Harrison River: Eagles, Seals, and Sturgeon!
When I bought our inflatable canoe a couple of years ago I had visions of us floating down a rushing river. In the meantime, most of our trips have been on lakes, theoretically more mellow, but in reality at least one was scary too. Finally, on this trip, we got a chance to experience some real “moving water”. The trip down the Harrison River is apparently a classic fall trip in the canoe community, due to the many eagles that can be seen at this time of year, and the fall colours – and it sure delivered! Mid October swim… We left home a bit late, and made a quick…
Olympic Discovery Trail: Ending the Summer on a Positive Note
This summer did not start in the best possible way… In early July while making dinner I managed to cut myself pretty badly, cutting 70% of the way through one of the tendons in my right hand. Of course, after the initial shock of first going to the ER followed by a small procedure a couple of days later, my next question was “can I ride my bike”? The intern who did the procedure looked at me like I had just landed from the moon – “of course not”. I kept asking my physiotherapist the same question and her answer was even worse, maybe in 8-10 weeks, like mid September. …
Marriott Basin: A Failing Memory is a Good Thing
My memory is not as good as it used to be. Probably that’s the way it is for most people. Thinking about Marriott Basin as a possible destination for this weekend, I had the fleeting thought – “weren’t we just there?!” Luckily we have the blog as an electronic replacement for my clearly failing long term memory. It turns out that we visited Marriott Basin three times, always in winter, with the last time being in 2014! So, clearly a re-visit was not a crazy idea. Not that there’s anything wrong with going back to places more frequently. The Wendy Thompson Hut & our tent The drive was long, as…
Chain Lakes Loop: The Perfect Trip
For years I’ve had this trail, the Chain Lakes Loop, at the back of my mind. It’s been there for so long that I don’t even remember how it got there. I’ve even recommended it to other people! This trail has so much going for it – easy access to the alpine, a well maintained trail, sweeping views of tall glaciated mountains, a bunch of lakes, great camping, it’s a loop hike, and in September – no bugs and lots of berries. In my head at least, I labelled it as the “Perfect Trip”. It doesn’t get much better than this! The only downside is that the above has been…
Monck Provincial Park: Last Minute Surprise
We were looking for a last minute camping destination. Popular wisdom here says that you must book everything months in advance. I hate it… How am I supposed to know what I’m going to want to do in a few months time?! In this case, my dad was visiting on a last minute trip, and we wanted to do a few nights of car camping within a few hours drive of Vancouver. BC Parks’ new website allows one to see vacancies in all the parks in the province easily. I checked it a few times for our dates, but there were no reservable sites available. There are actually many first…
Saturna Island: A Hilly Little Island
The weather over the spring wasn’t ideal to say the least… We got more rainy days than sun and it just felt like the seasons forgot to change. So we were all surprised that for the weekend we had planned to go to Saturna the forecast showed nothing but sun. That was more like it. Heading to Vancouver Island We met another friend and his two boys in Tsawwassen and we all rode together a few kilometers till the ferry terminal. Although we were there with plenty of time, the ferry crew decided to let us wait till they boarded all the cars and only then let us on. Not cool. In Victoria…
- Camping, Hiking & Scrambling, Kayaking and Canoeing, Metro Vancouver & North Shore, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids
Widgeon Creek: The Opening Trip of Canoe Season
It was canoe season once again. Last year we did our first ever overnight canoe trip to Widgeon Creek and decided it would be good as a first time this year as well. The evening before the trip we decided to check some information online and we discovered that the campground was actually marked as closed. Oops. We decided to still go and hope for the best. On the way – photo by Nick M. It was a cool June morning and we met up with friends in the parking lot. Like last year they still hadn’t installed a bathroom in the parking lot which I found very odd (and disgusting).…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Carfree, Cycling & Cycle Touring, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids, Vancouver Island
Vancouver to Chemainus: The Boy Who Biked 72km in a Day
Neil woke up, and exclaimed, “I want to ride the whole way to Chemainus”. We tried to convince him that maybe it would be best to catch the bus part of the way, as we had planned, but he would have none of that. Finally, we decided it would be easier to go along and see what happened. The problem was that we had timed everything based on Maya and the kids catching the bus, so we had to hurry. On the Burrard Bridge We skipped breakfast (?!) and headed straight out, with Kai biking on his own till the Burrard Bridge. There I finally managed to convince him to…
Porpoise Bay: A Rainy Weekend on the Sunshine Coast
At the beginning of June it was time for the annual camping trip to Porpoise Bay from Kai’s outdoor preschool. Although at first there was a lot of enthusiasm around this trip among the families, closer to the weekend many started to drop out. The reason of course – the rain! I am still not sure what’s the reason for the name “The Sunshine Coast” but on that weekend the name definitely didn’t make sense. Not so sunny on “The Sunshine Coast” We left on Friday afternoon after school, rushing to the ferry terminal. It was one of those rare times that there was a glitch with our Modo booking, and the car we reserved…
Whistler: Seventh Heaven Skiing
The last time we skied Whistler was probably around ten years ago. In those days we still didn’t have kids and going up there for the day was a realistic option. Also, the price, or the price that we managed to get, was much more reasonable than Whistler prices these days. With our two kids, heading to Whistler for less than three days seems unreasonable. So for many years we just blocked Whistler from our skiing vocabulary, although it is by far the closest, most accessible ski resort for us aside from the North Shore mountains. Up, Up, Up We enjoy taking our skiing vacations somewhat late in the season…
