Northbound Bruce Trail Hike - 2009

Norbound Bruce Trail 2009


I have been an adventurer and explorer my entire life. From a young age I set sail from the comfort of my home seeking new places and meeting new people. These adventures have taken me across the globe and to some of the most desolate places on earth.

One area of Canada has always stood out to me is an 800km footpath which runs from Niagara Falls Ontario Canada to Tobermory Ontario Canada. The path was created in 1967 to help promote biodiversity and protect the last dying wilderness of the Niagara Escarpment from development.

Like a lot of people, I hold down a mediocre, going-nowhere dead-end job at a call center which pays some of my mundane expenses but lacks fulfillment and uses few of my talents.

On June 02, 2009 I will be leaving my job and embarking on an 800km journey. Starting off in Queenston, Ontario I will be casting-off and heading toward Tobermory with only my dog, Luka.

By the time you read this blog, trip planning will be well underway using the latest technology and cutting-edge products to keep me safe and in touch with my support network of friends and family who will re-supply me every 10 days along the trail.

Inspired by great adventurers like Todd Carmichael, Dot Butler and Tom Perry, I will set-off on my journey focused on completing the trail in 60 days. While this is by no means record breaking, it will set a new precedent in my life and allow me to use all my outdoor skills in my first long distance solo hike.

I'll be subjecting myself and my gear to some of the toughest, grueling conditions in the Canadian sub-arctic climate.

Traveling barefoot, the trip will be a triumph of mind as well as body. When completed I will be one of the few who have completed a single-trip northbound hike of Canada's oldest and longest hiking trail.

Barefoot climber tackles Mt. Fuji

(ANSA) - Tokyo, September 20 - An Italian mountaineer who has become famous for scaling peaks in his bare feet is to take on Japan's highest and holiest mountain, Mt. Fuji.

Antonio Peretti, 47, a charity-driven forest guard and part-time adventurer from the mountainous Veneto region, is to attempt his feat next month - on the heels of similar exploits that have earned him the nickname "the barefoot climber".



Peretti, who pits himself against nature under the adopted name of 'Tom Perry', is an amateur parachutist, hiker and biker who says he "discovered his true calling" when he flung off his boots and started running headlong down a local mountain one summer's day in 2002.

Over the next five years, Hobbit-like, he clambered over most of his native Dolomites as well as venturing farther afield to Mt. Blanc, Kilimanjaro, the Himalayan heights of Makalu, volcanos in Ecuador, Bolivia and Etna in Sicily - while it was erupting.

On his website, www.tomperry.it, Peretti says he feels "the Earth transfers its energy to me while barefoot.

"I am spiritually reborn, I become a conduit for positive and genuine values".

On each of his climbs Perry has raised money for environmental causes and peace groups worldwide.

This time he will be bringing ash from Etna to the top of Mt. Fuji in a sort of symbolic 'twinning' of the two famous peaks.

Perry will also carry up a plaque commemorating the exploits of Italy's late 'Human Condor' Angelo D'Arrigo, who died in a plane crash last year.

The Mt. Fuji ascent will be covered by Sky TV and journalists who have recorded Peretti's other exploits will put together an 'instant book' on the initiative.