Illalvely Weekend

We have had our glorious summer and are back to the RAIN! There are still several snow free weeks ahead of us though, with one or two more camping trips on the horizon.

This weekend was a long one in Canada, for Labour Day. We were planning two nights camping in an area which is a bit out of the way of Vancouver (so hopefully not too crowded). However, the weather on Saturday was horrendous, so we had a lie in instead and only ventured outside once to buy cake.

Sunday was slightly better and Monday was supposed to be good, so Ollie drove us 2 hours away to a random exit from the Coquihalla Highway (the “highway through hell” mentioned in previous posts), then 18km down a gravel road so we could hike up to Illal Meadows.

We had left pretty late, so didn’t have time for much exploring before bed, plus it was very foggy. We found an excellent sheltered spot to camp in, hung up our food in a tree and had fun playing cards before bedtime.

It was extremely windy overnight! The trees protected our tents perfectly, and we enjoyed the strangely soothing howling winds. Monday morning was still cloud covered, but they blew away as the day progressed. The whole area is covered in pink wild blueberry plants, so our usual porridge was extra special!

There are three mountains to climb in the area, one easy, one medium and one hard. We had waited for the clouds to clear and were feeling pretty relaxed (and lazy) so just climbed to the top of Illal Mountain (the easy one) before heading back down.

The drive home was a bit of a nightmare, with several accidents adding about an hour. Luckily we were able to stop at our favourite restaurant (it’s named after us) for a huge early dinner to keep us going through the traffic.

There will be at least one more week of mountain photos, as Ollie is packing for another camping trip as I type this. Looking at the weather forecast however, next week’s photos are likely to be mostly cloud, so here are a few more panoramas for good measure:

On top of the hiking, Ollie recently volunteered with the North Shore Mountain Biking Association. There was a severely eroded section of trail, so using materials found in the forest, Ollie and the other volunteers built a rock wall to support the addition of lots of fresh soil. He hopes to test it out in the coming months!