Pure Outside

Welcome to PureOutside! This post used to be on Island Adventurer. To better organize the outdoor information it will now be hosted here. When people think of winter skiing and snowshoeing on Vancouver Island, Mount Washington Alpine Resort frequently comes to mind.  While the resort is very popular and has plenty to offer the winter [...]

The muscles are sore. The gear is dirty. The pictures are taking a while to upload. My mind is still buzzing from all the activities. All signs of a good weekend.

I’ve been trying to ski as much as possible lately but if the trip is with people that don’t have skis or is in more technical terrain sometimes we opt to go with snowshoes. Here are the things I bring with me snowshoeing. Let me know what you bring in the comments. Main Items Snowshoes [...]

I have a friend named Stephanie who is incredibly athletic.  She is one of the fittest women I know and never shies away from a race, challenge, event or ass kicking moksha yoga session.  We raced the Squamish MOMAR together – check it out over at PureOutside.com.  I am a fan of everything she does [...]

Last year when the MEC winter catalogue arrived, my girlfriend Kirsten was awed by the cover photo.  A group of friends camped out in the snow on a bluebird day surrounded by all the amenities one would have at home.  “That looks like a great idea for my birthday party!” she exclaimed excitedly in a [...]

“Let’s go for a snowshoe,” someone says. “Ok!” I say. “Where?” I say. “Ummm,” they say. We decide on the access road that begins on Nanaimo Lakes road and heads up the back of Mount Benson. Check out the track and pictures here on Trip Tracker.   For some reason the track from last year [...]

Earlier today I grabbed my snowshoes and took off for a quick jaunt up Notch Hill in Nanoose; first time on them this winter!  The first 500m really didn’t have enough snow for snowshoes but I wore them anyways – the excitement was too much for me.  It didn’t take very long before there was [...]