About
Me
Hi! My name is Paul Konkin and I am currently living in Edmonton, Alberta...unfortunately. It may have taken me a long time to learn to walk as a chubby baby, but now it's all I want to do! (On the condition it's up a mountain that is...) My family has always been "outdoorsy", and trips to the Rockies have been commonplace for as long as I can remember. I completed my first official scramble (Fairview Mountain) when I was 10 years old, and I don't know if it was the outstanding, uninterrupted views, the journey, navigating my way up a variety of terrain to achieve a goal, or the feeling of accomplishment, standing on top of a big rock (lol), but I was instantly hooked! I found myself striving to reach new summits each summer after that, and it soon became my goal to scramble to the top of as many big rocks as I could, in the short gift of time I have on this earth. Other than scrambling, I also absolutely love skiing! I've downhill skied for many years, but got my first backcountry setup at the end of 2021, opening up a whole new world of winter adventures. The next step for me is learning the ins and outs of glacier travel so I can finally enter the realm of mountaineering, which I've been itching to explore for far too long! My current dream is to live in a van and experience a new adventure every day, soaking in all the beauty our incredible Rocky Mountains have to offer! Lots of things need to fall into place for that dream to become a reality, but it never hurts to have something to keep you chasing!
Photos
I purchased my first real camera (a Fujifilm X-T3) back at the beginning of 2022, which has found itself by my side (or should I say around my neck 😉) for all my adventures since. I used the kit lens (18-55mm F/2.8-4) for a year, but as my love for photography continued to grow, I eventually gave in and started a little collection. My current "walk-around" lens is the XF 10-24mm F/4, because I love its fun, ultrawide capabilities. Sometimes when you're climbing a mountain all you see is rubble, rubble, and more rubble(!), but the extra FOV of this lens allows for some really unique, creative possiblities! I also always bring a telephoto (XF 55-200mm F/3.5-4.8) in my backpack to give me some range, allowing me to compress a scene, zoom-in to distant peaks, and even acts as a set of binoculars if I'm trying to see something far away. On backpacking trips I'll even toss in my Rokinon 12mm F/2 for astrophotography. Photographing the stars has quickly become a passion of mine, and I really hope to focus on it more in the future! All in, this makes for a very hefty setup, weighing in at over 2 kg (5 lbs!), and really isn't helping my ultralight backpacking mentality (the rest of my gear really has to compensate to get my base weight down!). With some of the big, crazy ideas I'm coming up with these days, it's likely I'll eventually have to get a smaller point and shoot (something like a Sony RX-100) so I can move faster without sacrificing too much in terms of image quailty, but these aren't cheap either, so for now I make do with the extra weight. And now for a brief history...Photos will decrease in quality the further you go back in time as until 2020, all I had was an iPod Touch 5th gen. After that, I wielded my trusty iPhone SE 1st gen. (also not great quality...😂) until about halfway through the summer of 2021 when I started lugging our Canon Rebel DSLR up with me. I was tired of the mediocre quality iPhone camera with its limited versatility and options to be creative and greatly enjoyed learning how to use an actual camera. Photography quickly became a very important part of my adventures, and I am constantly looking for new, interesting ways to frame photos and always looking to improve!
Website
I started creating this website after scrambling to the top of 38 summits in the summer of 2021. This was an exciting new record for me at the time, and I wanted to document all my adventures, as good memories to look back on, as well as share my passion with anyone else who is interested :). I have no previous background in computers what-so-ever, but used online resources to learn basic HTML and CSS to construct my website from scratch! It has been a great learning experience, and I am always eager to learn more! My dad happens to be a computer programmer, and it's been amazing to have someone to turn to when I'm frustrated because my code isn't working, often because of some silly mistake that he quickly points out! When it came to Javascript (to make the lists sortable, and slide show mode), that was all my dad, which he had no trouble with because of his "30 years of experience"...That doesn't help me much, now does it?! LOL! Anyways...it's inspiring to see all the knowledge he possesses, and I can't thank him enough for his support! Thank you dad!!
Acknowledgements
Let's start with my beautiful family! I have the most amazing family I could possibly hope for! Two beautiful, supportive older sisters, an extremely caring mom, and the most fun and adventurous dad! Without their love and support, I wouldn't be who I am today, and I love them more than anything! Since my obsession with scrambling began, my dad has always been there to drive the painful four hours from Edmonton, again and again and again! When he introduced me to climbing a mountain back when I was 10, he likely had no idea I would become so passionate about scrambling, and that I'd soon be the one badgering him to go hiking all the time. Even so, he's always down to scramble up a new mountain with me! He has been the most incredible scrambling partner, and who knows if I'd ever even climb a mountain if it wasn't for him! Although they'll likely never see this, I'd also like to thank Alan Kane and Andrew Nugara for their Canadian Rockies scramble guidebooks! Learning of their books opened up an incredible amount of opportunities, scrambling mountains I would have never known of otherwise. These books greatly furthered my love for scrambling, giving me a goal of something to work towards, with so many mountains out there to climb! Back in Jr. High, I would take these books in to school for DEAR time, studying different routes, always looking forward to my next adventure! Finally, I'd like to give a big thank you to all those who post their adventures online! When I'm not able to be in the mountains scrambling myself, I often find myself reading other's trip reports, for both information and enjoyment! Although I appreciate all the trip reports out there, I'd like to give a special thank you to Vern Dewit (explor8ion.com), Matthew Hobbs (On-Top.ca), and Bob Spirko (bobspirko.ca) who's websites likely make up the majority of my search history, and that have provided great inspiration for me to create a website of my own! Whether they know it or not, this group of people have had a great impact on my life, and I would like to give a huge thank you to all of them!
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