Travels of Jack Ross and Barbara Bolton
 
     
 

Angkor Wat

January 8, 2007 Angkor Wat Complex, Siem Reap, Cambodia
There is a book out titled "Places you should see before you die".
We are sure Angkor Wat is one of them.  Make a point to visit this place!
(See the Siem Reap movie below for more Angkor Wat info)

 
 


 
 

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.
Please feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Most of our travels are now on video. We have two youtube channels. If you want to continue to follow us, subscribe:
General Travel channel
Hiking and backpacking channel  

 
 
Index of our trips since 2005
 
 
 
 

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.  
     Trekking in Nepal  We were on the trails for 26 days - Annapurna circuit and sanctuary ( See the Nepal Panorama Pics )
     Siem Reap, Cambodia Touring the temple complex of Angkor Wat (10 min.) - This included a segment from a pro production.   Jan 2007 (note: this video is of poor quality andsmall)
     Laos:  We crossed into Laos from Northern Thailand, then flew from Vientiene to Cambodia and on to Thailand (14 minute movie)

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.
Bhutan movie , Nepal - Tilicho Lake movie (on the Anapurna Circuit trek)

One the Nepal section of this trip, we spent a month in The Everest Region - fantastic scenery!
There will be five Everest videos that tell the story of our experiences.
Part I: Jiri to Lukla, Part II: Lukla to Gokyo, Part III: Gokyo (over Cho La) to Gorak Shep, Part IV: Gorak Shep to Chukung and Part V: Chukung back to Lukla (never produced). We also went to the jungle region in Nepal and trekked the Anapurna Circuit a second time (it is so fun!)

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).
Watch a fun youtube video we made of the Hubbard Glacier calving from the cruise ship, and watch the master filet girl clean a halibut for us in 90 seconds.

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!
The two week trip took us to Carlsbad Caverns, on an airboat ride, a swamp tour in Louisana, a swim with Manatees in Florida and
a beautiful cavern in Sonora, Texas.  We also visited with Barb's mom in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

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)
Then, in September, Jack climbs Mt. Tom (near Bishop, CA, 10 min video)

In 2011, we met a Kiwi couple, Barb and Dunc, hiking the PCT. They got engaged on Mt. Whitney and planned to get married on March 1, 2014. So we would be there and why not make a trip out of it! We were on the road for four months (Dec 2, 2013 - Mar. 26, 2014). See the videos! Australia (23 min), New Zealand, South Island (26 min), New Zealand, North Island (21 min) . It was an awesome trip. If you are into adventure and decide to go, get two books by Scott Cook, New Zealand Frenzy (south and north island) on Amazon!

2014

See the entry in 2013. We would be in AU / NZ until March 26th.
Jack and friends climb Banner Peak near Mammoth on June 27th.

San Antonio, TX was the site for Jack's 50th high school reunion. Fun seeing all the "old" friends!
Nov 4-12 we went to VA and DC. Saw all the sights: Monuments, White House tour, Museums.

2015

What a fun time! We spent two months traveling through Turkey, Greece and Egypt (Sept 23-Nov 17)
See the videos documenting our journey: Turkey ( 16 days), Greece ( 37 days), and Egypt (10 days)

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)
He flew to Vancouver, BC on May 31st and touched the US/Mex border fence on July 7th, 1800 miles!
Read the day by day adventure blog here.

We experience the total eclipse of the sun! August 21st, Monmouth, Oregon WOW!

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

We were off on a road trip across the USA to visit Big Bend National Park for a few days and then find a spot inside the zone of totality for the Total Eclipse of the Sun! April 8th. We ended out travelling for three weeks and found perfect eclipse conditions at Vincennes, IN. This was our third total eclipse! (2017 in Oregon and 1998 in Venezuela) See the 9 minute 2024 eclipse video here!

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