Mt. Albert Edward: Thanksgiving in the Mountains
On the long Thanksgiving weekend we headed to Vancouver Island to visit our friends Jan and Warrick. We took the ferry on Friday evening which left with a healthy delay which kept our friends waiting at the terminal. They live just outside of Duncan, about an hour away from the ferry terminal in Nanaimo. The next day we took a short morning tour of their 20 acre property, which has mostly lush forest on it and is adjacent to the river. They just finished building a tiny and basic cabin right on the water which they plan on sleeping in sometimes. After some deliberation, we decided on a three day…
Place Glacier and Mt. Gardiner: Steep Trail and a Snowy Ridge
The hike up to Place Glacier was very steep with little respite for most of the 1340m elevation gain. There was a nice waterfall on the way up and some limited views backwards. Close to the end of the day we had to scramble up some slabs which would have be tricky and perhaps dangerous when wet. We set up camp near a lake, at the foot of the Place Glacier, with our objective for the next day, Mt. Gardiner looming above. There were also two glaciology huts nearby which we took a look at but they weren’t too interesting. We had an early dinner and watched the mountains in…
