The Chief: Escape from the Fog
The fog engulfed us for over a week. I woke up each morning just to see a dense grey cloud outside our window, with no sign of the sun. Yes, it led to a mysterious atmosphere: I imagined stalkers lurking, waiting for their prey, and was almost run over by a few cars while riding my bike around town. However, after a few days the fog got kind of old, and we considered praying for the sun to come back. In the end, all that was necessary was a short drive out of town to Chief Stawamus, also known as The Chief. During an inversion, cold moist air hangs low…
South Chilcotins: A Castle, Two Grizzlies, and a Cardtable
Long weekends around Vancouver are a “problem”. They cause crowds at all the usual hiking spots. Since one of the reasons for even wanting to travel in the backcountry (for us) is avoiding crowds, we search high and low for places that will be empty even on a long weekend. A good bet is a combination of a location that almost no one has heard of, and a very long drive (see our trips up Taylor Creek and Slim Creek). Such are the South Chilcotins. Our friends Jan and Warrick arrived from Vancouver Island on Friday evening just as we rolled back from the August Critical Mass. The next day…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Chilliwack and Nearby, Hiking & Scrambling, Trip Reports, Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC)
Slollicum Peak: A Dangerous Supernatural Creature
What’s a Slollicum? I’m not really sure, but according to Bivouac, it’s a “dangerous supernatural creature of local mythology”. As much as we tried, we didn’t spot this undoubtedly interesting creature, although we saw some other fascinating life forms. After meeting at the trailhead, we promptly began hiking up the wrong logging road. After too long, we realized the road we were on wasn’t going up, so it was unlikely to be the correct one. We later made two more logging road mistakes, which we are happy to blame on unclear instructions and bugs clouding our judgement. A few people suggested ditching the trip and going down for a swim…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Hiking & Scrambling, Hurley & Lillooet Valley, Trip Reports, Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC)
Harrison Hut Trail Work: Making a Change in the World
Can we make a change in the world? It seems so hopeless, how can one person move a mountain. I remember arguing with an office mate of mine, who chose not to vote since his one little vote would not make a difference. Yes, sure, a quick look at the history books shows that some smart leaders have effected change (such as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela), but they couldn’t have done it without a group of determined individuals to help them out. Given enough resources, such a group can indeed move a mountain, or, as happened on this trip, build a trail and a road. The Harrison Hut, which…
Mt. Rainier: Another Smooth Trip
Some trips go completely smoothly. This one seemed to be off to a bad start. We met at 6am below our building, and Ariel asked Brent off handedly if he had brought his passport. After a mad dash back to UBC, and picking up Conrad, we were on our way again. At the US border we had the pleasure of meeting two nasty guards and breathed in relief an hour later when they let us go. Then at the trailhead, we were just about to start hiking when we tried to pick up Brent’s backpack and could barely lift it. After nixing a bunch of unnecessary items, and eating a…
Twin Lakes: Crystal, Elliot and A Problem Marmot
I am drawn to places that are hard to get to, and visited by few. Yes, it’s harder to find information about these places, they require more effort and sometimes planning, but they offer solitude and an authentic experience. I like to think that there’s a “marginal effort principle” at work: if you put in just a bit more effort than most people, you get a substantially higher reward. This is applicable to many fields, including, for example, blackberry picking. You want to pick ripe, plump berries that are oozing with juice, right? Reach slightly higher, scratch your arms and legs in an effort to go deeper into the thorny…
Honduras (Part 2): A Five Star Country
In the end, we barely cycled in Honduras, this time around, despite spending three weeks of our cycling trip there. The first hurdle was that I got dengue fever in Copan, soon after leaving Guatemala. The blood test was a bit of a scare, when my blood just wouldn’t come out, and eventually a thick black liquid was drawn. The other hurdles, a short volunteering stint and a scuba diving vacation, were planned by us, so I can’t exactly complain. We usually find it extremely tiring to spend a day exploring ruins, but the Maya ruins of Copan were on our route, so we made an exception. We arrived early,…
Guatemala: or Should I Say Guatemaya
It all started with a long and steep uphill, after an easy descent from El Salvador. I could hear Maya muttering under her breath: “I hate Guatemala”. After all, no other country we have visited on this trip dared to serve us roads with grades of up to 20%. We often found ourselves pushing our bikes uphill, and in some cases downhill. On one occasion I could smell our brake pads roasting, and got a small burn from passing my finger too close to the disc. Several times in Guatemala we exclaimed: “we’ve arrived to a different country”. After the intense uphills of the mountainous highlands, arriving to the flat…
Nicaragua: In the Land of Revolutions
Everything changed when we crossed the border from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. For one, Nicaraguans are adept at squeezing as many people into each vehicle, be it a bicycle, motorbike, car or truck. A bus drove past us, a group of people on the roof and a man hanging on to the back. A pickup truck was full of people, many of them with half their body outside the vehicle. I began noticing people carrying buckets and boxes carefully balanced on their heads, and everyone seemed to be carrying piles of wood, for their wood cooking stoves. The buses are old American school buses, many sporting Christian quotes on the…
Panama (Part 2): Backroads to the Mangoes
We left Ocu after resting there an extra day and befriending a group of seniors that took excellent care of us. We returned to the Pan American highway just 11km from where we had left it a week earlier, completing a loop in the Azuero Peninsula. This time the road had wide shoulders, clear of the common glass shards, not much traffic, and was a joy to ride. We passed through Santiago, the third largest city in Panama and took a quick look at the “parque” – the main plaza. We left the highway once again to cycle towards Sona, pronounced like the word for prostitute in Hebrew, which we…
