As of July 27, 2019, The GPX downloads has been fixed for ALL trip reports and quite a few (important) new ones are added in addition. There’s still slim chances that I missed something but if you don’t see a “GPX DL” link at the bottom of the topo map overlay then I probably just do not have the track with me. In the last two years I’ve given up on the handheld GPS device and use exclusively the Gaia app on my iPhone for navigation. There are a few fairly important trips that I chose not to record a track so that I didn’t have to carry an extra battery pack. Trips that were done in 2013 or earlier do NOT have tracks simply because I didn’t own a GPS unit back in those days, and if you do see a download link for trip reports in 2011-13 that means the track was obtained from either my teammate(s) or other sources.
Over the past five years I’ve been putting thousands of hours to develop this site and I’m super happy that it’s reaching out to many of you. However, I do have some concerns with the rapid advancing of internet and social media these days. I know the primary readers of this site are those seasoned peakbaggers, climbers and scramblers that share the same passion with me. It is not you guys that I’m concerning about. But…
A warning to beginners…
As you may or may not have noticed the building blocks of this site/blog is trip reports, aka. the stories of mine. It is NOT an online guidebook and in fact, I have no intention to write an online guidebook. The main purpose here is to document in details of what I MYSELF have been doing in the mountains. And I can tell you right here that I’m far from the textbook type of person, not in the mountains, not in life in general.
Mountaineering?
Mountaineering has inherited risks. For once in a while you’ll hear even the professionals with 20+ years of experience get themselves into troubles. Knowledge and experience can lower the risks but cannot completely eliminate the risks… The reason is simple… Our technology to this date isn’t good enough to completely predict the snow, ice and rock’s physics… It’s about statistics and probabilities. So? If you want to be the most responsible guy on Earth then don’t proceed too far into this game. You don’t have to climb Mt. Robson to get the best view in the Rockies….. Just because I’m chasing those high-risk summits doesn’t mean you have to do the same.
Scrambling?
Don’t tell me “scrambling” isn’t mountaineering. Personally I’m not a fan of the vagueness of this term “scrambling”. If you have to formulate plans and constantly evaluate and make decisions from the ever-changing observations for the sake reason of staying alive then you are mountaineering. Although with good timing and plans you should have very low probability of getting into trouble on a generally-accepted “scramble ascent”.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT the Mr. Safety out there in the mountains and I need NOT have to explain my various “non-textbook” type of decisions in my trip reports. You have to be honest to your own risk/reward kind of thing and be sure to apply your own knowledge, formulate your own approach and know your own limitations. Here I take absolutely no responsibility of inaccuracy in the descriptions nor the unsafe practices of mine if you run into trouble using my trip reports as references.
I’m not a huge fan of presenting too much of myself beyond the scope of climbing so I’m keeping my bio short. But here are some facts about me.
STEVEN SONG
- sometimes I go with “H-Steven SONG” to distinguish myself from the many same-names. What does that “H” stand for? Well, I’m a big fan of Hebe Tien (a Taiwanese celebrity) pretty much since elementary school.
- Born in China in 1993.
- Immigrated to Canada in 2008.
- Lived in Vancouver 2008-2011, then Edmonton 2011-2015, and now back to Vancouver.
Facebook: H-Steven Song
Instagram: steven_peakbagging
Email: icyicefield@hotmail.com
