The Sunshine Coast Trail is Canada’s longest hut-to-hut hiking trail, just 5 hours North of Vancouver, BC. It’s a unique and beautiful backcountry experience that stretches 180km from Sarah Point to Saltery Bay, along coastal shorelines, through old growth forests, and up to panoramic mountaintops.

Early June of 2019, my friend Adam and I planned on fast packing a large portion of the trail, starting from Powell River and running 115 km back to Saltery Bay. Our primary goal was to train and test out our ultralight gear for our upcoming 5-day fastpack of the Tahoe Rim Trail a few weeks later.

Puerto Vallarta is a beach resort city on the Pacific coast of Mexico. It’s a popular destination for those seeking sun, water sports, and nightlife. But it’s not exactly known for its trail running.

I had been to Puerto Vallarta many times over the years to visit my sister who lives in the area, but it wasn’t until a visit in 2018 that I discovered this little gem that has since become my favourite local trail.

Starting in Courmayeur, the 330 km Tor Des Geants follows two popular trekking routes in the Italian Alps. The course heads counter-clockwise on the Alta Via 2 along the south side of the Aosta valley for the first half of the race, returning along the Alta Via 1 back to Courmayeur.

There are 43 aid stations along the way, along with 6 major life bases, where runners can eat, sleep and obtain medical care if needed, with a cut off time of 150 hours.

The Loowit Trail circumnavigates Mount St. Helens in Washington State, past old-growth forests, waterfalls, meadows, and the leftovers of the volcano’s 1980 eruption.

A group of us ran the roughly 30 mile trail in August of 2018, starting from Climber’s Bivouac Campground. Watch the video below.

The Suunto Spartan Collection is the newest line-up of multisport watches, building on the success of Suunto’s Ambit series. After training for several years first with a Suunto Ambit 2, then an Ambit 3 Sport, and finally an Ambit 3 Vertical, I was pretty excited to get my hands on their top-of-the-line Suunto Spartan Ultra recently so I could put some of the new navigation features to the test.