Saxifrage Mtn: In the Footsteps of Rachael and Jonathan
I only met Rachael once before she disappeared. It was Canada Day 2010, and we were both on a large VOC trip to Skypilot. The weather was crappy, there were no views, but we still had a good time and some people got to the summit. I had a short chat with Rachael, she seemed nice. I remember she mentioned hiking naked with a few other girls in Garibaldi Park and coming upon a somewhat shocked hiker. Two months later, on the Labor Day Weekend, Rachael and her boyfriend Jonathan went missing. It is believed they were hiking in the Valentine Lake area. To the best of my knowledge, no…
Brazeau Loop and More: Two Weeks in the Rockies
After our cycling trip we decided to chase the sun, which led us east, where it looked sunny. Originally we had planned to spend two weeks in the very remote Spatsizi Plateau Provincial Park, but the weather was looking bad enough to warrant changing our plans. Ironically, we had been in a hurry on our cycling trip in order to leave enough time for Spatsizi, but in the end didn’t end up heading to Spatsizi at all… On our way east we stopped at Moricetown, a first nations community, to buy salmon. First we bought fresh pink salmon, which was caught to the order by a youngster wielding a long…
Prince Rupert to Skagway: Looking for Sunshine
Some people say it rains a lot in Vancouver. I suggest them to take a trip, or better yet, a cycling trip to Prince Rupert, the rainiest and cloudiest city in Canada. In an average year, they get only 100 days with some sun and the total precipitation is 2552mm. But this year wasn’t an average year. It was a cold and wet summer in this part of the world. Ignoring all those facts, or simply not knowing the exact details, this is where Gili and I chose to start our cycling trip through Northern BC, the Yukon and to Skagway Alaska. Like every great adventure it all started by…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Cycling & Cycle Touring, Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports
Salt Spring Island: Birthday Cycling Weekend
My birthday is in July and therefore associated in my mind with sun and warmth. It didn’t look like I was going to get any of those this year. The forecast called for rain and clouds, so our initial plan to do a hike somewhere fell through. For some reason we thought that cycling in the rain is not too bad compared with hiking in the rain, so we came up with the plan to cycle to Salt Spring Island. We cycled in the rain to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal, just like we did on the May long weekend when we cycled the Galloping Goose Trail. We caught the direct…
Kelly Lake: The Backroads of Lillooet
We left Vancouver early Friday morning and drove to Lillooet and beyond. The starting point of the trip was actually farther then we thought and was way past Lillooet. The original idea was to do a trip along the Fraser River which was quite involved with steep down and uphill sections. I wasn’t too excited about it and we came up with a plan B that worked out just fine. Anyway we discovered that the road down to the Fraser was closed for construction, so it’s not even sure that we could have done it. The road we drove on (the Clinton-Pavilion road) was washed out, luckily close to the…
- British Columbia (and nearby), Cycling & Cycle Touring, Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports
Gabriola Island: Discovering Another Gulf Island
On the last week of June we headed to Gabriola Island. We woke up on Saturday morning and what a surprise – rain! We started cycling from home and it was pouring all the way to Horseshoe Bay. Once there we caught the ferry to Nanaimo and then cycled to another ferry terminal where we caught a small ferry to Gabriola Island. There is something so calm in the Gulf Islands that even once off the ferry I felt so relaxed. There is a nice campground less than a kilometer from the ferry. It is just on the beach and it wasn’t crowded at all. We had lunch by the…
Washington Rails: Rails-to-Trails Over the Border
On the first weekend in June Gili and I headed to Washington State. We had just bought a new (used) car the previous week and it was time to start using it. It was also sunny and quite warm which is always an advantage. We headed to the border early Saturday morning and crossed with almost no waits. We drove to a town called Sedro-Woolley and started to ride from there along the Cascade Trail till another town by the name of Concrete. What we discovered is that this trail is very popular and gets a lot of use from the local community for cycling, hiking and mainly dog walking.…
Mt. Baker: Which is Harder, Climbing Mt. Baker in a Day, or Crossing the Border?
For a while I had been waiting for a midweek window of good weather to climb Mt. Baker. Finally the forecast was showing some sun, but finding partners was a scramble. I asked everyone I knew and posted online in several places. Luckily, Charlie Beard was in town, after his two-month volunteering trip to the Arctic was delayed by a week due to large amounts of snow. The only catch? We’d have to be back relatively early, since Charlie was catching a flight north the next day, early in the morning. We decided to drive to the trailhead the evening before, and get a good night’s sleep there, and then…
Galloping Goose Trail: How to Avoid Traffic and Ferry Waits on Long Weekends
For a few months now Gili and I don’t own a car. It doesn’t affect us at all during our midweek life as we don’t use a car in the city anyway, but when it comes to weekends it a bit more challenging. During the skiing season we managed fine either by catching a ride with other people or filling up a co-op car with merry VOC’ers. However, now that cycling season has started it is more of a problem to fill a car with bikes and people, and also as much as we love the VOC, it’s also nice to be just the two of us. As May long…
- Backcountry Skiing, British Columbia (and nearby), Sea to Sky, Trip Reports, Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC)
Brew Hut: or How My Finger Almost Fell Off
A few highlights from a trip to Brew Hut a few weekends ago: After a grey and drizzly morning, the weather cleared in the afternoon, just as we were breaking out into the alpine. There is so much snow, that the orange trail markers in the meadows are almost buried. A piece of our Brew Hut fell off a while ago. Roland located stronger replacement pieces of flashing in the scrap pile of a metal shop. I towed two of these pieces up, which will hopefully be installed by a work party in the next few weeks. Towing the flashing was easy on the logging road, although by the time…
