Authors

TracksAndTrails.ca Authors

• Bushiologist
• Clayton Kessler – Clayton Kessler is the webmaster of TracksAndTrails.ca. His love of the outdoors has grown from childhood experiences that began in the Kootenay’s.
  
  

  Clayton Kessler

  When he was six years old, Clayton’s father purchased five acres of treed land and built a log home. Later, as a teenager, Clayton lived in the remote ranching community of Big Creek BC where he attended a one room country school house. While in the Chilcotin country, Clayton (and his six brothers) helped local ranchers with trail drives that lasted up to 3 days.
  After living in New Brunswick for 7 years, Clayton now lives in Kelowna BC, Canada and is a certified Amateur Radio operator – call sign VA7CBK. He is happily married with sons and can be reached by leaving a comment at the end of any TracksAndTrails.ca posts. He and the other TracksAndTrails.ca Authors will go to great efforts to have all of your hiking trail questions answered!

• ComfortCoveCottage – I’m a cottage owner on Vancouver Island and love hiking around southern Vancouver Island. The Sooke area has some of the best coastal hikes in the country! Comfort Cove Cottage is a magical place where the forest meets the sea…more at www.comfortcovecottage.com Experience a holiday in a natural paradise, just 40 minutes from Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island. Comfort Cove Seaside Cottage, a peaceful oceanfront haven, is a bright and welcoming vacation rental located in beautiful East Sooke, an area known for its lush forests and gorgeous ocean vistas. This cozy 1100 square foot Sooke cottage is an ideal spot to relax and leave the demands of daily life behind you.
  Enjoy the inspiring views of the picturesque Sooke Basin from this captivating oceanfront property with its own private dock. Swim, watch the wildlife, explore the fascinating sea life at low tide, or just relax. This charming self-catering cottage for rent is tucked away in a beautiful & natural park-like setting. Perched on a hill, Comfort Cove Cottage offers breathtaking views from its many large windows! The cottage is only rented to one party at a time, so you will have complete privacy. Reserve Comfort Cove Cottage.
• CultusCottages – Cultus Cottages are a brand new resort located in the Lindell Beach area of Cultus Lake, within walking distance of the Cultus Lake Provincial Park, beaches & picnic areas right on the lakefront. It is the perfect place to unwind, offering the luxuries of home with nature on your doorstep.
• eerme - Webmaster of www.freecamping.ca -
  

  Eric Erme

  Avid camper and bushwacker. I am old school. I grab a local map and my compass and head off into the forest. I enjoy knowing what all the plants and trees around me are and how I can use them to my benefit. Nothing better than hot Balsam Fir tea on a cold morning.
  My book  ”How to Camp for Free and Enjoy The Wilderness” will get you to great camping spots where you can:Set up your tent. Go Fishing. Park your RV. Ride your ATV. Go Hiking. Go Biking. Go boating. Sit around a campfire. Go Hunting. Go Swimming. Play fetch with your dog. Go Bird watching. Lounge in the Sun. Teach your kids about the forest plants and animals. The book will direct you to the best camping spots in Ontario. All the land is PUBLIC which means you are free to use it. I guarantee you will have no hassles and pay no fees of any kind. …more

• Gary Bart
  CampingHikingGuide.com is your one-stop resource for information, articles, tips, guides, reviews and more. With more than 60 articles on various subjects, from beginner to advanced, if you are looking for free, useful information about hiking, camping, canyoneering, mountaineering, and rock climbing, be sure to check us out. We have feature sections that include our favorite outdoor books, product reviews, survival guides, hot deals and more.
• hgjohnson – Grant johnson – … born in Wetaskiwin, Alberta,in 1960 (very old). Moved to Kelowna in June 1972. So I guess I’m almost an old timer resident. Married for 21 years (omg, really!!) I’ve worked for KGH for 19 years. (when can I retire?)
  

  Lost Again

  Related work experience includes 5 seasons of 4-5 months working for BC Parks in the early 1980′s. That was at Bowron Lake Prov Park and Barkerville Park. I realy enjoyed the wilderness there. Saw lots of bear (mainly black and couple of young grizzly), moose and deer. We even had to live trap a couple of them, then my boss would relocate the bear..I havent’ paddled all of the Bowron Lake chain. there are some really good hikes in the area too. During that time I went to BCIT and completed the Forest Tech course but couldn’t get foresty work (like nearly all the other forestry grads). And part of the course included lots of tramping through the woods. even a few weeks of it in the winter up at Clearwater.

  I’ve always enjoyed hiking, esp since about age 11-12. we went to Jasper and had fun there.. I scared my mom as I “took off” for a couple of hours hiking up in the woods by myself. Well I loved it and even came across a small herd of mtn sheep. Nowadays my wife doesn’t worry too much, unless I’m really late returning. Like most working folk, I don’t get enough time for hiking. But this year I’m determined to do more. I enjoy some other outdoor activities, but hiking is my favorite. I would love to do some trails in the Rockies. This years plans include Cathedral Prov Park, the Trinity-Ricardo trail and some trails in the Cherryville area.

  In 2006 my wife and kids and I did a job & house exchange. We lived in Perth, western Australia. we toured the east coast for one month before settling in Perth.. And fell in love with the country, people and the lifestyle..Can’t wait to return..Anyway I worked 4 days a week, I always had Thursdays off and spent the day hiking local trails in the Darling “Mountain” Range. Anywhere from 10-20kms each time.  Very fascinating country, very dry. For wildlife I usually saw only some Roos (kangaroos or wallabies). One time was a herd of about 30..  Family hikes included Bluff Knoll, Wave Rock, Murchison River valley, Margaret River caves and coastal beaches.

• Hiking Lady - HikingLady.com was the vision of Carol Roberts, an avid hiker, backpacker and outdoorswoman.
  

  Carol Roberts

  Growing up in California helped her develop a passion for outdoor sports, the environment, and nature photography. With the desire to share her love of the outdoors and encourage others to be as passionate about hiking and backpacking as she is, Carol created a website with the goal of being a resource for all of us who love the outdooors. She porvides tips and advice on chossing the appropriate “Adventure Apparel” and gear, in addition to keeping an up-to-date blog with articles of interest, events, environmental issues, book and movie reviews, organizations to join and deals on hiking gear and apparel.
  Carol believes that by sharing her knowledge of oudoor skills, gear tips and love of hiking and backpacking will  encourage others to participate in the sport. She believes that what the philosopher Aristotle once wrote precisely captures her mission of why she is sharing her passion for the outdoors. “In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.”
  You can follow Hiking Lady on Twitter.com/HikingLady and visit the website HikingLady.com

• Jesse Kessler
• Outdoor Adventure Gear and Travel Outfitters
  Linda Evan-Jones operates Outdoor Adventure Gear in Kelowna.  Linda is an avid hiker with a wealth of knowledge to share about hiking trails in the Okanagan and what kind of gear you will require when you are on the trail.  Visit her store.
• Phil Cadorette – New hiker / geocacher / biker / writer on the loose. Hello everybody, as you have guessed I’m new to this game. I will be
  

  Phil Cadorette

  contributing to Clayton Kessler’s Tracksandtrails.ca website from time to time as my adventures continue. As you can see by the title I do a little of everything and that does not even include the winter activities.  I am working many hikes and recent trips – all of which feature bike trips, hiking,  tunnels on the TCT, with downloadable gps coordinates and tracks.One of the frustrating things with hiking is going to great new areas and not finding accurate local knowledge and getting good information. Clayton and I are setting out to slowly change that. My posts will have gps information and tracks in garmin format. We are currently working on translating that to google earth ” kml” and ” kmz” file formats but that is a work in progress.  The programs I use for all of this is Oziexplorer for mapping, GSAK ( geocaching swiss army knife ) for file conversions between varies gps’s OZI and does many more ( HIGHLY RECOMMEND )  and of course a garmin gps, gamins are not necessarily better just way better supported by google earth and www.geocaching.com so it make sense to have.

• TentUtopia – D’Arcy Johnson -
  

  D'Arcy Johnson

  www.tentutopia.com - I am a a new webmaster trying to get my business off the ground. I sell tents because I love camping and the outdoors. I live in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which gives me plenty of opportunity to hike and camp in my own backyard. I also love to ride my motorcycle and have taken camping road trips where I have seen and experienced some beautiful country in the western part of the US.

• Virtual Outdoor Adventures
  Steve Chapman of Virtual Outdoor Adventures website comes from an electronics design background, but also has over 30 years of extensive outdoor experience. He has climbed Denali and other peaks in the Himalayas, European Alps and the Scandinavian Arctic. Over the years, he has taken countless multi-day trips into the wilderness on foot, ski and kayak.
• WildThing -Completed a 250km thru-hike of the Okanagan Valley starting May 14 and finishing up May 25. Completed an average of 25km a day and carried 20lbs.
• Wolfmaan - Barefoot Adventurer – Wolfmaan.com

TracksAndTrails.ca Authors love the outdoors and enjoy sharing their unique outdoor experiences with others. Trail Authors do not have to be writers or photographers. The general purpose of this website is to:

Help locals and newcomers to any city of Canada or enjoy the beauty in the area that they live by providing pictures and trail head information.

Help tourists get to know an area via a pictures, trail head information and advice via the comments on each post. In doing the above items.

TracksAndTrails.ca is monetized and the income allows funds to be invested back into the website so more people can discover great outdoor areas. The site earns income via content related advertising such as Google adsense, other ad content and several outdoor related products.

TracksAndTrails.ca Authors are sometimes business owners and may tastefully promote their outdoor business via the articles they create for this website.