Travels of Jack Ross and Barbara Bolton |
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Barb and I love to travel and are very active in sports. We opened this website so that we could share our adventures and travels with you. We met in 1992 and went on our first big trip together to Bali (surfing and scuba diving) in 1994. This site documents our travels from 2005 on. Most of our travels are now on video. We have two youtube channels. If you want to continue to follow us, subscribe: |
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Index of our trips since 2005 |
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2005 Death Valley trip - 2 weeks in Death Valley (Thanksgiving, 2005) 2006 Mainland Mexico March - June 2006. Three months in Mexico, what fun! Snorkling with leopard sharks, a 2 minute movie - La Jolla CA, summer 2006 Nepal and Southeast Asia trip November 2006 thru January 2007. We were gone for 3 months and visited Nepal, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. 2007 Northwest Washington: Eight days in the Olympic Peninsula, San Juan Island, Mt. Rainier National Park - Perfect weather Climbing Matterhorn Peak: Near Bridgeport, CA. In October, we climbed the Southeast slope Climbing Mt. Tom: Near Bishop, CA - We were denied the summit but had fun. Climbing beta and a short movie 2008 Backpacking: Yosemite to Devil's Postpile (Mammoth) 6 days Bhutan / Nepal / India: Sept 25 - Dec 25, 2008. See the trekking info on Nepal here. One the Nepal section of this trip, we spent a month in The Everest Region - fantastic scenery! 2009 2009 was a slow year for trips but we did go on an Alaskan cruise then drove a rental car all over the state (20 min video) before flying home (with 50 lbs of halibut). In the Sierras, near Bridgeport, CA is the ghost town of Bodie, CA. We visited when the road was closed - snow! See the video 2010 Back on the road - Barb wanted to see a space shuttle launch so we drove to Titusville, FL for STS-131. It was awesome! Moab, UT road trip, Ross (Jack's nephew) and Tamara's wedding but we stopped at Bryce National Park, Antelope Canyon in Page, Arizona, drove through Monument Valley, hiked around Moab and took a mostly auto tour of Arches National Park. One week, action packed trip! Two weeks down the Colorado River from Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead. We went on a commercial trip in dories - boats much like those used by John Wesley Powell in 1869. If you are planning on doing this, check out the comprehensive info on this link. 2011 It was a big year for adventure! On Jack's bucket list was a journey of a lifetime: Thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Planning took a couple of months and the trip, 2,654 miles from the Mexican border to Canada took another five months. Every day was documented online with a journal entry and we have some pretty fun and interesting videos (watch #1, "hiking spoof"). An abreviated index to our journal (and the entire tome) can be found here. Barb was on this trip too but injured out near Mammoth. Still, she completed 1,066 PCT miles! Later this year, Jack was chosen to make the 2011 Pacific Crest Trail Class Movie. With contributions from over 80 hikers and working with over 12,000 stills and movies, the production took 2 months to complete. It is one hour and 17 minutes long. 2012 A fun year! We went on a road trip in our ford ranger and drove the entire length of Baja, from here to the tip and back. We took surfboards and stopped at many awesome places along the way. With us in a separate vehicle were our good friends, Jesse and JT. In July and August, we did another road trip, this time we followed the Pacific Coast Highway as well as we could, all the way up to Oregon, where we went on a three day Rogue River raft trip. Then, in November, we did another road trip - this one a long drive down the Mexican mainland, all the way to Zihuatanejo (south of Puerto Vallarta). It was a surf trip and we stayed at a friends beach house way down there. We were gone over a month. 2013 July: A road trip in Ireland...For a month! With some of the best weather in 18 years! See the Ireland video here. (32 min) 2014 See the entry in 2013. We would be in AU / NZ until March 26th. San Antonio, TX was the site for Jack's 50th high school reunion. Fun seeing all the "old" friends! 2015 What a fun time! We spent two months traveling through Turkey, Greece and Egypt (Sept 23-Nov 17) 2016 Not much happened travel wise this year but we did manage a one week trip to Cabo with our friends Jesse and JT. 2017 Jack checks off another bucket list item of riding his bicycle from Canada to Mexico (border to border) Sailing in the Sea of Cortez! We flew to La Paz, Baja on October 30th and rented a small sailboat for two weeks on the Gulf of California. We spent much of our time on Espiritu Santo Island, a UNESCO biosphere reserve. Water temp was 81 degrees! 2018 April 1-5: A backcountry hut to hut ski trip in Colorado. Jack, Scott and Jim B. It started out as a one week private power boat charter (six of us) on the Saône River in France (near Lyon). We figured why go all the way to Europe without spending more time and seeing more places. So we departed on May 15th and spent six weeks travelling to Spain, Portugal, Morocco and France (We returned home on June 26th). One of the high points was, at the end of the trip, the ten days we spent in Paris. More videos coming! Sept. 17-23. A challenging hike! Barb couldn't make it but Jack and two of his friends spent a week in the true backcountry on a 50 mile portion of the Sierra High Route. December: Jack helps a friend relocate his 50 foot sailboat from Mazatlan, Mexico to Long Beach, CA. 2019 August 16 - Sept. 5th: Three weeks in ICELAND! Another country on our bucket list. We started the trip with a fantastic, 5day hike in the highlands. Then, we rented a small camper van and drove for twelve days around the ring road. Watch both videos! 2020 Pandemic Year! Jack was skiing with friends in Utah when they closed all the mountains (March 15th) We also had planned an extensive six week trip to South America (Peru and Ecuador, including the Galapagos Islands) All plans were scrapped. 2021 From 2020. we were unable to get a refund for our Galapagos 8 day ship cruise but they did give us a voucher and, by a stroke of luck, they retired the old rickity ship and gave us a free upgrade to one of their newer vessels, The M/V Evolution. So, we made it a short two week trip from May 4-19th. We scheduled four nights on the island of Santa Cruz, then we did the eight day cruise and finally spent an additional three nights on the final island of San Cristobal. The trip was AWESOME! Watch the entire trip video here (40 minutes) or opt for just the portion on the Evolution here (25 minutes). For his 75th birthday, Jack hiked 75 (+) miles with his friend Scott Shewmaker. They started on the East side of the Sierra and traversed the range, ending up in Sequoid National Park, a seven day hiking adventure. Watch the 10 minute video! 2022 Thought we would max out the use of our Ikon ski pass so we took some time in March to drive to Mammoth, Tahoe, Utah and Colorado. Seems like everywhere we went it was Spring break! Somewhat of a bummer but on the way home, we hiked a wonderful slot canyon near Kanab, UT. Called Buckskin Gulch (5 min video) Antarctica (32 min video) ! We still had Antarctica on our "bucket list". And as long as we were going to South America, why not take in Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires and Patagonia as well! The Antarctic cruise is very expensive and previous travellers all told us to include South Georgia Islands on our itinerary. Research said that there would be some good last minute bargains and we were able to reserve the trip we wanted six weeks before sailing at a reasonable price! The 20 day cruise started at Puerto Madryn, Argentina on Nov. 2nd. It included the Falkland Islands (or The Malvinas if you are Argentinian), South Georgia Island and Antarctica. The trip ended at the tip of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina. This video also includes a bit of our hiking time in Patagonia (from 29:00-32:00) after we disembarked. In all, we were gone for six weeks, three of which were on the ship. Some Images with descriptions are also uploaded now. This was an awesome trip! 2023 Two weeks in Cabo with our friends Jesse and JT, a road trip to Paso Robles for wine tasting, and ... on October 20th we hiked the rim to rim of the Grand Canyon in a day. Brutal, but awesome! 24 miles, 6,000 ft down and 4,000 feet up! See the video! (12 min) Took 13 hours. 2024 It was an "interesting" year with two big road trips and Barb going under the knife for shoulder surgery. Here is a Christmas card synopsis with appropriate links. The high point of the year was watching a total eclipse of the sun on April 8th. This was our third one (2017 in Oregon and 1998 in Venezuela). See the 9 minute 2024 eclipse video here! And, oh, we had a bear encounter at a cabin in the Sierra. 8 min movie! 2025 Two weeks in Cabo (February) TBD |
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