Joffre Lakes: Heading up to Tszil Mountain
Eight years ago, soon after arriving to Vancouver, our first winter trip was a snowshoeing trip to Joffre Lakes. At the time we didn’t know what we were getting into, and had barely seen snow. On that two day trip we only made it as far as the middle lake, and the trip ended with us wet and shivering on the way home, which is also when we discovered the heating in the car was not working. Since then we’ve become a bit better at doing winter trips, but I still find that alpine lakes are so much more beautiful in the summer, when their turquoise colour can be seen fully,…
Garibaldi Lake: A Long Time Coming
For eight years we had avoided Garibaldi Lake in summer. This beautiful turquoise jewel of a lake, high up in Garibaldi Park, draws hordes of visitors in summer months. In fact, it’s probably one of the most popular hikes in BC, and for good reason: it’s surrounded by high mountain peaks and glaciers, and has the most unbelievably beautiful blue colour. Especially prized by blue lovers such as myself. We had been to the shore of the lake in winter three times and crossed it twice, but in winter this huge beauty of a lake looks like any old flat snowfield. The mountains, of course, are beautiful in winter as…
Hawaii: Flowing with the Lava on the Big Island
It all started at a gas station. Not the ideal place to start a two week vacation in Hawaii, but this is how it went. We left Vancouver a few hours prior to our arrival in the dreamy gas station, exhausted, drained and just plain tired. Flying with bicycles is always a hassle, and after we checked-in the two huge boxes, we felt so much lighter. We had to think about all the advantages of traveling by bicycle, because at that point it just seemed like a pain in the ass, but as usual it was well worth it. The flight was half empty which gave us the opportunity to take over…
Abbotsford: Discovering the Discovery Trail
On Saturday we headed to Abbotsford. Even though it’s only one hour away we had never really been there, only passing through occasionally on the way to the border. We had planned a 57km loop around Abbotsford, incorporating the Matsqui trail along the Fraser River and the Discovery Trail through town. Already after a few kilometers of cycling we encountered a problem. The trail disappeared and instead there was a big pool of water. It turns out that with the warm temperatures we experienced recently, the snow is melting fast, and as a result many rivers are high. We managed to cross the problematic section without incident, but then arrived…
Wenatchee-Chelan Loop: The Columbia, Always a Stunner
Weather forecasts are extremely unreliable at this time of year. Nevertheless, after scrutinizing the charts for the whole region, we determined that eastern Washington would have the best weather, and the rest of the area would be cloudy and rainy. The problem was that it was the May Long Weekend, and long weekends are a terrible time to cross the border to the US. At least we knew what to expect, and brought along a zen attitude and a book. After a 2.5-3 hour wait in the car, with stressed out drivers aggressively trying to change lanes or push their way in after bypassing the line by going to the…
Oregon: The Cycling Revolution of the Scenic Bikeways
When we got back from cycling in Central America last year we had a pile of Adventure Cyclist Magazines to read. From all the articles I read in the next months, one in particular drew my attention. It was about cycling the Old West Scenic Bikeway near John Day, in Eastern Oregon. The first thing that caught my eye was the use of the word Bikeway. It means a route marked especially for cyclists, taking into account traffic, scenery, road conditions, interest, communities along the way and more. The other one was John Day. I actually know a person whose name is John Day, so I was excited to find that…
Phelix Hut: A White Easter
It was 8pm on Thursday evening, and we were still undecided on what we would be doing on the Easter Long weekend, Friday to Monday. I guess we are kind of last minute people. That’s actually one of the privileges of owning a car – we can decide where we want to go, when and with who. A long look at various weather forecasts concluded that sub-par weather was coming from all directions. Our friend Anne was also looking for something to do, for three days. Finally we decided that given the bad weather, a trip to a comfy hut was in order, enter Phelix. We picked up Anne at…
- Backcountry Skiing, British Columbia (and nearby), Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast, Trip Reports, Varsity Outdoor Club (VOC)
Tetrahedron: A Stagette Party in the Backcountry
On a sunny Saturday morning nine of us headed to Tetrahedron, on the Sunshine Coast to celebrate Pascale’s upcoming marriage, on a girls only trip, also known as a Stagette. I was excited by my late pick up time of 7:55am, especially due to the fact that Gili left our nice warm bed before dawn. Sometimes it’s nicer to be on a relaxing easy going trip than on a slog fest. Of course, I was also happy to go on a trip with a bunch of cheerful people and to explore a place I haven’t been to before. We met with the rest of the crew at Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal.…
Mt. Breakenridge: The Mountain at the End of the Lake
The seed for this trip was planted five years ago. Maya and I were cycling up the east side of Harrison Lake, a majestic turquoise jewel. It was a beautiful spring weekend, and we kept on admiring the snow capped mountains of the Chehalis Range, on the other side of the lake. But my eyes were drawn to another mountain, at the opposite end of the lake, easily visible despite being 60km away. Last weekend I finally made it back, to stand at the top of that pointy white giant, the same one which had appeared so far and out of reach. I woke up at the ungodly hour of…
Marriot Basin: Another Perfect “Weekend”
Last week we started our “weekend” on Monday which made perfect sense since the weekend was rainy and wet and then suddenly on Monday the sun showed up for a couple of days making it a wonderful opportunity for a trip to the mountains. For a while now we said that we’ll try to “cherry pick” the timing for our trips according to the weather and not according to the weekends. This is even better when going to places that are crowded during the conventional weekends, such as Elfin or Marriot Basin. So when Vancouver was getting ready to start the week we left early enough to avoid the traffic…
