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About Me

Published by vdewit on April 21st, 2009

My name is Vern Dewit. I moved to Calgary, Alberta (Canada) in 1999 and since then I've fallen in love with the spectacular scenery and grand vistas that open up as you scramble up above treeline on a beautiful fall morning, or make your first cast on some back country stream as the sun throws its golden warmth on surrounding peaks. I hope that my trip reports and pictures will inspire you to push your own physical limits whatever those may be. You may be inspired to try scrambling - a sport where you climb mountains via non-technical ascent routes - or you may simply realize what's in your own backyard and go for a short hike somewhere.

Canada is the most beautiful country on earth, let's get out there and enjoy it. As always, make sure you know what you're doing! Many of the scrambles, canoe trips and backpacking excursions that I describe on my site involve back country navigation and other wilderness survival skills. Read the trip reports carefully and if you have any questions don't hesitate to send me an email.

Proud Zenfolio Member

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Welcome to explor8ion.com!

My site has one goal; namely to get you out from behind your computer and into the great outdoors as fast and as safely as possible. Explor8ion.com is a site dedicated to hiking, scrambling, fishing, biking, canoeing and just about anything else I happen to get interested in over the course of my lifetime! My main focus recently has been in the Canadian Rocky Mountains in and around Alberta, Canada.

For the best viewing experience.

Explor8ion.com is best viewed in either Google Chrome or a Mozilla browser. It will also display in Explorer and other browsers but has not been optimized for those. (Sorry but I'm a Mac user... ;-))

Other stuff

At your own risk, you can check out some of my ramblings on my blog, but like I said, this is soley at your own risk! Another area that I'm passionate about is my photography. I offer a few tips in a short section on photography. I hope to expand this section over time. You should also check out the links page for a world of information on all kinds of trips done by my friends in the Canadian Rockies.

Proud Zenfolio Member

Of Peaks and Peakbagging - Some Reflections

Published by vdewit on October 7th, 2010

Now that I've completed the so-called "Kane List", I am entering a reflective phase of my summit chasing career. Other friends have also started completing summit lists. Between us we have stood on hundreds and hundreds of Canadian Rockies summits. Many people have congratulated me on this accomplishment and are wondering when the party is. If I'm 100% honest about it, I don't get this part of the experience. I don't think what I've done is an accomplishment that needs to be celebrated. Allow me to be blunt.

I am not proud of the fact that I completed the Kane list.

Let me explain.

First some background. When I first started climbing mountains I never even knew there was a 'list'. I just loved the views, loved the exercise and loved getting out with friends or the peace that comes with a solo trip on a beautiful summer day. When Dave Stephens and the RMBooks web board came to my attention I lost a little bit of that innocence. I believe it started fairly innocently but soon the atmosphere around the web board became quite competetive. Dave even started a spreadsheet to track everyone's progress on the list compared with eachother! If you know anything about Dave, he can turn any occasion into a competition - I think it's his American blood! :-) Since I'm of Dutch heritage, I stupidly agree to take on any challenge so I can't blame this all on Dave either. For about 4 years I still climbed mountains because I loved them, but also because I wanted to 'accomplish' something.

This was a mistake.

New RMBooks Forum is up! (Old one is Archived)

Published by vdewit on May 4th, 2010

Check out the new RMBooks web forum at www.rmbooks.com/outdoors_forum/index.php! The old forum was a great local scrambling, climbing and back country skiing online community - let's make this one even better.

I've archived the old forum at http://www.explor8ion.com/rmbooks.

Great Landscape Pictures from a Small Camera

Published by vdewit on December 11th, 2009
Ever wonder how to get those white clouds, blue lakes and darker foregrounds in the same landscape shot on a small sensor camera without using advanced high dynamic range (HDR) and digital blending techniques?
 
There's an easy answer and it doesn't involve spending $5,000 on the latest and greatest 20+ megapixel full frame DSLR and another $1,500 on the latest wide angle lens to take advantage of the resolving power of that sensor. More importantly, for me, I can use my lightweight micro 4/3 camera kit (the Panasonic GH1 with a 14-140mm lens) on my hiking and mountaineering adventures instead of a much heavier full frame system and still get photographs that I can sell or hang on my wall. These techniques have been used be me on everything from a Sigma DP1 to a Canon G9 to an Olympus E420 - any small camera can be used much more effectively for landscape photography if you use the following advice.