland; finding and documenting dry stone peat drying huts in the Eskdale, Lake District; assaying the insect population in the rainforest canopy of Lamington National Park, Queensland, Australia (at O'Reilly's Rainforest Guest House); and surveying and excavating marae sites on Atiu, Cook Islands (here are another visitor's pictures of Atiu).

4/12/99