Africa, Morocco
Jonathan Jung
THE SAHARA

September 27, 2017

Today was a looooong drive from Fes to the Sahara just outside of the city of Merzouga. A friend of a friend runs the Sahara Garden. Brahim coordinated everything for us and welcomed us upon our arrival with open arms. Truly an amazing human being. We were welcomed with dinner and singing and dancing around a bonfire.

THE SAHARA
Africa, Morocco
Jonathan Jung
CHEFCHAOUEN

September 24, 2017

Our second stop in Morocco was the blue city of Chefchaoen. A small city located up on a hill, wandering thru the medina surrounded by so many shades of blue was quite a different experience from Tangier. We stayed at Casa Perleta, a small bed and breakfast recommended by our friend. It was perfectly located within the upper hill area of the medina. The blue hues of the walls of Chefchaoen are believed to have originated when the Jews came while escaping Hilter in the 1930s. The blue is said to serve as a reminder to lead a spiritual life while symbolizing the sky and heaven.

CHEFCHAOUEN
Europe, Iceland
Jonathan Jung
ICELAND - CHASING THE AURORA BOREALIS

September 11 - 15, 2017

Enroute to our close friends' wedding in Greece we found a cheap flight to Paris via Reykjavik, Iceland and decided to take advantage and do a little stopover in an effort to (fingers crossed) see the northern lights. We decided to restrict our few days to just the southern highlights along the coast. The first thing we noticed was that even though it was supposedly shoulder/low season in Iceland there were significantly more people than when we came the year before in August.

ICELAND - CHASING THE AURORA BOREALIS

wildernessculture

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THE WAVE: PART 2

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THE WAVE: PART 2

just look at the pictures...

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THE WAVE: PART 1

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THE WAVE: PART 1

Yes … Part 1 because there are just too many pictures to decide which are the best. The elusive Wave hike … a 6 mile roundtrip hike that starts in Utah and ends in Arizona. But it’s really not just about the Wave itself, the other sandstone features on the way to the Wave and surrounding the Wave are just as amazing. The Wave is located in Grand Staircase National Monument and managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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BRIAN HEAD AND BRYCE CANYON

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BRIAN HEAD AND BRYCE CANYON

With a gap of 10 days between dropping Jason/Paula/Oliver off at the airport in Salt Lake City and meeting friends in Vail, we needed to fill the gap with a few other destinations. First was Powder Mountain, then with Utah still on the mind, the Wave started my mind going. Well, southern Utah isn’t exactly right next to northern Utah so I figured … why not stop by Brian Head and ski a day as a stopover, so we did.

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK DAY 2

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YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK DAY 2

No snow coach tours were available since we booked late, so instead we decided to rent some snow shoes and hike around on our own. We ended up doing 5-6 miles in total walking around the Old Faithful area.

Yellowstone in winter is SICK.

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GRAND TETON AND YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARKS DAY 1

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GRAND TETON AND YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARKS DAY 1

So we knew we were going to drive out to Jackson Hole to do some skiing between Christmas and New Years, but we decided to schedule a last minute stay in Yellowstone National Park.

Apparently people book their holidays at Yellowstone out a year before, well, not us! I think we booked about a month ago. And it's not just ensuring there’s availability at the Snow Lodge either, you have to book space in a vintage Bombardier snow coach since the roads are closed to normal traffic once the snow starts falling.