- Hiking & Scrambling, Kayaking and Canoeing, Metro Vancouver & North Shore, Trip Reports, Trips with Kids
Widgeon Creek: Trying Something New
The first time I took out our new canoe, I flipped it. The two kids who were on it with me, Neil and a friend, were shrieking with excitement. Or was it the shock of the cold water? Either way, they just kept on shouting and laughing for at least a half hour afterwards. I admit to wondering previously – how would we get back into the canoe if we capsized? I might have even made a mental note to look this up and practice it. There was no time for that, I had to make some snap decisions – how to get the kids back into the canoe? After…
Spring Local Bike Rides at a Six Year Old’s Pace
Spring. The season of change, the season of bloom and for the past two years the season of COVID-19 restrictions. Yes, in spring 2021 COVID-19 was still a big part of our lives. The number of cases was rising daily, anxiety was in the air and a travel ban was in effect. We spent much of last spring doing local bike rides around Vancouver. This year Neil was able to do longer distances, often challenging himself to ride farther. So we rode our bikes – a few bike rides were old and familiar, things we’ve done frequently. Quite a few rides were new to us, and we discovered a whole…
Viewpoint Beach: The Same Trip Again?
After doing a trip to a certain place, how do you feel about doing that same trip again? On the one hand, there are so many other places to go, that it might seem like a waste to revisit a spot you’ve been to. On the other hand, as Heraclitus apparently once put it, so beautifully: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” So, it’s not really the same trip again, is it? and the debate goes on… We don’t usually plan much in advance, but nevertheless we had planned a camping trip to the Okanagan…
Alouette Lake: Missing Goat
When does summer officially start? Is it on June 21st? Or when school is out? Or is it on the first sunny weekend when you go on an overnight bike-camping trip? This year it seemed especially important to start summer early. In mid May when the forecast showed sun and high temperatures for an entire weekend we felt it was time. Neil asked to sleep in the tent and honestly he was right – it had been too long. There was a strict travel ban meaning that we would not be allowed to leave our health region, so we had to stay close by. We decided on a variation on our last trip of the previous summer (in early…
Red Heather: A Backcountry Skier is Born (Again)
As children growing up in Israel, we barely ever saw snow. Snow was this novel thing that you would see in movies or drive for hours to touch, briefly, and then forget about for another couple of years. No wonder then that when Maya and I arrived to Canada in 2006, we didn’t know how to ski. At all. We picked it up quickly though, and it was super exciting. After a couple of years we got into backcountry skiing and spent many weekends in the mountains, making memories. Nevertheless, my last backcountry ski trip was in 2015, a few weeks before our first son, Neil, was born… We do…
Hemlock: Binge Skiing and Toddler’s Fracture #2
On the sandwich week between spring break and Easter we headed to Hemlock for a week of skiing. We rented a small Airbnb apartment on the mountain and were quite excited as we hadn’t really left the city since October… We tried to escape before the Friday afternoon rush hour but of course we got stuck right in it. Then a diaper emergency required us to make a break in the middle of the trip. Although Hemlock is technically not that far from Vancouver the trip seemed to take forever. Finally we were on the infamous road leading up the mountain and soon enough we were in a different universe. High snow banks on the two…
Bike Parks in Vancouver and Nearby
Our kids love going to our local bike park (Vanier Park) so in the fall we decided to explore a a few more bike parks in metro Vancouver (and Squamish). Both kids love this activity and never seem to get enough of it. We love it too, it’s fun, free and gets the kids to be active and tired (which is our goal at the end of the day). There is also an element of risk taking and risk management that is so important for kids. If possible we also try to combine it with a longer bike ride, so that we get some exercise too. We have a (now)…
Hiking the Juan de Fuca Trail with Two Kids in Tow (Video)
Hiking the Juan de Fuca trail with our two kids was mostly type two fun. Meaning that hiking the trail didn’t really feel fun, or at least some sections of it. In fact at times it felt more like a survival trip, but in retrospect it was a lot of fun. It was a tough journey for us and the kids – especially for our five year old who hiked it all by himself, but we all came out of it stronger and proud of what we achieved. We all tend to appreciate or want certain things when we don’t have them any more, or can’t have them for a…
2020: Our Local Year
It’s strange to look back at 2020 and to realize that it actually started quite normal, or at least what normal used to be. For us the beginning of 2020 was all about getting back into our normal life in Vancouver after a long pause. Not only did we spend the last three months of 2019 bike touring in Japan and Taiwan, but Gili was on parental leave since the end of December of 2018… So January was all about settling into a new routine, Gili was back at work at an office downtown, Neil was back at his daycare, which he missed very much during our trip, and Kai…
Summer Fruit Cocktail Pie: A Love Affair
In our family we are not big on traditions, to say the least. Even on birthdays, we don’t usually do much, beyond a card and sometimes a practical gift. Us adults are usually happier to get rid of things than to accumulate new ones. Still, we do have a semi-tradition of making a special cake for each other’s birthdays. Birthdays in our family – it’s mostly about the baking For the past few years I’ve made Maya a Blueberry Ice Cream cake. It involved a chocolate base with a layer of homemade blueberry ice cream and then a layer of either blueberry sauce or blueberry sorbet, homemade as well, of…
