About
Meet the Hiker : Bogdan Lapadat, also the one carrying the Backpack all over the place.
Born in Romania in 1980, I’ve been fortunate enough to have an uncle with a passion for hiking and an inclination of sharing that passion with his family , so here I am in 1987 , on my first hike in the mountains. The first steps that led to a life time passion. Are you asking me if that was my backpack then ? Neah, just joking … but it did became my backpack some time later.
One of the first hiking trips I had back then was near a town called Baile Herculane , in Țăsnei Gorges and the view was so beautiful and breathtaking that it forever stayed in my heart and mind. It was the inspiration that drove me to seek more , travel more, experience more.
Fast forward a little bit , the passion for hiking has grown and the backpack is really mine this time. By 1996 I’ve already traveled to a couple of major mountain groups in Romania and climbed my first 2500+ peak , Peleaga, in Retezat mountains. The feelings that one has when reaching his first high altitude peak are indescribable, it’s like staying on top of the world and letting all that wide space fill up your soul.
Fast forward ’till the present time. The backpack has improved a lot , I admit is more comfortable and lighter than the old versions and I got a lot more mileage under my boots. I got to climb all the 2500+ mountain peaks in my country and a couple more in other countries and I’d love to think I will go on for the rest of my life. Traveling and hiking is for me a way to experience life at the fullest, I get to know the world and meet different people from different cultures , with different hopes and ideas. And through all this I get to know myself.
In all this time, I’ve been taking pictures during all my travels and hikes, immortalizing moments and landscapes , keeping track of all the beautiful places I visited, marvelous monuments of nature I’ve seen and happy memories that I’d like to share with others.
My latest passion
Throughout my life I’ve mostly used my analytical mind. In school I was good at mathematics and physics, in high school I studied informatics, later I specialized in automation and computers and for the last 16 years I mostly worked as a programmer. In 2020 the pandemic brought change in our world and I got to spend a lot of time by myself, getting other perspectives over life and trying a whole new range of activities for which I’ve never found time in the past. In some late autumn afternoon, I found myself sketching a couple of figures on a piece of paper and it felt calm , absorbing , it got more and more interesting as the sketch got more and more detailed …it felt inspirational. In the end , watching the result of a couple of hours of drawing I was happy and proud of my work. I realized then, that art makes us get in touch with our feelings, express our most inner thoughts and desires , hidden even for us. It’s like letting our soul speak , without the necessity of the analytical mind to interfere. And I loved that …it seemed to be the piece of the puzzle that I was missing for all these years. Ever since I’ve been trying my hand out with sketching, following some drawing courses and combining all that with graphic design on my computer. And I found out that I can feel happy and accomplished in the same time as I make others feel happy by sharing my artwork and let it be seen.
My Goals
As a hiker , traveler and photographer, I hope to share with you the beauty of the world that we live in and I hope that through my photography and stories I will inspire you to travel more, experience more, seek out new adventures and live your life to the fullest.
As a graphic designer, I hope to create images or items that will draw your feelings out , whether that will make you happy or sad, inspired or melancholic , energetic or thoughtful , that will resonate with your inner self or make a colorful statement to the world. I would like to help you color your life, give it more meaning, laughter and appreciation.