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…
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)…
A Mini-Guidebook to Cycle Touring with (Two) Young Kids
Four years ago I wrote a detailed mini-guidebook to cycle touring with a baby/toddler. Since then we have had a lot of changes in our family, and two major additions. The first addition was our second son Kai who was born in 2018. The second addition was our cargo bike, a bright yellow Bike Friday Haul-a-Day (AKA Big Bird), that joined our family shortly after. In addition, time goes by, and our older son Neil (now almost six) grew and started riding his own bike most of the time. Two important additions, a baby and a cargo bike! In 2019 we did two overseas bike tours in three different countries.…
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…
Discovery Islands: It’s a Wild World (Video)
This summer we’ve done a lot of local trips around our province of British Columbia, Canada. At the end of summer we set off on an eleven day biking trip. It was a loop starting in Comox on Vancouver Island, and on to Quadra and Cortes Islands (AKA the Discovery Islands) and down the Sunshine Coast from Lund to Powell River and back on the ferry to Comox. This trip was a natural continuation of a bike trip we did three years ago further south. If there is one thing this year has taught us, it is that it’s a crazy world. But it’s also wild and beautiful and there…
Alouette Lake: Finding Franklin
When is summer officially over? Is it at the end of August? Is it after Labour Day, when the kids go back to school? Is it on September 21st, when autumn officially begins? Or is it on the last weekend when you can still happily wear shorts, go on a weekend bike tour, and swim in a beautiful lake? This year it felt especially important to keep summer going as long as possible. So in early October we found ourselves packed up and ready to go on a very local overnight bike tour, but still in an area that was completely new to us. It was the suburbs of Vancouver…
Blanca Lake: Before the Smoke Rolled In
Blanca Lake has been at the back of my mind for some years now. A remote area “near Squamish”, accessible via a short hike, beautiful lakes, surrounded by glaciers, off the beaten track? Sign me up! There was just one thing I didn’t quite realize. Although the hike is short, the drive is long… We did leave the highway near Squamish, but that wasn’t even the halfway point due to all the logging roads involved. The drive took us almost three hours, and we didn’t even make it to the trailhead! The final stretch was steep and loose, and there were water bars which caused us to leave our car…
