No, this isn’t a post about the one nut to rule them all. It’s about a mountain biking trail near Whistler that Ollie completed last weekend with Hannah and Thom. The route is just under 30km and includes around 1400m of climbing.
The start was particularly challenging, with lots of steep and tight switchbacks. This left us all wondering if we’d bitten off more than we could chew. However, we managed to keep slogging on and with the slope continuing to get slightly shallower with every pedal stroke we managed to make it to the top. We were rewarded for all our hard effort with a wonderful ride through the alpine with amazing views in all directions. Finally, we began the long descent down Lord of the Squirrels which took us back to civilisation and some well earnt beers.
The elevation profile
Thom has some drone footage, but it’s still in post production. Therefore, whilst looking for a short clip to show some more of the scenery and route, Ollie stumbled upon the following clip. He was proud of his achievement until he saw someone had done the route 7 times in a row!
He didn’t have to wear a backpack…
We mentioned last week that we were moving apartments, but we will save that for another post. Whilst Ollie was lording it over the squirrels, Rosie spent all of Sunday cleaning the old apartment before we gave the keys back (please note, before any anti Ollie sentiment, that he had spent a day driving multiple trips to move all of our stuff between apartments). This long weekend we are off to Wedgemount Lake for some camping and maybe, if the weather allows, scrambling.
So far, we have had very good luck with the weather for our pre-booked camping trips. Not so much last weekend. On Friday we snuck off early from work and headed up to Elfin Lakes campsite in Garibaldi Park, one of our favourite walks from last year. Rosie bought Garibaldi biscuits from the English section of the supermarket specially, then forgot to pack them.
We were supposed to be going with Thom and Hannah, but Thom got delayed at work and we heartlessly left without them. (We were trying to avoid walking in the dark, but we were actually much quicker up than predicted, so could definitely have waited…)
Here are a few comparison pictures of last year vs this year:
It was very foggy, damp and cold, but actually didn’t rain that much. There is a cooking shelter at the campsite, so once Thom and Hannah turned up we had a fun evening playing cards.
Rosie tried to take a picture of the process of rehydrating our tofu curry, but we ate it before we remembered to take the “rehydration complete” picture.
Dry, add water, eaten
The next morning, the weather had gotten slightly worse. Still not much rain, but it had rained overnight. We had booked the Saturday night at “Rampart Ponds”, a campsite about 9.5 km further into Garibaldi Park, and set off once we’d rung out the tents.
There is a small peak on the way called “Opal Cone” which sounded interesting, we decided it was still worth the short detour and climbed up to see the views… of the clouds. We did get a glimpse of a glacier at one point and got to do some fun faffing to extract all our bear attractants so we could stash our heavy backpacks at the bottom of the climb. After that, there was some snow to walk over and then another uphill before we reached the campsite.
Some interesting things:
Some alarming red algae on the snow
A marmot
The meeting of two streams (one glacier fed and one from snow melt)
Rampart Ponds campsite was still quite snowy, but we found two spots that had been previously cleared and managed to dry the tents out. The campsite was on a ridge and we could see Mamquam Lake 250 m below us. Here Rosie faced a dilemma: Rosie really wanted to jump in Mamquam Lake, but Rosie really didn’t want to walk back up 250m of elevation afterwards. The lake proved irresistible in the end and the swim was great, if a bit challenging as the water level was high and there was a lot of shallow water to wade through.
The clouds lifted that evening, but the bugs descended! Luckily we had fashionable mosquito nets to stop them landing on our faces. Thom and Hannah had them too, they just took them off for the photo so they could look less silly than us.
With good intentions, we woke up early to start the 20+ km walk back to the carpark. It was warm and our backpacks were only slightly lighter after consuming all of our supplies – there was some moaning and some very sore hips, but we all survived. Elfin Lakes was halfway and was surprisingly even colder to swim in than Mamquam Lake. They are smaller, but higher up and had actually only melted the week before.
We were back at the cars before 2pm and everything seemed peachy, until we started the drive back to Vancouver… There was a crash right near the end of our journey and the highway was at a standstill. We stopped on the way for fish and chips and to wait until things were moving again. By the time we got home it was 8pm and we were very sleepy!
The rest of the week has been pretty busy too – we have moved apartments! But we will save the update on that until next week. Now, goodnight zzz…
Last week forgot to mention that we saw bioluminescent algae again on kayak trip – Rosie went for a swim in it – very cool! Also forgot a picture of ginger and caramel birthay cake. Icing supposed to look like that.
Saturday went up big mountain – Mount Brunswick. 1500m of up – top a bit scary and narrow and exposed to big drop. Fun though and good views! Legs hurty.
Sunday: football = bad.
Monday: 2nd Covid vaccines = good. No bad side effects = also good.
Thankfully it has been a bit less hot, especially with the gentle sea breeze in the Desloation Sound marine park. We had perfect weather for our kayak trip last week. The sun was shining and the sea was like a mill pond.
We set off from Vancouver on Tuesday after work, collected some passengers and got a ferry across to the Sunshine Coast with the rest of the group. (The Sunshine Coast is an area of BC which is part of the mainland but only accessible by water). We camped there for the night, then set off for another ferry on Wednesday morning, reaching the kayak rental place at about 1pm.
We haven’t been kayak-camping before and it was quite a challenge fitting all of our stuff into the boat. There is plenty of space in the hollow insides, but you have to cram everything through the hatches and the boat gets pretty narrow at either end. There aren’t many fresh water sources, so we had to bring enough water for the whole trip in collapsible carriers. These were fun to fit in the kayak. (We brought 35 litres, which was more than we needed. We were left with about 10 litres at the end.) You also have to pack the kayaks whilst they are floating, to avoid scratching the bottom on the rocks and oysters.
As an aside – there were lots of oysters and they are sharp! Ollie cut his fingers by putting his hand on some, and another member of our group got a pretty big cut on her knee by swimming too close to an oyster infested rock.
Once everything was shoved in, we set off to the first campsite at Hare Point. It was an easy 2 hours of paddling and we had the place to ourselves! We arrived at 4pm, with time for an explore and our first re-hydrated dinner – the curry, which was excellent. (I forgot to take pictures of all of the food except the lentil slop.)
That evening we had a group meeting and decided to set off early the next morning to claim some camping spots on the Curme Islands, the most beautiful and popular campsites in the park. The next day was a public holiday so we correctly predicted that lots more people would turn up! We paddled for another two hours and claimed most of the South Curme Island to ourselves. We even saw a humpback whale from the Island just after we arrived. I didn’t get the camera out in time for that.
The original plan had been to move around most nights and stay in different places, but we were pretty pleased with our little island and ended up staying there for the rest of our trip. (It had nothing to do with the effort of unpacking and repacking the kayaks…) There were so many places to visit and explore on day trips that we didn’t feel the need to move on.
On Thursday we went to Black Lake, which was very warm and full of weird bugs. On Friday, we floated around watching seals for a few hours and then paddled around some smaller islands nearby. On Saturday we visited Refuge Cove where there is a small shop and services for mariners. On the way back from there, we stopped at an island with another rustic campsite on. In between we did lots of swimming and wildlife watching – highlights include many noisy oyster catchers, bald eagles, purple sea stars and what we later discovered were common nighthawks flying low at dusk.
We found a rope swing…
Over the 5 days, we paddled about 100 km, including 20 km to get back to the rental place on Sunday. By the end everything we had with us was very salty, our clothes had crystallised and were pretty solid. We didn’t really notice how smelly we were until we got back on the ferry with the civilized people on the way back.
We had a wonderful time, so it was difficult to go back to work on Monday. Plus all of our food is much harder to cook now that we’ve run out of dehydrated meals.
Wednesday was Rosie’s 30th birthday. Ollie made her watch the football and then sulked because she beat him at Scythe (her favourite board game in the UK which she now owns in Canada too!). There is more football on Sunday apparently, so we are planning to climb a mountain on Saturday to pre-burn some calories before the pub.
We are currently away on a 5 day kayak trip in Desolation Sound, we didn’t want to leave our followers with nothing to read – so here is a post we prepared earlier!
IT IS HOT.
Temperatures have exceeded 40°C this week in Vancouver. Rosie is not rated for such a harsh environment and has ceased to function. The weekend (particularly hot) was a struggle. We attempted to prepare and pack for our trip, but everything was taking much longer than usual as we kept having to take breaks to lie on the floor or stick our heads under the cold tap.
The heat didn’t help, but we were already tired after a busy week. As well as the sailing course and day jobs, we used any remaining time to play with our new toy – a food dehydrator! As we are planning a few overnight backpacking/camping trips this summer, we decided to branch out from our usual super-noodles for dinner. The dehydrator is basically a hair dryer in a box which causes the water in food to evaporate without being hot enough to cook it. You can dry ingredients or whole meals, the result is lighter and keeps much longer. The possibilities are endless, except for the fact that things which are high in fat don’t keep as long once dehydrated. Here is what we have created for our upcoming kayak trip:
Snacks:
Banana chips
Dried apple (with and without cinnamon/maple/mint coating)
Dried peaches
Breakfast
All of the above pre-mixed with porridge oats and various other ingredients
Lunch
Dehydrated houmous (just add water and perhaps some dried spring onion or basil). The fatty tahini is a bit of a problem, so we are storing this one in the freezer until we leave.
Dinner
Dehydrated mushroom risotto (no cheese or butter sadly)
Dehydrated chilli with quinoa
Dehydrated tomato and lentil sauce (lentil slop) with pasta
Just add water curry, made from dried veg, dried tofu, spices and shop-bought dried peanut butter and coconut milk (can’t make those in the dehydrator because of the fat content)
Desserts
Peach and raspberry crumble (AKA rehydrated fruit topped with granola)
Raspberry and coconut milk rice pudding
Angel food cake dessert (dehydrated fat free cake soaked in rehydrated raspberries and cocoa powder)
In theory, all we have to do is heat some water, give the contents of each bag a bit of a boil/soak and we should magically get a proper dinner! We’ve tested the rehydration on a small sample of the meals and it seemed to work fine. The houmous is inexplicably much saltier than before, but other than that you can’t tell what it has been through. You will have to tune in next week to find out if we end up foraging for seaweed instead.
Because of the exciting sailing course last week (the final day was great, slightly too windy but we were eventually allowed out and had a great time) we forgot that we had been back to Golden Ears Provincial Park to see some snow caves on Sunday. That was a sunny weekend too, naively we thought it was hot, but it was nothing compared to this! Anyway, we thought it would be busy, so set off early and were glad we did as the queue of cars to get into the park when we were leaving at lunch time was huge.
The walk up Evans Valley trail was fun and varied, with forest, open clearings and a big rocky area to climb up. Near the top of the valley, there are several streams and waterfalls which melt the snow from underneath, leaving behind the snow caves. It was very tempting to explore deeper, but not sensible as the snow was pretty thin in places. (After writing this I read that the big cave in our photos actually collapsed the following weekend, injuring some people) On the way back, we stopped to jump in a freezing cold pool of snow melt. We would love one of those right about now.
The weather is forecast to be a bit more reasonable for our kayak trip, around the high 20s rather than high 30s. We’ve got plenty of sun-cream, big sun hats and water containers to store 35 litres, with a chance to stop off at a lake to get some more fresh water. We look forward to sharing some pictures next week, if Rosie doesn’t drop her camera in the sea.
Ahoy! This week we have hoisted our main sails and launched into a week long beginners sailing course. Every evening after work we have set off windward across Vancouver to get to Jericho beach for our 6pm – 9pm lesson.
The first day started with some theory and lots of new vocabulary. The wind was pretty high, but once we’d learned the ropes on dry land, our instructors allowed us out on the water for our first attempts in “Escape” dinghies. The following day our instructors decided they liked the cut of our jibs and upgraded us to “Zest” dinghies, which have attractive lime green sails.
Escape and Zest Dinghies
The weather has been consistently hot this week, but not consistently windy. On Tuesday we followed our instructors quite a long way out into the Burrard Inlet, where the wind promptly vanished. Ollie immediately got cabin fever, but Rosie was happy singing sea shanties and looking for seals. Eventually our instructors towed us all back to port with their motor boats – how embarrassing.
Wednesday went without a hitch. We sailed at close-hauled, broad reach and beam reach, avoided irons and even had a bit of a run before the wind gave up again. Rosie did some ramming – partly because she was inexplicably going faster than everyone else, but mostly because she wants to be a pirate. At the end of the lesson we purposefully keeled over, to prove we could right our boats after a capsize and get back in – this was actually much easier than with the kayaks last week.
We were excited on the drive over on Thursday, the sun was shining and the wind was blowing! But apparently it was blowing far too much for beginners. We were left high and dry for the whole lesson, doing some more theory and listlessly sitting in the boats in the yard.
Today is Friday and we are writing this before our lesson. Currently the conditions look like this:
Our instructors said that 12 knots was the maximum we should be venturing out into by ourselves, because we are still very bad at sailing. This evening we will be supervised, so hopefully they will give us some leeway. We are looking forward to getting some final tacking/gybing practise in and passing our course with flying colours.
We’ve been doing the sailing course with Thom. On Monday, Hannah came to watch and caught our first attempts on camera – thanks Hannah! I think the near miss with the windsurfer looks worse than it was.
Our first attempts
The Sun will be far over the yardarm by the end of our last lesson – so we are planning to go for a beer at the beach bar after (if we can stay awake long enough!). Hopefully we won’t feel too groggy in the morning.
On Friday night we went to a bar on the waterfront in Vancouver for a couple of beers with Thom and Hannah… and we totally forgot about the blog! Oops! Hopefully you can still enjoy this on Sunday instead of the usual Saturday slot.
The weather was looking very rainy last weekend. Two months previously (as per the restraints of the booking system) we had booked a campsite at Chilliwack Lake. Feeling brave, we decided to go anyway. Joined by Thom and Hannah, we drove to the lake after work on Friday. It was a bit miserable that evening, but we had a tarp and a fire and our glasses were half full.
On Saturday morning, the weather forecast was shattered by sunshine and just a few clouds! This meant that there was no excuse for being lazy and we headed off from our campsite to “walk” up to Goat Ridge… Fools! This was no walk. Mostly vertical with several rope-assisted sections, it was a challenge which left our legs aching for days afterwards. The view of Chilliwack Lake and Lindeman Lake from the ridge was pretty nice though and there were plenty of rocky outcrops for impressive photos!
The way down was actually harder than the way up, but we all made it down with minimal injuries. Just sore hands from the ropes and a couple of scraped arms and shins. We rewarded ourselves with a beer and a leisurely paddle/swim in the lake. We did have to hide the beers as they were technically not allowed away from the campsite, there was a scary ranger watching us with binoculars from the shore.
Rosie sat on her sunglasses
We cooked potatoes, sausages, veg and camembert on the campfire for our dinner, inspired by the Spanish cooking from a couple of weeks ago. The next morning was a bit drizzly, but we didn’t mind. Thom’s impressive tarp set-up kept our breakfast dry and we braved a shorter walk to Lindeman Lake before heading home.
On Monday we met up with some new friends to get to know each other before we go on a 5 day kayak trip with them in a couple of weeks. (We were all invited on the trip by the aforementioned Spanish chefs). Then on Tuesday, we took a kayak capsize and re-entry course to prepare for the trip. We spent three hours tipping upside down in kayaks in the sea, releasing ourselves from the spray skirts and learning different techniques to get back in the boat on the water. It got pretty cold by the end, but it will be very valuable if we do get into any trouble later. Wednesday and Thursday were more quiet, and you already know what we did on Friday…
Next week, we have signed up for a dingy sailing course – every night (Monday to Friday) from 6pm to 9pm. Fearing falling asleep at the sail, we have decided to take it easy this weekend. We are cooking some batch meals to eat before sailing and may go for a walk on Sunday as it is sunny. Hope you all aren’t too soggy in the UK and happy fathers day to all of the fathers!
There is not much to report this week, so a lighter post than usual. We had a nice weekend and were able to visit a couple of friends places for lunch and dinner. What a novelty!
Rosie is back in the office two days a week now, so Ollie had to survive alone without supervision. This meant he was more than ready to be let out for a walk in the evenings. We even spotted a heron hunting for fish.
Rosie has just started a few months of no snacking or coffee, as well as limited beer. This is because she had Invisalign braces installed this week. Her teeth are a bit painful so far and she has a terrible urge to bite things, but it should get better…until she has to switch to the next aligner tray in 2 weeks.
This weekend we are camping at Chilliwack Lake, where we are planning to hike Elk Mountain, do some paddle boarding and cook some ‘gourmet’ food on the campfire, inspired by our previous camping trip. There is some contention about whether we get up early on Sunday morning and travel to a spot with signal to watch/listen to the 6am England game. Since James Ward-Prowse isn’t in the England squad, the discussion has swung in the direction of remaining asleep.
Last weekend we were invited on a spontaneous camping trip with a friend we made on the woodwork course back in February and a group of their other friends. They knew of a campsite along the Squamish river which isn’t always fully booked. It was very sunny on Saturday and we were raring to go! Unfortunately, several people in the group were Spanish, so we ended up setting off 2 hours later than planned. But even after the 1 hour 20 minute drive, we still had plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine.
The campsite was massive with lots of large spots in the forest. There was also a huge beach along the river. It was a party atmosphere, with people playing beer pong on the beach and multiple bluetooth speaker DJs. We were happy to be in a group of people again though, so embraced the noise and chaos! Rosie went for a dip in the river and floated about for a few minutes, mostly to show up the burley men who had been belly flopping in, screaming about the cold and running back to dry land. Ollie was even wimpier than them.
The beach on Sunday morning, not as Sunny as Saturday
The last couple of weeks have been Cottonwood seed dissemination season, meaning there has been lots of weird cotton-like tree seeds floating around. This picture is from an evening walk in a local nature reserve, but the campsite (and consequently all of our cloths and gear) was covered in the stuff!
A coating of Cottonwood seeds
We cooked some dinner on our gas stove while it was still light, then were entertained by the Spanish contingent cooking a full tapas menu of potatoes, roast veg, baked camembert and sausages on the campfire! Some of the potatoes did fall in and were a bit ashy, but it was very impressive even if they were still cooking at midnight. Incidentally, Rosie tried her “what cheese do you use to get a bear down from a tree?” joke on a Canadian, but he had never heard of camembert… Oh dear.
Our friend Tom (different Tom to Thom from Thom and Hannah) who is an Arborist had brought along his climbing gear and set up a rope on one of the Cottonwood trees. He started by firing a weight on a string up into the branches with a giant slingshot, this allowed him to haul a rope up. He climbed up that rope and then set a more secure anchor further up so that the rest of us could have a go! He used two devices: a hand ascender and a foot ascender. Both slide up the rope, but lock if you try to move them down. You climb up by moving the hand ascender up, hanging off it while you move the foot ascender up, and then standing up into the foot ascender. We both had a go at it… it was very hard work! Tom made it look easy, but Rosie was too sweaty to grip anymore by about 1/3 of the way up. Ollie got a bit further and even had a swing around.
Apart from the climbing, we had done far too much sitting around enjoying ourselves, so on the way back home we stopped off at Murrin park to walk up a hill.
View from Jurassic Ridge in Murrin Park
Other exciting news this week: COVID restrictions are easing here, with a plan for somewhat normal life in July, so the outdoor pool in our apartment building is finally open! We noticed that it was open on Tuesday and have been swimming every day since. Rosie even bought a swimming cap to stop her hair getting all chloriney. We have been fighting over one pair of goggles.
Can you spot Rosie?
The rain is moving in this weekend, so we haven’t planned any outdoor adventures. We are allowed to visit other people’s houses again and are looking forward to dinner round a friend’s place. Perhaps we’ll go swimming again too – rain doesn’t make a difference if you’re already wet!
Rosie had a checklist of dos and don’ts from the dentist after having her wisdom teeth out. Don’t: eat anything tasty or drink anything fun, rinse for 24 hours, poke your gums with your tongue, sneeze, etc. Do relax and take things easy. Ollie was torn between making sure she followed all the rules and wanting to go for a bike ride… So he hatched a genius plan and hired Rosie an e-bike at the weekend.
Rosie does not like cycling off-road, there are too many rocks and roots to bump into and it is much easier to fall off. She wanted to cycle along the “trail-way” to Seymour Lake, which is a drinking water reservoir holding up to 32 billion litres of water for people in Vancouver. There is a paved road all the way to the lake, which is only open to pedestrians and cyclists. Despite this, Ollie still tricked her into a detour onto a “gravel path” near the start, which turned out to have some suspiciously large lumps of gravel on it. After much complaining and getting off and walking, we took a shortcut back onto the road.
Road cycling isn’t very pleasant in Canada as there aren’t any quiet country lanes to take. You often see people riding along the highway as there are no other routes to take. The trail-way was therefore pretty busy with all types of cyclists, it was quite a strange experience!
Route from the bike rental place along the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve Trail-way
By the end of the day, Rosie was shocked to find that her bum hurt quite a lot (she used to be fine on her commute to work back in the UK). But it was nothing compared to Ollie’s legs after racing to keep up with her on the hills. At full power, the electric bike was actually quite scary, almost like you were on a motor bike. We are not sure if we’re totally sold on them though, as it was very heavy and hard to cycle once the battery was flat.
We’ve had some good COVID news earlier in the week. The BC government announced the roadmap back to normality, starting with being allowed to meet up in small groups inside again from now on. Rosie was able to have a beer with some friends on Wednesday, but they did make her climb 853m up a mountain to do so. What is wrong with these Vancouver people!? Sea level pubs are just as good!
Roaming Rollie 